Microsoft Power BI vs QBO comparison

Microsoft and Unscrambl, Inc are both solutions in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category. Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.0, while Unscrambl, Inc is ranked #61. Microsoft holds a 14.1% mindshare in BIT, compared to Unscrambl, Inc’s 0.4% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of Unscrambl, Inc users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Power BI

Read 326 Microsoft Power BI reviews

22,361 Views
13,864 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

QBO

Read 6 QBO reviews

260 Views
260 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Microsoft Power BI

QBO

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Microsoft Power BI and QBO are key competitors in the business software space, focusing on different functional areas. Power BI appears to have the upper hand in data visualization and integration, whereas QBO is more advantageous for financial management.

Features: Power BI excels in integration capabilities, customization, and data visualization tools, allowing users to conduct seamless data analysis and reporting. QBO is noted for its order processing, efficient sales capabilities, and user-friendliness in handling financial tasks, offering robust integration with various accounting processes.

Room for Improvement: Power BI could improve its performance with large datasets, enhance user-friendliness for non-technical users, and better integrate with AI and enterprise applications. QBO users desire improved inventory management, more customization in its interface, and enhanced integration features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Power BI provides versatile deployment options including hybrid solutions, but customer service experiences vary, with reports of occasional delays. QBO offers straightforward cloud-based deployment and is criticized for customer support costs. Both excel in cloud deployment, although Power BI offers more deployment flexibility.

Pricing and ROI: Power BI is seen as cost-effective for many businesses, although scalability can become costly for larger enterprises. It offers strong ROI due to increased efficiencies. QBO's pricing is perceived as higher with features like payroll, yet its value in financial management is well-regarded. Both demonstrate valuable returns on investment, with Power BI shining in cost-effectiveness and QBO in comprehensive financial functionalities.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Power BI vs. QBO Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI vs. QBO

September 2025

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Helped 869,566 peers since 2012

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

7.2

Number of Reviews

326

Ranking in other categories

Reporting (1st)

QBO

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

61st

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 14.1%, down from 21.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of QBO is 0.4%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Power BI	14.1%
QBO	0.4%
Other	85.5%

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Featured Reviews

Shoury Priyanshu

Senior Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd

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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Mimi Evans

Owner/Operator at Fearless Bookkeeping Services LLC

Offer great partnership models and relatively simple to use

My only issue with QuickBooks Online is their inventory capabilities. My understanding is that they're rolling out improvements in 2023, but anytime a person asks me about using QuickBooks Online and inventory, then I always recommend the desktop version because otherwise the functionality isn't great. They're trying to become the all-in source that we use for everything. However, the product lakcs a client portal, a feature that would make a huge difference. I'm an accountant and if I can't use it well, I can't train my customers to use it well. There are so many professional service companies that would love to be able to offer a client portal of some sort but they're so industry-specific or they're outrageously expensive because they're meant for enterprise level. I don't like the UI or the functionality of their cash flow planner. I would rather pay for another software than use theirs.

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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

"One of the most valuable features of Power BI is the ease of use. It is comfortable and there is not a steep learning curve for this solution. If you have some idea of the data and basic visualization ideas, you can use this solution comfortably."

"I like data modeling. You can connect with your database, which is quite useful for me. It is a good tool if you have a large amount of data and you want to gather different data and interconnect it. The Power Query functionality is quite an interesting feature. If you have a query in Excel, you can also copy your query and run it in Power BI. Its dashboard is also very nice and not complicated. You don't need to be a developer to be able to use it. I am not an IT guy, and it is quite easy to use for somebody who is not an IT person."

"Constant collaboration is the most valuable. I can build a dashboard, and several co-workers can access this dashboard. We can share information that is important for decision-making. It is a very easy-to-deploy solution. It is compatible with a lot of data sources. It is also very stable and scalable. There is also a very good forum and a lot of help and online training."

"The most effective feature of Microsoft Power BI for data analysis is the ability to use Power Query directly from Excel. Power BI's integration capabilities impacted our data management by allowing us to push all reporting down to the end user, giving them the capability to perform "what if" scenarios and discover and validate their own data without needing to refer to IT. Additionally, it provided insights that we couldn't get from Oracle Cloud. We wrote an extract routine to transfer our Oracle Cloud database to Power BI, which was a game changer in terms of giving people confidence in the finances."

"Its seamless integration with Microsoft products, such as Microsoft SQL Server or Microsoft Excel, is the most valuable."

"The good part of it is that you can do whatever you want with it when it comes to building BI. In terms of languages, it supports Python, and it also natively supports R."

"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Power BI is the user experience."

"It provides good visibility."

More Microsoft Power BI pros

"The most valuable feature of QBO is that it can be reconnected at any time and anywhere. It is not like other software where you have to back up and restore the data."

"The most valuable feature is the collaboration around allowing many people to ask questions and see the dashboards together."

"The scheduling feature for salaries and taxes is one of the best features of QBO. It's also very user-friendly."

"The most valuable features of QBO are its order processing and sales capabilities, as well as its invoice and batch processing capabilities. It allows for multiple batch processing and integration with other platforms, such as SAP V1, Oracle, and Dynamics BC. This makes the solution versatile and effective for customers, and they are satisfied with its integration with different platforms. The integration of this solution is not fixed, it can be based on the user's requirements."

"QBO has a very good reconciliation tool."

"It's intuitive, electronic, and, as in the old days, eliminates the need for pen and paper. It is the only option. It's the best software."

Cons

"It is definitely a wonderful analytics tool. However, database ETL, data integration functionality would be absolutely perfect in many cases. Currently, it doesn't get the job done and we need to extract, transform, and load the data from faulty data sets into something more suitable for the deployment of the analytics tool."

"Areas of Power BI that could be improved are the learning curve for developers who come from non-technical backgrounds."

"Areas for improvement would be the construction of reports and the dashboard budget."

"One thing I would like to have is the scripting language, as they already have within Excel. It's already within a Microsoft business product, because Excel is the number one business product out there. So it would be nice to have the scripting capability in order to automate certain processes."

"The solution could use a faster speed on certain interactions and a refresh of the dashboards."

"I think that they can add more types of charts because the selection on the desktop version is limited."

"The cost of the solution can get high."

"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."

More Microsoft Power BI cons

"The dashboards can be improved by making them customizable in a more granular manner."

"Compared to offline accounting software with many shortcuts and allows you to operate the software using the keyboard, QBO doesn't have the keyboard feature."

"The Linux Operating System feature is not available. When we access it from the accounting features, it does not transit to installation."

"The internet version is less user-friendly than the desktop version. The desktop version is their flagship, whereas the online version is considerably different, requiring all new learning and having several glitches."

"Inventory capabilities are lacking in the cloud version."

"QBO could be improved by adding more flexibility in its invoice and sales order processing capabilities. Customers have requested the ability to integrate with different retail services and the ability to easily integrate with different payment gateways, such as PayPal, by providing API and credentials, with the system automatically processing the integration."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is based on the usage. If you're using it, you pay for it, and if you're not using it, you stop paying for it."

"From a cost point of view, it's competitive in the enterprise space, although it's not as competitive when you add up all of the additional costs. Things like integrations cost extra and it's probably where Microsoft makes more of the money."

"I rate the product pricing a ten."

"Licensing is on a monthly basis, but I am not sure."

"It's straightforward licensing."

"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."

"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."

"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with one being cheap and ten being expensive."

More Microsoft Power BI pricing and cost advice

"I give the pricing a nine out of ten."

"In my opinion, QBO is a bit on the pricey side, but you have no choice. It is still better, in the long run, to go with their pricing or their software than the alternatives."

"The solution is expensive."

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Comparison Review

it_user79932

Senior Manager - BI Head at NVidia

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

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

Government

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	134
Midsize Enterprise	57
Large Enterprise	165

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...

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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...

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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 Enterprise vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 12% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 11% of the time

Databricks vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 7% of the time

Domo vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 5% of the time

KNIME Business Hub vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 4% of the time

More Microsoft Power BI Competitors

No data available

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI

September 2025

Download Microsoft Power BI product report

Buyer's Guide

QBO

September 2025

Download QBO 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

QBO combines the power of natural language and spontaneous collaboration to deliver on-demand insights to the decision-makers. Winning features of QBO: 1. Easily connect to multiple internal and external datasets 2. Slice-and-diced data in infinite ways using natural language (English) and interactive visualizations 3. Responds easily to descriptive, diagnostic, predictive and prescriptive questions 4. Native integration with Microsoft Teams 5. Save and share your findings easily on interactive boards URL of the product : https://www.unscrambl.com/qbo-insights/ Powered by Unscrambl, we believe that our increasingly complex world of data can be simplified and transformed into actionable insights, saving valuable time and resources for every business. Unscrambl develops next-generation conversational analytics software that gives business users the power to access and consume data instantly and collaboratively. Unscrambl is headquartered in the United States and has offices in Singapore, Turkey, India, and the Philippines. For more information, please visit www.unscrambl.com

Unscrambl, Inc

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

SATS, Celcom, EastWest, DBS, Metrobank, XL-Axiata, Etisalat, UnionBank of the Philippines

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI vs. QBO

September 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Power BI vs. QBO

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