Business Intelligence (BI) Tools
Best Business Intelligence (BI) Tools
- Top Rated Business Intelligence (BI) Tools include: InsightSquared, Cyfe, Alteryx Analytics, Sisense, ThoughtSpot, TIBCO Spotfire, Tableau Desktop, Domo, Looker, Tableau Online, Dundas BI, Microsoft Power BI, Tableau Server, Google Charts, and Zoho Reports.
- Other Business Intelligence (BI) Tools on the TrustMap include: Microsoft BI, Qlik Sense, Salesforce Analytics, SAP Crystal, and QlikView.
- A complete list of Business Intelligence (BI) Tools is available here.
TrustMaps are two-dimensional charts that compare products based on satisfaction ratings and research frequency by prospective buyers. Products must have 50 or more ratings to appear on this TrustMap, and those above the median line are considered Top Rated.
Business Intelligence Tools Overview
What is Business Intelligence (BI)?
Business Intelligence products are all designed to make sense of the huge quantities of data that organizations accumulate over time, by analyzing it and presenting it in a form where it can guide decision-making.
Business Intelligence products (BI) make up a large heterogeneous category of software. Not all tools in the category can be meaningfully compared to each other. There are several sub-categories of tools of which the most substantive are Full-Stack Business Intelligence Tools and Data Visualization Tools.
Business Intelligence Tools Features & Capabilities
BI Platform Type
Supported Data Sources
Standard Reporting
Ad-Hoc Reporting
Report Output and Scheduling
Data Discovery and Visualization
Access Control and Security
Mobile Capabilities
APIs / Embedding
Full-Stack Business Intelligence Tools
Full-stack or traditional products are enterprise-level tools designed to solve the specific problem of enterprise data silos. Much crucial business data is stored in a range of different data stores, many attached to business applications like ERP. These tools consolidate all data in a data warehouse which is a relational database designed for data mining instead of transactional processing.
Slices of data from the warehouse—usually summary data for a single department like sales or finance—are stored in a “data mart” for quick access. All of this structured data is normalized by using an ETL process (Extract, Transform and Load) whereby transactional data is combined into a single pool of data and then “transformed” into a more appropriate format for querying and analysis before being written in the data warehouse database.
The Full-Stack Business Intelligence TrustMap shows only those products that belong in this sub-category.
Data Discovery and Visualization Business Intelligence
Data Visualization products have a different purpose. These products are primarily designed to help data analysts discover patterns in large quantities of data and to build compelling visual representations which allow these patterns to be easily understood.
These tools often use a technology called in-memory analytics to query data residing on a computer’s RAM rather than on a physical disk. which means that the data does not have to be stored anywhere for subsequent analysis.
The Data Visualization TrustMap shows only those tools that belong in this sub-category.
Pricing Information
Business Intelligence software is generally quite expensive. However, it’s worth remembering that it is often money very well-spent in terms of significantly improved decision making.
One of the impediments to understanding pricing is that vendors base their pricing on a broad range of different variables from number of users to number of CPU cores.
However, as a very rough guide, advanced report authoring can cost $2,000 to $2,500 per seat, while interactive report viewing can be about half that amount. Static report viewing can be as little as $50 per seat.
Business Intelligence (BI) Products
TIBCO Spotfire<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Customer Verified: Read more.</a>
TIBCO SpotfireⓇ is a data discovery and business intelligence tool with capabilities that range from colorful graphic visualizations for the entry-level user to in-depth statistical analysis. According to the vendor, their built in analytical engines help users utilize the results of data mining,...
SAP Crystal<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Customer Verified: Read more.</a>
SAP Crystal Reports and SAP Crystal Server are designed to help users create pixel-perfect, richly formatted, and dynamic reports from virtually any data source – delivered in dozens of export formats, in up to 24 languages. According to the vendor SAP Crystal Reports is a robust production repor...
Tableau Desktop<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Customer Verified: Read more.</a>
Tableau Desktop is the rapid-fire authoring environment used to create and publish complex visualizations, reports and dashboards in multiple output formats. Using Tableau Desktop, a report author can connect to multiple data sources, explore relationships, create dashboards, modify metadata, and...
TIBCO Jaspersoft<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Customer Verified: Read more.</a>
Jaspersoft is a Business Intelligence suite that brings users worldwide more timely, actionable data inside their apps and business processes, through an embeddable reporting and analytics. The vendor says Jaspersoft is a cost-effective platform, and its goal is to help users make better decision...
SAP Lumira
SAP Lumira Discovery is a data visualization software solution that helps business users take full advantage of the massive amounts of data that is available to their business by using data analysis and data visualization capabilities. The data available in all major data sources (like MS Excel, ...
Birst<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Customer Verified: Read more.</a>
Birst Networked BI is a BI product that promises to enable a single view of data and eliminate data silos. Additionally, decentralized teams and individual users can augment this shared analytic fabric with their own local data, without compromising data governance. This consistency comes from a ...
Tableau Server<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Customer Verified: Read more.</a>
Tableau Server is an enterprise-class business analytics platform that can scale up to hundreds of thousands of users. It allows distributed mobile and browser-based users to interact with Tableau workbooks published to the server from Tableau Desktop. Tableau Server comprises 4 main components:...
Entrinsik Informer
Entrinsik Informer is a web-based Reporting and Business Intelligence (BI) application. It helps organizations transform real-time data into actionable information by delivering ad-hoc reporting, data analysis and interactive dashboards.
QlikView
QlikView® is a data discovery product for creating rapidly developed, highly interactive guided analytics applications and dashboards, purpose built for business challenges. With Qlik’s Associative Data Indexing engine at its core, it allows people to explore freely, to uncover insights and data ...
Microsoft Power BI<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Customer Verified: Read more.</a>
Microsoft BI
Microsoft BI benefits from the ubiquity of SQL server and the set of tools built around the database, including an ETL layer, master data management, data cleansing, report and reporting. The reporting engine is SQL Server Reporting Services which does not have the visualization capabilities of ...
Sisense<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Customer Verified: Read more.</a>
Sisense simplifies business analytics for complex data. Powered by its unique In-Chip™ and Single Stack™ technologies – Sisense delivers unmatched performance, agility and value, eliminating much of the costly data preparation traditionally needed with business analytics tools and providing a sin...
IBM Cognos
IBM Cognos is an established product with a large user base. It is a full-featured platform comprising Query Studio, Reporting Studio, Analysis Studio and Event Studio, and Cognos Administration along with some newer tools for Microsoft Office integration, full-text search and dashboards. Query ...
Zoho Reports
Zoho Reports is a cloud-based reporting and business intelligence platform for small to medium-sized businesses. It allows businesses to know and track their key performance metrics. It has a pay-as-you-go pricing model. Various customization options allow businesses to tailor Zoho Reports to the...
MS SharePoint / SQL<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Customer Verified: Read more.</a>
Dundas BI
Dundas BI is Business Intelligence (BI) and Data Visualization software that includes customizable dashboards, reporting and visual data analytics. According to the vendor, their solution is the most flexible BI platform, with seamless integration into the user’s business applications, allowing t...
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform
The SAP® BusinessObjects™ Business Intelligence (BI) platform is a flexible, scalable information infrastructure that aims to help you more easily discover and share insights for better business decisions. According to the vendor, the integrated, unified infrastructure enables scalability from on...
MicroStrategy Analytics
MicroStrategy Analytics is a platform for Business Intelligence (BI) and self-service analytics. It enables organizations worldwide to analyze the vast amounts of data stored across their enterprises to make better business decisions. MicroStrategy currently has 3 versions: MicroStrategy Analy...
Qlik Sense<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Customer Verified: Read more.</a>
Qlik Sense® is a self-service visualization product. It has been designed to enable users to discover insights in their data which sometimes remain hidden in query-based tools. The product allows users to search and explore large data sets, and to pivot quickly in response to new insights. The pr...
Looker
Looker is business intelligence application with an analytics-oriented application server that sits on top of relational data stores. The Looker platform includes an end-user interface for exploring data, a reusable development paradigm for creating data discovery experiences, and an extensible A...
Domo<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Customer Verified: Read more.</a>
Domo's Business Cloud is a full self-service business intelligence (BI) software that promises to bring all of your business data together in one platform. According to the vendor, the Business Cloud can help organizations automate reporting, turn data into intelligence, and help executives make ...
InsightSquared
InsightSquared is a sales analytics platform that provides sales leaders with the insights they need to drive performance and close deals. According to the vendor, the comprehensive set of reports provide sales leaders with ready access to all the analysis they need to assess their progress, diag...
Alteryx Analytics
Alteryx Analytics is a business intelligence and predictive analytics offering.
Chartio
Chartio is a business intelligence tool that connects to the world’s most popular data sources in real-time by working with an organization’s database. Some key features include: Drag and Drop UI, Powerful Query Mode and Powerful Filters.