Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Microsoft Power BI vs ThoughtSpot 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.9
Organizations achieved substantial ROI with Microsoft Power BI, finding it cost-effective, user-friendly, and beneficial for small teams.
Sentiment score
7.2
ThoughtSpot enhances value with time savings, ease of use, and reduced costs, but user adoption affects ROI.
In a world surrounded by data, tools that allow navigation of large data volumes ensure decisions are data-driven.
Power BI is easy to deploy within an hour, providing robust security against data leaks.
Using ThoughtSpot has resulted in significant time savings and improved business sales by allowing us to identify sellers and buyers across regions, facilitating targeted marketing.
ThoughtSpot saves a significant amount of time compared to other tools and is very user-friendly.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.7
Microsoft Power BI customer service is generally responsive and effective, but many users rely on online resources for solutions.
Sentiment score
6.8
ThoughtSpot's customer support is praised for responsiveness but critiqued for depth, with mixed ratings on problem resolution.
The significant drawback I notice is that Microsoft's size makes it hard to get specific change requests addressed unless they involve a bug.
We have a partnership with Microsoft, involving multiple weekly calls with dedicated personnel to ensure our satisfaction.
The support is good because there is also a community available.
I stopped opening tickets due to insufficient and untimely responses.
ThoughtSpot provides a dedicated customer success person and the ability to submit tickets online, with a response time of no more than a day.
The knowledge base for ThoughtSpot is less robust compared to others.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.0
Microsoft Power BI scales well for diverse organizations, but large datasets and costs may affect performance and scalability potential.
Sentiment score
7.2
ThoughtSpot offers effective scalability and growth, but may require improvements in role management and advanced preparation tools.
You expect only a small percentage of users concurrently, but beyond a thousand concurrent users, it becomes difficult to manage.
With increasing AI capabilities, architectural developments within Microsoft, and tools like Fabric, I expect Power BI to scale accordingly.
As more data is processed, performance issues may arise.
Tableau, Power BI, or Looker have separate tools for preparation, customization, and storytelling.
The platform does not have technical problems with scaling data or connections.
As our data has grown, I have validated huge datasets and complex models without significant issues.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Microsoft Power BI is reliable, with occasional issues on large datasets, generally viewed positively compared to similar products.
Sentiment score
7.1
ThoughtSpot is stable and fast for large datasets but faces occasional downtime, feature gaps, and integration challenges.
In terms of stability, there's no data loss or leakage, and precautions are well-managed by Microsoft.
We typically do not have problems with end-user tools like Excel and Power BI.
It is very stable for small data, but with big data, there are performance challenges.
I use it primarily for large datasets, and it performs faster than regular data visualization tools such as Power BI, which has limits on dataset size.
The upgrades are smooth with no downtime, which is super important.
The responsiveness of accessing live data is exceptional and faster than most other BI tools.
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Power BI needs improved data integration, user-friendly features, enhanced visualizations, better mobile support, and clearer licensing options.
ThoughtSpot lacks visualization flexibility, geospatial options, customization, integration tools, and better organization, lagging behind Power BI and Tableau.
This makes Power BI difficult to manage as loading times can reach one or two minutes, which is problematic today.
Access was more logical in how it distinguished between data and its formatting.
Microsoft updates Power BI monthly based on user community feedback.
Currently, it is not as customizable as the options available on Power BI or Tableau.
Handling governance when there are many models and dashboards is complex.
Enhancing integration capabilities with other tools like DBT would also be beneficial as it would make our lives easier.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Power BI provides flexible pricing with a free desktop version and paid options ideal for various enterprise needs.
ThoughtSpot offers competitive, flexible pricing between Tableau and Power BI, with options suited to various organizational needs.
I found the setup cost to be expensive
Power BI isn't very cheap, however, it is economical compared to other solutions available.
The pricing for Microsoft Power BI is low, which is a good selling point.
HubSpot is expensive.
ThoughtSpot's pricing is reasonable and in line with other BI tools.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Power BI offers robust data visualization, integration, and insights, enhancing decision-making with intuitive interfaces and extensive connectivity.
ThoughtSpot's search-based functionality enables intuitive data exploration, empowering non-technical users to create reports and improve business efficiency.
In today's data-driven environment, these tools are of substantial value, particularly for large enterprises with numerous processes that require extensive data analysis.
Within the organization, Microsoft Power BI is used to create dashboards and gain insights into data, enhancing data-driven decision-making.
The solution makes it easy for me to develop reports and publish them.
Its compatibility with most databases, including the latest from FlexMovely and Redshift, allows users to create joins and worksheets easily.
This alerting feature is very beneficial for our company at the moment, and we use it extensively.
When I upload a data dump, AI analytics suggest possible data visualizations and insights, which I can pin to dashboards or live boards for modification.
 

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)
ThoughtSpot
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
18th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (14th), Embedded BI (8th)
 

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 ThoughtSpot is 1.4%, down from 1.7% 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.
Sushma Polavarapu - PeerSpot reviewer
Creates user-friendly analysis environments for large datasets
The tool is user-friendly for the end users. It is primarily a search-based tool. Users do not need a technical background to work directly on the dataset. Its compatibility with most databases, including the latest from FlexMovely and Redshift, allows users to create joins and worksheets easily. ThoughtSpot is fast, even with one to ten terabytes of data.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which BI (Business Intelligence) Tools solutions are best for your needs.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
23%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ThoughtSpot?
The pricing is on the higher end but reasonable for what ThoughtSpot offers.
What needs improvement with ThoughtSpot?
There are a few areas where ThoughtSpot could improve. A crucial feature we needed is missing, which involves restricting views of certain KPIs when users select conflicting parameters. We had to c...
What is your primary use case for ThoughtSpot?
Currently, our company is using ThoughtSpot ( /products/thoughtspot-reviews ) for marketing reporting. We build reports based on the tables in the cloud, utilizing the outlet views for ThoughtSpot ...
 

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
Primary Capital Mortgage, Sterling Backcheck, RichRelevance, Rambus, Batteries Plus Bulbs
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Power BI vs. ThoughtSpot and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.