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Microsoft Power BI vs Omni comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
332
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (1st)
Omni
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
18th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
9.1
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 7.4%, down from 20.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Omni is 1.1%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Power BI7.4%
Omni1.1%
Other91.5%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Hemanthreddy Vakiti - PeerSpot reviewer
Data engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Interactive dashboards have transformed restaurant data into faster daily business decisions
Microsoft Power BI has many features and there is not a lot to improve. However, the licensing can be confusing. When deciding between Pro and Premium, I find it difficult to distinguish what features are offered by Pro and what features are offered by Premium, including the particular differences to choose between both licensing models. Additionally, some features such as DAX, which I mentioned previously, involve DAX calculations and complex data modeling, which are somewhat advanced and not easily understandable. Prior knowledge is required or you need to go through the documentation. If the documentation is made comprehensive so that anyone with no knowledge on DAX can easily use it by going through the documentation, it would be really helpful. Additionally, if the integration with non-Microsoft tools is improved and performance is optimized, then Microsoft Power BI can become a top-ranked visualization tool. The user experience with Microsoft Power BI is quite good. The intuitive user interface makes it easy for both technical and non-technical users to create reports. However, only the advanced features are somewhat complex, and if the documentation is improved, it can be easily accessible.
Dalvi Raghuram - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Technician at HCLSoftware
Unified metrics have reduced confusion and now empower teams to explore data and decide faster
Omni helped my team solve the multiple sources of truth problem by centralizing metric definitions in a governed semantic layer, so we stop debating KPIs and start aligning on the same numbers. It also bridges the gap between technical and non-technical users. Analysts can use SQL while business users can work with spreadsheet-like formulas, so more people can self-serve without constant data team support. As a result, we can answer questions faster, iterate on analysis in one place, and scale reporting more reliably across teams. Omni has positively impacted our organization because it helps us answer questions faster, iterate on analysis in one place, and scale reporting more reliably across teams. This tool has also been very beneficial because it simplifies tracking key metrics, improves visibility across different data sources, and makes it easier to identify trends and patterns without depending heavily on technical teams. It also saves time, supports better decision-making, and enables more efficient reporting through centralized dashboards and visual analytics. I can give you a specific example of how much time my team has saved since using Omni: it has greatly improved our decision-making from 40 to 68 percent. We have also been able to save time ranging from 60 to 70 percent.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We have found the product to be scalable."
"Automated reports can be generated using SQL Reporting and Analysis in XML and PDF formats which are easier to read and understand."
"Power BI is cheaper for smaller groups when comparing to competitors."
"It has greatly improved our reporting capabilities."
"The tool's most valuable features are slicer and Microsoft Copilot integration. It also allows users to see reports on mobile devices. The solution can also integrate with various data sources."
"There are some great automation elements in the product."
"It is good for us for onboarding the data; we can connect to multiple data sources, do transformations to make the data usable, and then model it within the transformation."
"It's a powerful platform."
"Omni is a powerful analytics tool that helps us make faster and better decisions."
 

Cons

"It should be more user-friendly. There are very small or tiny icons that you need to move very carefully. If you go a little bit up and down, some of the values change. Its user interface should be improved. It should be like Tableau. Its performance is also slow and should be improved. I definitely feel some sort of speed issues with Power BI. The integration of Excel with Power BI would also be good."
"The solution could improve the extraction and transformation of data."
"I would like them to provide a license that just allows us to see dashboards. What I don't like about this solution is that in order to just watch a dashboard, you need a license. Currently, you need to purchase a full license of Power BI Pro just to see something, which is not attractive. If you have a license, you can see a shared dashboard, but you can also build a dashboard or you can collaborate with other people. However, if you only want to see a dashboard, there is no license for that. I only want to see the dashboard, and I don't want to do anything more than watching the information on the dashboard. There is no license that allows you to see a shared dashboard. This is one of the areas of opportunity because I would like a lot of people to be able to see a shared dashboard, not to interact with it or to collaborate online with it. I would like to see more compatibility with non-Microsoft data sources. Given the fact that everything is related to Microsoft Azure and all services available on Microsoft Azure, I see that they're building more connections to Microsoft Azure services instead of other non-Microsoft services. I understand the strategy, but it would be good to have more compatibility with non-Microsoft data sources."
"The real-time data refresh capabilities is one of the things I had issues with"
"The solution could benefit by allowing deeper data analytics."
"You do need to do some hard coding for certain things in Microsoft BI."
"The main reason I would give it a seven instead of a higher or lower score is that it is free and has a maximum rating of seven."
"The way you navigate the product, compared to other products in this industry, that could be improved a bit."
"Some advanced features feel a bit hidden and the modeling IDE experience could use stronger IntelliSense plus better organization with deeper field nesting to make large webhooks easier to navigate."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"No comment on pricing."
"We view it as an expensive product."
"It is part of our Office 365 license."
"We are end-users, and we don't take care of the prices and accounting. We get a product and pay the fee to our internal service provider, but its price should be reasonable. Otherwise, they wouldn't have bought it."
"Power BI is cheaper for smaller groups when comparing to competitors. It requires a monthly per-user subscription."
"Microsoft BI for desktop is free to use, and you can download and use it."
"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."
"Downloading Power BI Desktop is free."
Information not available
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Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager - BI Head with 5,001-10,000 employees
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
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Construction Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business137
Midsize Enterprise59
Large Enterprise171
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...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Omni?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that Omni is very transparent in price and very cost-efficient.
What needs improvement with Omni?
A few things could be improved about Omni. Some advanced features feel a bit hidden and the modeling IDE experience could use stronger IntelliSense plus better organization with deeper field nestin...
What is your primary use case for Omni?
My main use case for Omni is that it makes it easy for both an analyst and business users to explore data and build dashboards quickly. It supports different workflows like SQL and spreadsheet-like...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

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

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Salesforce, SAP and others in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools. Updated: August 2026.
908,877 professionals have used our research since 2012.