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Microsoft Power BI vs XLCubed comparison

Microsoft and Fluence Technologies are both solutions in the Reporting category. Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 7.8, while Fluence Technologies is ranked #32. Microsoft holds a 26.4% mindshare in RT, compared to Fluence Technologies’s 0.4% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 50% of Fluence Technologies users who would recommend it.
Microsoft Power BI
Read 321 Microsoft Power BI reviews
  • 12,177 Views
  • 2,330 Comparison Views
93% willing to recommend
XLCubed
Read 2 XLCubed reviews
  • 171 Views
  • 15 Comparison Views
50% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

Microsoft Power BI and XLCubed are products in the business intelligence space. Microsoft Power BI seems to have the upper hand with a comprehensive range of tools and integrations fitting various business needs.

Features: Microsoft Power BI includes extensive data visualization tools, seamless integration with Microsoft products, and scalable cloud services. XLCubed offers powerful Excel-based analytics, rich customization options, and the ability to handle complex datasets efficiently.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Power BI has a straightforward deployment process with strong integration capabilities, supported by extensive documentation and community resources. XLCubed offers a tailored deployment experience beneficial for businesses needing in-depth analysis and customization, with personalized customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Power BI generally has a lower initial setup cost with flexible pricing plans catering to different business scales, contributing to a higher perceived ROI due to its broad capabilities. XLCubed, although more expensive upfront, provides high ROI for organizations focused on complex data analytics solutions.

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To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Power BI vs. XLCubed Report (Updated: June 2025).
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Power BI vs. XLCubed
June 2025
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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)
XLCubed
Ranking in Reporting
32nd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 26.4%, up from 25.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of XLCubed is 0.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Reporting
 

Featured Reviews

Shoury Priyanshu - PeerSpot reviewer
Facilitates seamless data aggregation with some outdated visual elements hindering user appeal
Real-time data integration is an area for improvement. Although I've worked on several solutions involving real-time integration, it's not very user-friendly and often lags, especially with over a million data rows. This makes Power BI difficult to manage as loading times can reach one or two minutes, which is problematic today. There are challenges with scalability, requiring multiple pages in dashboards to manage these issues. Visualization could be improved as it appears outdated. Users, especially newcomers, find it unappealing and not user-friendly.
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it_user1391316 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cost effective with great capability, performance, flexibility and visuals
In general, we're happy with the solution but we're always looking to see what else is out there. The thing we've struggled with is our partnership with Tagetik UK, the consultants, and the issue we had gaining access to consultants to develop the solution on our behalf. Thankfully we connected directly with XLCubed and now have a pretty close and good relationship with them so the earlier problem we had of actually getting resources to help us develop has now been solved. One of the things that we've been asking for and would like as an additional feature is a sort of benchmarking functionality. The ability to be able to benchmark, directly against the company digital corporate numbers. That said, there seems to be improved functionality within the latest release that could help us develop that further.
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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This is a self-service BI tool, so it doesn't require a huge amount of technical training, knowledge, or a background in BI in order to induct new people into it."
"The virtualization of Microsoft BI is very good."
"The best features of Microsoft Power BI include its integration with other Microsoft products and its ability to connect applications within the Microsoft ecosystem."
"The solution is quite scalable."
"Power BI is a complete ecosystem. It has an integrated ETL tool and good connectivity with applications such as Office 365 and SQL. There are also solutions for RPA, such as Microsoft Power Automate and Microsoft Power Apps. Power BI now has integration with Power Query, which has an AI feature for text analytics. Text analytics is a very good feature. This feature is also there in Tableau, but I like it in Power BI because you can write something like, "What is the total sale in the Eastern region?", and it will give you the answer. For example, when you have different types of user opinions, you just run one algorithm and you will have the output that provides the number of positive and negative responses. You can even have a dashboard with positive remarks. This feature has been introduced recently. Power BI supports the DAX and Power Query M languages. These languages are making Power BI very strong in data analytics, and you can do many types of analysis."
"The user interface is easy to work with."
"Its connection to every database: Whatever and wherever it is."
"With the out-of-the-box Data Platform and Business Intelligence ecosystem, you get the entire platform with a single license."
More Microsoft Power BI pros
"Great capability, performance, flexibility, visuals, and the solution is also very cost effective."
"I am looking forward to testing their full graphics that are available, as they looked very interesting in the demo."
 

Cons

"here are some limitations with the data models needed to build the report."
"Anything they can do to improve enterprise collaboration is going to help people get set up and utilize the solution."
"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."
"Real-time refreshing for SAP BW would be nice. We know its on the radar for the development team at MS. ​"
"The graphic interface could be better."
"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."
"Areas for improvement would be the construction of reports and the dashboard budget."
"I think because I'm moving more into RPA, I'd definitely like to see integration across the RPA, Power BI, or Tableau platforms, because that integration could then make automation and mundane reporting much faster."
More Microsoft Power BI cons
"Would like the ability to be able to benchmark."
"There should be a better or an easier way to establish that connection to external sources."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is a big advantage that Power BI has over Tableau. Power BI is three or four times cheaper than Tableau. For my personal use, I will definitely prefer a $20 monthly fee of Power BI rather than a $70 monthly fee of Tableau. If you pay altogether for Power BI, they give you a discount, whereas, with Tableau, there is no discount. There are three versions of Power BI: Free, Pro, and Premium. The Premium version comes with a lot of things. There is no extra or hidden fee. You pay every month, and the software is with you. If you upgrade, there will be some extra charges."
"You don't need a license for development, but if you want to publish to external users, you need a license. The licensing is very costly, but I think that since the advantages and benefits of Power BI are so high, people are willing to pay. I can't blame them."
"While Power BI is generally a paid product, particularly for enterprise features and scalability, you can start with the free version and still achieve significant functionality."
"Once the trial period for the BI service is over, the cost is approximately $10 USD per user, per month, so it's quite reasonable."
"Price is the best feature of Power BI! You get a lot of value for the price. If you know how to use it, it's a great BI solution for your money."
"It's straightforward licensing."
"Microsoft BI is considered to be competitively priced when compared to other similar solutions in the market."
"Its price is very low. It is like $10 per user, per month. The clients pay for their own licenses. It is not on us. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees. That's the beauty. With other systems, you need to spend a couple of thousand dollars just to get started, and then you need to spend $500 per year for the license, which becomes much more costly. You have a system here where for $120 to $140 a year, you can start with two people and start developing and deploying. You can see why the cost difference is huge, especially when you are on a low scale, like us, and you're not building something very huge."
More Microsoft Power BI pricing and cost advice
"I am still using the two-week trial, but at first sight, the price is reasonable."
"14,000 Pounds per year for licensing."
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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…
Read full review
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
22%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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...
See all answers
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...
See all answers
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 ...
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Comparisons

Tableau vs Microsoft Power BI Logo
Tableau vs Microsoft Power BI
Compared 13% of the time
Domo vs Microsoft Power BI Logo
Domo vs Microsoft Power BI
Compared 8% of the time
Databricks vs Microsoft Power BI Logo
Databricks vs Microsoft Power BI
Compared 8% of the time
Amazon QuickSight vs Microsoft Power BI Logo
Amazon QuickSight vs Microsoft Power BI
Compared 7% of the time
KNIME vs Microsoft Power BI Logo
KNIME vs Microsoft Power BI
Compared 5% of the time
More Microsoft Power BI Competitors
No data available
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Power BI
June 2025
Microsoft Power BI reportDownload Microsoft Power BI product report
Buyer's Guide
Reporting
June 2025
XLCubed reportDownload XLCubed product report
 

Also Known As

SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI
No data available
 

Overview

Microsoft Power BI is a powerful tool for data analysis and visualization. This tool stands out for its ability to merge and analyze data from various sources. Widely adopted across different industries and departments, Power BI is instrumental in creating visually appealing dashboards and generating insightful business intelligence reports. Its intuitive interface, robust visualization capabilities, and seamless integration with other Microsoft applications empower users to easily create interactive reports and gain valuable insights.

Microsoft

Produce insightful, interactive reports on, company-wide metrics for any business audience. Now all in Excel.
Pixel-perfect financial reporting with the skill sets you already have. No IT required.
Meet XLCubed: The data-connected Excel add-in for all your reporting needs.

Fluence Technologies
 

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
Marshalls Ltd, BP Exploration and Production, Thorntons, Ted Baker, Bristol-Myers, Rank Group, ING Bank Genve, Cargill Value Investment, Chloride Power, Auchan, Erste, UEFA, Novartis, Porsche Informatik, Raiffeisen Bank International
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Power BI vs. XLCubed
June 2025
Free Report: Microsoft Power BI vs. XLCubed
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Power BI vs. XLCubed and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
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