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Microsoft Power BI vs RStudio Connect 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 Reporting
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
321
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (1st)
RStudio Connect
Ranking in Reporting
20th
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (21st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 25.8%, up from 25.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of RStudio Connect is 0.4%, down from 0.8% 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Facilitates seamless data aggregation with some outdated visual elements hindering user appeal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 Visualization could be improved as it appears outdated.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.
LM
Graphical learning experience needs improvement but handles large datasets effectively
RStudio Connect ( /products/rstudio-connect-reviews ) is very powerful statistically and can handle large datasets, even on a free version on a laptop. It offers excellent customer service and educational resources. KNIME ( /products/knime-reviews ) allows for visual data manipulation, with nodes representing operations, making it user-friendly and effective for statistical analysis and predictions. I appreciate its ability to integrate R or Python scripts, combining ease of use with powerful procedures.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"My favorite feature is the power query editor, where it can do the data transformations."
"Reporting is the best thing about Power BI. And it could help improve decision-making in many ways. Power BI is flexible and easier to use compared to tools."
"I like that I can use Power BI to upload data. That is very important for me. The visualization is also convenient and easy to use."
"It works well with SSAS, which we use to generate all different kinds of trending and analytics reports. Sometimes we use Power Query and DAX to build some aggregations on the Power BI side as well."
"The most valuable aspect of Microsoft Power BI in my field is the insights it provides from analyzing data. Sometimes, these insights go beyond what traditional analysis can reveal due to the large volume of data involved. In terms of improving our data analysis process, it starts with identifying data sources, followed by cleaning and filtering out irrelevant data. Then, we categorize and structure the data to achieve the best visualization and insights. Regarding Power BI's integration with other tools, although we haven't implemented it ourselves, it's known that Power BI can integrate with systems like SAP or ERP software, which could enhance our analytics capabilities if needed."
"Users already using Excel can generate new reports and dashboards within minutes."
"There is also a chart store where we can download charts, which is extremely useful."
"Technical support is quite good."
"RStudio Connect is very powerful statistically and can handle large datasets, even on a free version on a laptop."
 

Cons

"The reporting part of Microsoft BI is rather limited compared to other reporting tools."
"Anything they can do to improve enterprise collaboration is going to help people get set up and utilize the solution."
"Power BI's drillthrough feature could be improved. I didn't like drillthrough and those options much, but I did like it in MicroStrategy."
"It is not yet ready for enterprises. For a big enterprise data model, it is not so stable, and it also doesn't scale so well."
"I would like to see integration with Excel."
"One area for improvement in Microsoft Power BI is serviceability. Compared to one of its competitors: Tableau, there are a lot of things which you cannot do in this tool, that can be done in Tableau."
"I would like it to be a little bit more secure when I'm using the design feature on my desktop. For example, to have the ability to set up security passwords for opening the file. Currently, they don't have that. Tableau, for example, has a visual way of doing data processing steps, whereas the Power BI system still has some code, although it is very low code. It would be great to have the kind of view that Tableau has."
"here are still better UI designs they can go through. I'm assuming they are focusing more on capabilities rather than look-and-feel designs."
"I rate my experience with RStudio Connect as average because I am not yet comfortable enough to provide a definitive assessment."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the product price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"It is part of our Office 365 license."
"I believe that the price is reasonable, at least for an enterprise solution."
"It is free."
"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."
"If it has to be applied on the cloud, then it costs around $10 per month per user. For a pro license and for a premium license it's around $20 per month per user. If it has to be applied on-premises then, depending on the course of your server, you have to buy a software assurance version of the database."
"MS BI comes with all the tools and it is, to the best of my knowledge, the most affordable solution."
"This product offers good value for the money."
Information not available
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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
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Healthcare Company
8%
University
8%
 

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...
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 RStudio Connect?
Both KNIME and RStudio Connect are free to use on a laptop. However, if I want to use a big server version, it is subsidized.
What needs improvement with RStudio Connect?
It could work on visibility or improve that. In RStudio Connect ( /products/rstudio-connect-reviews ), the learning process is not as graphical as KNIME ( /products/knime-reviews ). Although I can ...
What is your primary use case for RStudio Connect?
I use the software primarily for statistics. I have used it on census data from the UK, which covers millions of individuals. Additionally, I have utilized it for surveys and educational purposes, ...
 

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
ENERGETIC INSURANCE, PRECISION ANALYTICS, REDFIN, TWO SIX CAPITALSTACK OVERFLOW, LIBERTY MUTUAL, EDUCATION SUPERHIGHWAY, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Power BI vs. RStudio Connect and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
863,564 professionals have used our research since 2012.