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Microsoft Power BI vs Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Power BI
Ranking in Reporting
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
321
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (1st)
Microsoft SQL Server Report...
Ranking in Reporting
6th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 26.7%, up from 25.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is 3.4%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Reporting
 

Featured Reviews

James Balbach - PeerSpot reviewer
Robust system consistently elevates data visualization and seamlessly updates with user-driven advancements
Power BI is a general-use visualization system. I can express the performance of our network through high-level key performance indicators. It allows me to show detailed improvements in quality and safety and patient experience. I create improvement dashboards for task forces and work teams. I have built analytic dashboards that guide analytics, enabling research and dataset manipulation.
Gnanavel-Chakkarapani - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers useful templates but needs to improve the connectivity offered
In Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services, not much of the interface part is used. With Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services, its users face issues with the interface after they use Excel or create Microsoft SSIS Packages. The tool's interface is an area of concern requiring improvement. There needs to be an improvement in the product's connectivity so that the tool can connect easily with other third-party databases. In the dashboard, drag and drop functionality needs to improve, especially when compared to other tools like IBM Cognos Analytics and Qlik Sense. Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is useful only for standard reports. In IBM Cognos Analytics, query studio can be used by users to drag the data and simply download the reports, so the user doesn't need to have any technical knowledge like developers. Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is to be improved to offer features like query Studio, which is provided in IBM Cognos Analytics.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The drag and drop facility to easily change the data correctly is the most valuable feature. I am happy to see visualizations. It's easier to talk about and make people understand what is going on."
"It is low-cost and easy to deploy. It is fully-featured."
"The product is scalable."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the graphic representation."
"It seems stable. I haven't heard of any difficulties from my clients that utilize Power BI."
"The DAX coding language is good for creating formulae."
"I like all the tools in Microsoft BI because they all have different purposes. There are a lot of people using Microsoft BI, and everybody is using it. The users have adapted well to the technology."
"The solution is stable."
"The solution's features are all just wrapped up in one nice easy package. I don't need a lot of toolsets to get everything I need done."
"I'm very satisfied with the customer service. And usually, whenever we have any issue or details, we get to the person for the support. I'm really satisfied with the service. Within a few minutes or within a few hours, the support person will be available."
"We can create quality reports in real time."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The tool's valuable features are its drill-down feature, graphs, and charts."
"The stability of SSRS has been reliable, with minimal issues encountered during our usage."
"In Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services, the installation and configuration are easy."
"The solution is known for its robust security features."
 

Cons

"I would like to be able to use SQL properly within the reports and allow multiple people to work on the same report at the same time. If one person is working on it, then it causes issues for anyone else wanting to make reports."
"It should be more scalable for an enterprise-level implementation. When you deploy large data sets, the response has to be faster in Power BI. This is one thing that needs to be improved in it."
"Although there are many visualizations, most of them are paid separately because they have been developed by private developers. The visualizations that come off the shelf are quite few."
"We have used other solutions and the reporting functionality should be user-friendly and have a drag and drop feature should be available, but Microsoft BI doesn't have these features. When you are creating reports and you can't change as a user. Every time you need one developer or one technical person to make the changes."
"It was easy to implement Microsoft Power BI into our existing infrastructure, but integrating it with Oracle Cloud was very difficult. The integration with Oracle Cloud required us to build a sophisticated database replication process because the APIs for Oracle Cloud are very restricted in terms of volume, depth, and complexity of queries. However, the part of implementing Power BI into our infrastructure was very easy. It required almost no tech input because it was all part of Office 365. To overcome the integration issues, we developed an extract and update process, although it was quite complicated and involved a lot of IP. Power BI excels in integrations and its ability to handle various data sources. It would be beneficial if it could integrate more seamlessly with cloud interfaces like Oracle Cloud, although I understand the challenges with Oracle's policies on database access. Another area for improvement would be enhancing error messaging, especially when working with Dataverse and M Code for automation."
"The reporting part of Microsoft BI is rather limited compared to other reporting tools."
"Defining a relationship was very confusing. There were circular directions for which I had to do a lot of adjustments in the data. They can do something to make it easier."
"Real-time data integration is an area for improvement."
"I would like the solution to add the scheduling feature for reports."
"It is not easy to integrate the product with other tools in the market."
"Sometimes, we need to make sure that the configuration stays consistent across the reporting instances. They all connect to the same database. So, it shares that same backend, but the reporting services itself can also be configured. On the application level, for reporting level. And it is, based on my own experience, it is a manual effort to make sure that the reporting servers are configured the same across the environment."
"The setup is difficult because you have to install different servers."
"There are occasions during maintenance runs when the Check Point monitoring system reports a lot of blocked sessions."
"In this solution, the cost should be reduced for the enterprise edition."
"Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services needs to improve performance."
"They could improve the scalability and stability of SQL Server Reporting Services."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft BI is very cost-effective and this is why we use it."
"Power BI is cheaper for smaller groups when comparing to competitors. It requires a monthly per-user subscription."
"Its cost seems to be unreasonable if you have many users, but for a lesser number of users, it is reasonable. It is $10 per month. Clients easily accept this option, so they must think it is reasonable. It is quite cheap as compared to other tools, such as Tableau. One of the best things about this solution is that it has a trial version."
"Globally, we evaluated a number of products, including Salesforce's product, Microsoft won on the ground of simple functionally and cost."
"If you purchase a license for a server, for users, or the professional version, you might not have to. The free version I think it can satisfy many customers' needs."
"It is part of our Office 365 license."
"I'm unsure about the exact cost, but the Pro license comes out to around $10 per user. There are also additional costs for custom visuals that you can pay for."
"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."
"Value-wise, the solution's pricing is good for the price that we pay."
"The pricing is high."
"The price is pretty good."
"The solution is cheaper than its alternatives."
"The solution is free to use for developers."
"The product pricing is reasonable in terms of suitable features for business."
"The tool's licensing costs are expensive."
"The solution is expensive."
report
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Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 4, 2015
Comparison of SAP BO, Tableau, QlikView, Cognos, Microsoft, OBIEE and Pentaho
1. SAP BO/BI Enterprise scalability Security Ease of use Semantic layer 2. Tableau Visualization Data discovery Turnaround time 3. IBM Cognos Enterprise scalability Security In-memory feature 4. MS BI - Flexibility 5. Pentaho - Open source but still enterprise grade 6. QlikView Data…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
39%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Seeking lightweight open source BI software
There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I would recommend as follows: 1) If you have legacies of SAP, Oracle - look for SAP...
Is Power BI a complete platform or only a visualization tool?
Power BI is an advanced visualization tool oriented to big data with a very complete set of widgets to visualize information, control users accessing information, the configuration of governance po...
How does Oracle OBIEE compare with Microsoft BI?
Oracle OBIEE is great in allowing design and creativity per the individual needs of the organization. Dashboards are fully customizable and very user-friendly. This solution is very stable. Oracle ...
What do you like most about Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services?
I mainly use the solution for the ease of reporting and for executive dashboards.
What needs improvement with Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services?
They could improve the scalability and stability of SQL Server Reporting Services. I haven't used it recently, so I can't provide detailed suggestions on improvements.
 

Also Known As

SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI
SQL Server Reporting Services, Microsoft SSRS, SSRS, MS SQL Server Reporting Services
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Accenture Adidas Aetna AIG Airbus Alibaba Allstate Amazon American Express Aon AT&T Audi Bank of America BASF Bayer Berkshire Hathaway Boeing Coca-Cola Comcast Cisco Coca-Cola Dell Disney Emirates Equinix FedEx Ford GE Google H&M Home Depot Honda IBM Intel JPMorgan Chase Kellogg's Kroger L'Oréal McDonald's Merck MetLife Microsoft Nike Oracle P&G PepsiCo Procter & Gamble Prudential Financial SAP Siemens Snapchat Spotify Starbucks Target Toyota T-Mobile Unilever Visa Walmart WeWork World Bank Xerox
CMS Wire, The New York Times
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Power BI vs. Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,760 professionals have used our research since 2012.