Power BI Alternatives

Businesses today have access to more data than ever before. 

In fact, more than 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created in a single day. 

But having all of your business data doesn’t make it useful. Sure, there are nuggets of usefulness buried somewhere in there, but you’re going to have to organize it and sift through irrelevant information if you want to take decisive action that will help your company scale up. 

The best way to make sense of your business data is through the use of a Business Intelligence tool. One of the most popular tools in the world is Microsoft’s Power BI, but are there alternatives to this product? 

Absolutely. 

Unfortunately, it’s often difficult to get objective information about Microsoft Power BI alternatives because every product is going to tout itself as the best. 

That’s why we created this resource guide — to give you the information you need about alternatives to Microsoft Power BI so that you can make an informed purchase decision. 

Microsoft Power BI Alternatives:

• Looker
• Tableau
• Domo
• ThoughtSpot

Introduction to Microsoft Power BI

“Find Clarity When You Need it Most”

Introduction to Microsoft Power BI

• Cloud based business intelligence service
• Provides a full overview of data
• Connects to data sources
• Simplification of data evaluation
• Enables sharing across scalable dashboards, interactive reports, and embedded visuals

What’s Offered by Microsoft Power BI?

• Datasets connect your data sources together in one place. 
• Interactive Dashboards are linked to each dataset. Can be compared, evaluated, and shared. 
• Reports are generated from scratch. Can be customized and imported to any dashboard for sharing

How Much Does Power BI Cost?

• Free Desktop level for individual users
• Pro plan costs $10 per user per month. 1 GB data set and 10 GB of storage. Comes with a free demo
• Premium plan starts at $4,995 per month per dedicated cloud compute and storage resource. 10 GB dataset and 100 TB storage.

For a more in depth look at Microsoft Power BI, check out our complete review.

Microsoft Power BI Alternative #1: Looker

“Drive Better Outcomes Through Smarter Data-Driven Experiences”

Introduction to Looker

• Data discovery platforms that uses real time data
• Analyzes data with 100% in-database and 100% browser-based platform. 
• Integrates with any SQL database or data warehouse

What’s Offered by Looker? 

• Data modeling language called LookML – Can create custom models
• Fast deployment, hours instead of weeks or months. 
• Self service functions like pivoting, filtering, and dashboard creation
• Accessible on any browser and mobile devices
• Easy sharing via email or URL
• Can integrate with MS Office and other third-party apps
• Manually export results as text or .csv files.

How Much Does Looker Cost?

Google Cloud offers pay-as-you-go pricing for the Standard edition of Looker (Google Cloud core), which costs $5,000 per month. Pricing for the Enterprise and Embed editions are available by quote.

Google Cloud also provides user licenses. A Developer user license costs $125 per user, per month, a Standard user license costs $60 per user, per month and a Viewer user license costs ($30 per user, per month).

To learn more, check out our complete review of Looker.

Microsoft Power BI Alternative #2: Tableau

“Will help you manage today so that you can thrive tomorrow with expertise and free resources.”

Introduction to Tableau 

• Intuitive Business Intelligence tool that enhances data discovery and understanding
• Comes in three products, Desktop, Server, and Online. 
• Free mobile companion app

What’s Offered by Tableau?

• Drag and drop interface
• Connects to hundreds of data sources
• Live and in-memory data
• Mobile optimized designs
• Dashboards which embed into existing applications

How Much Does Tableau Cost?

• Tableau Creator – Tableau Creator is designed for individual analysts and power users, and costs $75 per user, per month. It includes access to Tableau Desktop and Tableau Prep, and companies can purchase a single Creator license for either Tableau Server or Tableau Cloud. Note that Tableau offers the same price for Tableau Creator whether the software is deployed in the cloud or on premise.
• Tableau Explorer – Tableau Explorer is designed for users that prefer governed self-service analytics instead of relying on data from others. It costs $42 per user, per month, whether it’s deployed on-premise or in the cloud. The price includes one license to Tableau Server (on-premise) and one license to Tableau Cloud (cloud).
• Tableau Viewer – Tableau Viewer is designed for users that just want to access dashboards and visualizations. It costs $15 per user, per month for both on-premise and cloud deployments. The price includes one Viewer license of Tableau Server (on-premise) and one Viewer license of Tableau Cloud. Note that Tableau requires a minimum of 100 Viewers for this plan.

To learn more check out our in-depth Tableau review

Microsoft Power BI Alternative #3: ThoughtSpot

“Search and AI Driven Analytics”

Introduction to ThoughtSpot

• AI-Driven analytics platform
• Type in questions like you would when performing a web search and get answers
• Analyzes data, creates reports, and builds dashboards all without using IT

What’s Offered by ThoughtSpot?

• AI Insights Engine called Spot IQ (handles thousands of questions about billions of data points in seconds. 
• Natural Language Processing enables conversational analytics
• Generates automated insights by running dozens of advanced analytics algorithms
• AI suggests the next best question to ask
• BI Visualization Server creates automatic visualizations through intelligent query generation
• In-Memory Calculation Engine
• Mobile Access

How Much Does ThoughtSpot Cost? 

• Pricing is based on the data capacity needs of customers. 
• Offered in increments of 250 GB
• Unlimited users on all plans
• Can choose between cloud or on premises deployment
• Doesn’t provide pricing, need to request a quote.

For more information, check out our complete Thoughtspot Review.

Microsoft Power BI Alternative #4: Domo

“Modernize and Mobilize any business process to run, learn, and serve on the fly.”

Introduction to Domo

• Platform where users can access and perform analytics and generate reports from one platform. 
• Built to be accessible to all skill levels. 
• Provides customized solutions aimed at specific roles, such as marketing, sales, CEO, etc.

What’s Offered by Domo?

• Import data through more than 1,000 connectors such as social media platforms like Facebook or CRMs like SalesForce. 
• Workbench system imports on-premise data
• Central database for data from all connected sources
• Visualizations can be organized into stories
• Customized Dashboards

How Much Does Domo Cost?

• Pricing screenshots 
• Does not release pricing information to the pubic. Must be contacted directly for a quote. 
• Professional plan is for unlimited users with unlimited data connections. Supports up to 250 million rows of data. Native mobile apps Drag and drop data merging, and more 
• Enterprise plan comes with additional features like unlimited data storage size, bulk user administration, HIPAA compliance, and advanced governance and security features.  

See more in our full Domo Review.

Conclusion

Microsoft Power BI is a great BI tool at a decent price, but it’s far from the only BI tool in existence. 

By comparing both the main features and the price point of Microsoft BI with many of its main competitors, you can get a better sense of how each tool would impact both your specific business needs and your budget. 

It’s always a smart idea to comparison shop for major services, even if the first one that comes along seems to have all of your major needs checked off.