Power BI is an obvious choice when seeking BI (business intelligence) software. What’s not to like? It’s affordable, easy to use and carries the Microsoft name.

But, unlike the Coca-Cola recipe, its development code isn’t top-secret, and other products are catching up fast with competitive functionality. If you’re on the fence about using Power BI, you’re in the right place.

This article discusses the results of our analyst research for Power BI alternatives.

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Article Roadmap

• Best Power BI Alternatives
  • Dundas BI
  • Oracle Analytics Cloud (OAC)
  • Qlik Sense
  • TIBCO Spotfire
  • Sisense
• Next Steps

Power BI is a cloud and on-premises BI and data analytics solution that excels at automation, predictive and qualitative analytics. Machine learning drives various data workflows, including model-building and training.

Its differentiating features include the Analyze function, Q&A module, a robust query editor, end-user interactivity and Power BI Embedded for in-app insights.

Best Power BI Alternatives

According to our analyst research and online user reviews, the following software solutions are the top five Power BI competitors.

Dundas BI

It’s a BI and analytics solution for interactive data exploration with customizable dashboards and multi-tenancy support. This Power BI competitor is a dedicated embedded BI solution available through the browser.

Besides standard file formats, the platform ingests data from Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, SQL Server, Spark SQL and Google BigQuery. It integrates with leading marketing and payment processing solutions like Shopify and HubSpot.

Dundas doesn’t store your data — it uses your warehouse. The vendor offers a 25-day free platform trial.

Boost your revenue streams by embedding analytics into your workflows. Source

Highest Rated Modules According to Our Data

• Dashboarding and Data Visualization — 100
• Data Management — 100
• Embedded Analytics — 100
• Advanced Analytics — 92
• Data Querying — 91

Top Benefits

• Get More for Less: Acquire dashboarding and enterprise reporting in one package at no extra cost.
• Gain Comprehensive Insights: Stay informed about the market and your performance — incorporate sentiment analysis and location details into data.
• Do More With One Solution: Track platform usage and performance metrics from a centralized hub. The vendor provides end-to-end data management, with the option to modify incorrect metrics from the interface.
• Maintain Data Quality: Dundas is SSO-compliant with support for OpenID Connect, Kerberos, LDAP and Active Directory.
• Integrate With Other Applications: Extend the platform’s functionality by connecting to Marketo, Pardot, Zendesk, Slack, Magento, PayPal, Square, Stripe, Jira, Asana and Trello.

Primary Features

• Open-API Architecture: Access the platform on any device and browser with JavaScript and HTML5 compatibility. Customize its functionality with vendor SDKs, Eclipse and Microsoft Visual Studio.
• Embeddability: Access your data where you work — embed a dashboard or the Dundas instance using iFrames and an Embed library. The solution is SSO-compatible.
• Dashboards: Build print-ready dashboards with the visualization of your choice. Dundas provides widget and dashboard templates with the option to customize them as desired.
• Statistical Functions: Combine and transform datasets using sophisticated calculations and statistical functions, including moving averages, median, mode and k-means clustering.
• Data Transformations: Build data models by creating hierarchies and data cubes. Dundas works seamlessly with Microsoft SSAS, PowerPivot, SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse and Oracle Essbase.

Limitations

• The mobile app doesn’t support offline mode.
• 3D charts and city-level maps aren’t available natively, but you can import them via the public API. Source

Features Not Fully Supported According to Our Data

• PMML (Predictive Model Markup Language) — Not Supported
• Text Analytics — Moderately Supported Out of the Box
• Batch Updates — Supported With Custom Development
• Geocoding — Supported With Custom Development
• Voice-Based Natural Language Reports — Supported With Partner Integrations

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Oracle Analytics Cloud (OAC)

Oracle Analytics is a BI solution with extensive source connectivity for data visualization and forecasting. The platform is highly-performant, relying on the flagship Oracle BI solution for metadata management and machine learning support.

OAC has a competitive edge over Power BI with its augmented analytics capabilities. Oracle Machine Learning drives pipelines from data prep to pattern identification, visualization recommendations and text descriptions.

A revenue-based employee productivity dashboard. Source

Highest Rated Modules According to Our Data

• Data Management — 95
• Reporting — 93
• Mobile BI — 90
• Advanced Analytics — 89
• Augmented Analytics — 76

Top Benefits

• Maximize Your Investment: Unleash the full potential of your data with end-to-end data management. Gain a unified perspective of your business.
• Anticipate Trends: Spot opportunities and identify risks by unearthing meaningful data associations.
• Accelerate Time-To-Market: Deliver results quickly with fast visual analysis, self-service data exploration, natural language queries and interactive dashboards.
• Gain Insights 24/7: Stay connected to your business with Oracle’s mobile analytics app, Day by Day. Obtain answers with voice-based querying and view results as easily comprehensible charts.
• Generate Print-Ready Reports: Seamlessly handle formatted documents — electronic fund transfer documents, checks and PDFs — using the Oracle BI publisher.

Primary Features

• OpenSearch: Get fast answers with search functionality — OpenSearch — embedded within applications. Oracle’s open-source analytics suite is part of the Oracle cloud infrastructure (OCI).
• Oracle Cloud Console: Design and manage virtual machines, cloud networks and data warehouses from a central interface.
• Semantic Modeler: Map the route your data will take from source to destination using a semantic editor that hides the technical jargon while enabling effortless drag-and-drop actions.
• REST API: Oracle Analytics is HTTP and JSON compatible and allows seamless data exchange with authentication protocols that include OAuth 2.0. HTTP Basic Authentication and SAML.
• Prediction Algorithms: Generate forecasts using numeric algorithms and Python-R regression analysis. Self-service tools enable IT-independent model building and training.

Limitations

• Oracle Analytics limits the characters in SQL identifiers to 128. Source

Features Not Fully Supported According to Our Data

• PMML — Supported with Additional Modules
• IoT Analysis — Supported with Additional Modules
• Geospatial Functions and Calculations — Moderately Supported Out of the Box
• Integrated Workflow Actions — Not Supported
• Embedded Multi-Tenancy — Moderately Supported Out of the Box

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Qlik Sense

It’s a cloud BI tool with reporting, embedded analytics and automation for hands-free workflow authoring. Besides gathering business intelligence, you can build new apps using ML-guided processes.

Like AutoML in Power BI, Insight Bot in Qlik Sense provides intelligent answers to data-related questions. While Qlik Sense has limited text and sentiment analytics, Power BI fares better with in-house support from Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services.

The platform is available as an annual subscription model with Business and Enterprise editions. There’s no free version, but you can sign up for a 30-day trial.

Getting answers from Insight Advisor Chat. Source

Highest Rated Modules According to Our Data

• Dashboarding and Data Visualization — 100
• Data Management — 100
• Advanced Analytics — 95
• Mobile BI — 93
• Data Querying — 92

Top Benefits

• Position Your Brand: Establish your identity as a competitive player with operational insight, trends analysis and industry benchmarking. Explore new revenue streams by diversifying into app development.
• Accelerate Analytics: Gather and combine customer insights from client-facing applications and operational systems using machine learning. Analyze dataset associations with automatic visualization recommendations and text summaries.
• Drive a Data Culture: Find answers independently with a self-service UI and no-code visual analytics. Update data with a few clicks and share insights with teams and clients.
• Scale Seamlessly: Take on additional workloads — upgrade from the Business to Enterprise edition as requirements evolve. Scale reliably without worrying about data security and performance lag.
• Upgrade From QlikView: Upgrade to Qlik Sense — QlikView users can opt for the new-gen edition at an affordable price.

Primary Features

• Insight Advisor Chat: Ask data queries in a friendly chat format and view the answers as text summaries and visualizations you can import into dashboards.
• Qlik NPrinting: Generate interactive, professional reports from a central interface. Combine data from QlikView, QlikSense reports, and other sources into popular formats.
• Connector Factory: Source additional data with 100 new connectors for Qlik Cloud Data Integration. It automatically maps dataset associations, identifies custom fields and loads data incrementally to cloud warehouses.
• Qlik GeoAnalytics: Evaluate performance by each store — incorporate location details into store data. View location details with Qlik’s built-in tables, charts and mapping service integrations.
• Central Management Hub: Control your Qlik Sense instance — its content, configurations, resources and security — with the Management Console.

Limitations

• QlikView and Qlik Sense Client Management (Desktop and Server) are available on Windows only. Source
• The platform limits API calls to 300 per minute. Source
• Deleting Qlik NPrinting reports isn’t possible from the Qlik Sense Hub. Source

Features Not Fully Supported According to Our Data

• Regression Analysis — Moderately Supported Out of the Box
• Sentiment Analysis — Moderately Supported Out of the Box
• Text Mining — Moderately Supported Out of the Box
• Integrated Workflow Actions — Supported with Custom Development
• Secure Write-Backs — Supported with Partner Integrations

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Spotfire

TIBCO Spotfire is a BI and data discovery solution with insight-to-action workflows in its embedded offerings. You can take concrete action from Spotfire dashboards that impacts your operations, for instance, ordering new stock.

The platform relies on partner integrations for sentiment and text analytics. Power BI leads in data querying and augmented analytics, with full-featured AutoML, the Analyze feature and its Q&A module.

Analyzing store-wise sales performance with Spotfire. Source

Highest Rated Modules According to Our Data

• IoT Analytics — 100
• Mobile BI — 100
• Data Management — 99
• Geospatial Visualizations and Analysis – 94
• Dashboarding and Data Visualization — 91

Top Benefits

• Hit the Ground Running: Get started faster with flexible deployment options, AI-ML and a high-performance runtime engine. Build no-code workflows using over 16,000 functions.
• Monetize Your Data: Get the most out of your data without training. Procure information where you work with embedded analytics.
• Make Informed Decisions: Get assistance with critical decisions, collaborate on dashboards, interpret insights and explore data independently. Free your technical teams from routine reporting tasks.
• Take Advantage of Opportunities: Take proactive action with one click — generate or pause orders from Spotfire dashboards by integrating it with your procurement and inventory management tools.
• Get All-In-One Analytics: Stay agile — remove the boundaries between various data platforms by combining visual analytics with independent data discovery and a no-code, user-friendly interface.

Primary Features

• Data Analysis: Segmentation, clustering, classification, regression, time series analysis and forecasting are possible with Python-R integrations.
• Live Insights: Extract information from streaming and real-time sources in hybrid cloud deployments, public and private cloud, and on-premises systems.
• Sentiment Analysis: Acquire market intelligence by identifying languages, translating text and categorizing sentiment. Extract key phrases from online comments, social media text, surveys and feedback forms.
• Forecasting Functions: Get the complete set of advanced analytics techniques — regressions, segmentation, cohort analysis, cluster analysis and classification.
• Spotfire X: Generate visualizations instantly with natural language queries. You can record and reuse data-wrangling workflows with UI-based selections. Stay connected to the latest data with streaming data integration.

Limitations

• You can’t apply data functions directly to streaming data. Source

Features Not Fully Supported According to Our Data

• Reports Versioning — Supported With Partner Integrations
• Text-Based Natural Langauge Reports — Supported With Partner Integrations
• Secure Write-Backs — Supported With Custom Development
• Batch Updates — Not Supported
• Animations — Supported With Custom Development

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Sisense

Sisense is a data discovery and analytics platform with end-to-end data management. The vendor provides a BI infusion module, Sisense Fusion, to insert analytics into software ecosystems through embeddability.

Anomaly detection is available with Sisense Pulse, a system monitoring module. Sisense fully supports IoT analytics out of the box. The natural language module license costs extra, and the vendor offers a 14-day free platform trial.

Conversion and landing page success metrics on a marketing channel dashboard.

Highest Rated Modules According to Our Data

• Embedded Analytics — 100
• Reporting — 94
• Dashboarding and Data Visualization — 94
• Data Querying — 88
• IoT Analytics — 70

Top Benefits

• Boost ROI: Improve performance with better business practices, thanks to greater data transparency. Increase productivity by removing process roadblocks and establishing a data culture at your workplace.
• Gain End-To-End BI: Get the answers you need — give your analysts the complete toolkit to derive useful insights. Acquire end-to-end data management in a single package.
• Gain Advanced Insights: Group, sort, filter data, and slice and dice it along various dimensions using R functions and advanced analytics techniques.
• Drive Timely Decisions: Find your way forward using AI and faster in-chip technology for big data integration and analysis. Perform thousands of queries on large, complex data volumes faster than the speed of thought.
• Keep Data Secure: The vendor conducts regular security and penetration tests and provides SSO authentication. User and group management, dashboard access restrictions and row-based security are available.

Primary Features

• Sisense Fusion: Get a high-performing elastic engine, robust customization APIs, a scalable and flexible cloud architecture, and AI-driven automation out of the box.
• Data Modeling: Robust cloud warehouse connectivity and Git workflows enable secure data ingestion into a single repository.
• Notebooks: Perform sophisticated data transformations by integrating Jupyter Notebooks into Sisense Fusion. Query data on the spot or build advanced models independently using SQL, Python and R code.
• Version Control: Troubleshoot code-related issues by revising models and comparing diffs. Commit analytics models, dashboards and other data-related assets to Git.
• Sisense Narratives: Make your staff data-literate — interpret query results with Narratives, the platform’s natural language engine. View the outcome in plain text and explore the information for in-depth analysis.

Limitations

• Building an ElastiCube is resource-intensive.

Features Not Fully Supported According to Our Data

• PMML — Not Supported
• Key Driver Analysis — Not Supported
• Text-Based Natural Language Search — Supported with Additional Modules
• Animations — Moderately Supported Out of the Box
• Geographic Search — Supported with Partner Integrations

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Next Steps

Power BI has competitive augmented and embedded analytics features while holding its own for location analytics and mobile BI insights. But, the abovementioned Power BI alternatives give it stiff competition in data management, visualization and IoT analytics.

So, which one will it be? Start with our free comparison report to shortlist the products that address your unique business needs. Compare BI software side by side on over 100 attributes scored by our research team on a scale of zero to 100.

Which products made it to your shortlist? Did we leave out your favorites? Let us know in the comments below.