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Microsoft Power BI vs Pyramid Analytics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 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 BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
321
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (1st)
Pyramid Analytics
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
16th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 21.4%, down from 22.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pyramid Analytics is 0.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

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.
Shyam Pendyala - PeerSpot reviewer
A comprehensive and user-friendly business intelligence for enhanced data insight
When developing multidimensional IMDS models in Pyramid Analytics, there is a need for better features to maintain and analyze data. The application currently lacks the ability to easily track the original physical table and field names, making it challenging to relate them to business names. It would be desirable to have the possibility to generate a data dictionary, detailing the original physical tables, renamed fields, and derived fields. Such features would simplify documentation, facilitate understanding of how calculations depend on physical fields and aid in explaining the development process to others. Having this lineage and easy-to-generate data dictionary would greatly enhance the usability of Pyramid Analytics for developers.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"There is a feature in Microsoft BI that allows JSON data to SQL on the dashboards effectively and quickly."
"The Microsoft Power BI app is very good. It's also very flexible."
"I've seen no issues with BI's stability."
"They should add mobile access."
"With the out-of-the-box Data Platform and Business Intelligence ecosystem, you get the entire platform with a single license."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The solution is not that difficult to install, although this will vary with the experience of the person responsible for its installation."
"I like Microsoft BI's drill-down feature and its overall ease of use."
"The features I find most valuable are 'Discover,' 'Formulate,' and 'Model.' I use them regularly to build logic and create reports for my job."
"The on-premise version has quite good scalability."
"Pyramid has a wide level of uses, as it's a complete ETL process and has a good level of connecting to a lot of data sources."
"It offers a wide range of analytics options including statistics and visualizations, as well as prediction capabilities, allowing users to make forecasts based on the latest data."
"The most valuable feature of Pyramid Analytics, outshining even top-tier platforms like Power BI, is its robust support for DAX queries."
"I think the most valuable Pyramid Analytics feature is the solution's ability to drill down and dice in the loop. I think it is better than InExcel or Power BI."
"It seems quite performant in analyzing multi-dimensional information sets and presenting them."
"It proved to be a very powerful and useful tool due to its breakdown capabilities, easy reporting features, flexibility in building custom calculations, and the ability to integrate them into reports."
 

Cons

"I'm not overly technical, and so I can't really speak to any shortcomings from a technical standpoint."
"I would like to see better, undisturbed stability without any interruptions."
"It is not the right tool to do deeper analysis or predictions. When you have some data and you want to do some deep analysis, there is no feature to help you with this."
"The integration with third-party products could be more stable."
"I think that there should be visuals for financial reporting videos. It should just be a plug and play because there is a lot of coding that goes into it with different clients."
"As Copilot and further integrations continue to develop, they will enhance Power BI's functionality."
"Maybe they can enhance the UI a bit. Right now, it's very basic, I would say, compared to the MicroStrategy or Qlik."
"The integration with other solutions could be improved for reporting aspects."
"There is room for improvement in terms of documentation and examples, especially for newcomers like me who are learning both business intelligence and Pyramid."
"I think the graphic number of charts and components could be higher, at least comparable to Brain Power BI."
"It would be desirable to have the possibility to generate a data dictionary, detailing the original physical tables, renamed fields, and derived fields."
"I find that this is quite a heavy, time-consuming tool for developers."
"There is room for improvement in terms of the user interface, particularly when it comes to modifying connections between filters and visual components in a dashboard."
"The general amount of negative comments that I am hearing from my team makes me very wary."
"Even though the solution has a functionality for every step, it's not so well- defined. That needs to be improved."
"Pyramid Analytics could improve by speeding up data refresh, especially for large datasets."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft BI for desktop is free to use, and you can download and use it."
"There are a few options available for purchasing a license. Typically the number of users you have will determine the price of the license. The more users you have the more you will pay."
"The solution's pricing is medium."
"Microsoft BI is not expensive. Compared to the price of other BI products, the price is very fair."
"Setup is easy, and the cost is economical. You do sometimes need to pay additional costs for third party products which "plug-in" to Microsoft BI."
"Power BI is subscription-based, and you have three options. The Pro edition, which is the standard one, is about $9 per user. The Premium edition, which provides AI and cloud capabilities but at a limited size, is for small to medium enterprises. It is about $20 per user. For large enterprises, such as manufacturing facilities, there is an option for the capacity. The capacity subscription is about $4,000 per capacity level. They also have an option for the on-premises version, but it is not common to see someone going for the on-premises version. The on-premises version requires a specific license that is attached to SQL Server. I believe it is about $17,000, but I'm not sure about it."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."
"The licensing cost is not excessively expensive, but it does increase with the addition of new features and modules."
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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
40%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
11%
Insurance 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 Pyramid Analytics?
The most valuable feature of Pyramid Analytics, outshining even top-tier platforms like Power BI, is its robust support for DAX queries.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pyramid Analytics?
I find the price of Pyramid Analytics to be quite reasonable, especially when compared to other tools in the industry. It is a cost-effective choice, particularly for mid-sized or larger companies ...
What needs improvement with Pyramid Analytics?
Pyramid Analytics could improve by speeding up data refresh, especially for large datasets. While it is currently an in-memory tool, efforts are underway to enhance direct connections to source sys...
 

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
US Department of Veterans Affair, Volkswagen, Siemens, Blackboard, Hallmark, Orange, CDW, LA Fitness, Atelier GS, Memorial Healthcare, Acadia Insurance, BancoBic, Advanced Learning, Microsoft, Drake University
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Power BI vs. Pyramid Analytics and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.