Adobe Analytics vs. Microsoft BI (MSBI)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Adobe Analytics
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Adobe acquired Omniture in 2009 and re-branded the platform as SiteCatalyst. It is now part of Adobe Marketing Cloud along with other products such as social marketing, test and targeting, and tag management. SiteCatalyst is one of the leading vendors in the web analytics category and is particularly strong in combining web analytics with other digital marketing capabilities like audience management and data management. Adobe Analytics also includes predictive marketing capabilities that help…N/A
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft BI is a business intelligence product used for data analysis and generating reports on server-based data. It features unlimited data analysis capacity with its reporting engine, SQL Server Reporting Services alongside ETL, master data management, and data cleansing.
$9.99
per user/per month
Pricing
Adobe AnalyticsMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Power BI Pro
$9.99
per user/per month
Power BI Premium
4,995
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe AnalyticsMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Adobe AnalyticsMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Adobe AnalyticsMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
Web Analytics
Comparison of Web Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Analytics
8.9
3 Ratings
14% above category average
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
-
Ratings
Lead Conversion Tracking9.23 Ratings00 Ratings
Bounce Rate Measurement9.13 Ratings00 Ratings
Device and Browser Reporting9.43 Ratings00 Ratings
Pageview Tracking9.13 Ratings00 Ratings
Event Tracking8.93 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting in real-time7.83 Ratings00 Ratings
Referral Source Tracking9.13 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable Dashboards8.33 Ratings00 Ratings
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Analytics
-
Ratings
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
8.6
49 Ratings
5% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings9.042 Ratings
Customizable dashboards00 Ratings8.049 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings8.947 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Analytics
-
Ratings
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
8.7
49 Ratings
7% above category average
Drill-down analysis00 Ratings8.944 Ratings
Formatting capabilities00 Ratings8.049 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings8.939 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration00 Ratings8.949 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Analytics
-
Ratings
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
8.9
48 Ratings
6% above category average
Publish to Web00 Ratings8.944 Ratings
Publish to PDF00 Ratings8.944 Ratings
Report Versioning00 Ratings8.940 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings8.943 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings8.924 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Analytics
-
Ratings
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
8.9
48 Ratings
10% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)00 Ratings8.947 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings8.944 Ratings
Predictive Analytics00 Ratings8.942 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Analytics
-
Ratings
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
8.9
49 Ratings
3% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)00 Ratings8.946 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model00 Ratings8.943 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)00 Ratings8.946 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings8.928 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Analytics
-
Ratings
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
8.5
39 Ratings
6% above category average
Responsive Design for Web Access00 Ratings8.036 Ratings
Mobile Application00 Ratings8.027 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile00 Ratings9.936 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Analytics
-
Ratings
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
8.8
21 Ratings
10% above category average
REST API00 Ratings8.919 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings8.919 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings8.918 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings8.917 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings8.918 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings8.017 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Adobe AnalyticsMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
Small Businesses
StatCounter
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Score 9.0 out of 10
BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Siteimprove
Siteimprove
Score 8.7 out of 10
Reveal
Reveal
Score 9.9 out of 10
Enterprises
Contentsquare
Contentsquare
Score 8.6 out of 10
TIBCO Jaspersoft Community Edition
TIBCO Jaspersoft Community Edition
Score 9.7 out of 10
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User Ratings
Adobe AnalyticsMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.2
(177 ratings)
8.7
(73 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(42 ratings)
8.0
(25 ratings)
Usability
6.7
(33 ratings)
8.9
(14 ratings)
Availability
8.4
(12 ratings)
9.5
(2 ratings)
Performance
7.9
(11 ratings)
7.0
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
4.0
(41 ratings)
8.9
(15 ratings)
In-Person Training
1.5
(5 ratings)
6.9
(3 ratings)
Online Training
7.0
(5 ratings)
8.5
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(10 ratings)
9.6
(7 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
7.3
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.9
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Professional Services
7.6
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Adobe AnalyticsMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
Likelihood to Recommend
Adobe
Adobe Analytics is better than some other tools as it feels better set up for actual "analysis", rather than simply "reporting". The power of Workspace allows you to drag 'n' drop at ease which makes you are far more in control of your own analysis/discovery/exploration. However, regards the final reports and dashboards' look 'n' feel the Workspace PDF output is lacking visually compared to other products like Google's Looker. To engage with less technical end users sometimes Looker feels the better, more polished option.
Read full review
Microsoft
Microsoft BI is well suited for Stream analytics, easy data integration, report creation and UI/UX designs (limited but what all available are great ones) Microsoft BI may be less appropriate for handling huge number of datasets and difficult queries. It may also be difficult for a company with heavy data.
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Pros
Adobe
  • They've been really an industry standard tool in analytics for a long, long time. They've got the trusted brand and the reputation, a wonderful community behind it. It is always nice, having that level of support where you can meet other practitioners. It's a great benefit because I can meet other people who have already pushed the tool a lot farther than I have. And it's a great place to get ideas in that way. We came from a world where we were running on a homegrown system that we'd use to do click tracking. You get some advantages on that of the customization, but losing out on community of support was one of the big reasons why we decided to move beyond that and implement Adobe Analytics instead.
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Microsoft
  • Comparatively easy to use compared to other data analytics solutions, collaborating with other colleagues on data work is simple.
  • Using Visual Studio for database, ETL, reporting, and analytics development save time and money.
  • Transfer of data from one application to another via Excel and comparison of data attributes between applications
  • Dashboard functionality, as well as Python support, are available, allowing you to add additional charts and graphs.
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Cons
Adobe
  • Most of the problems that Adobe Analytics as of now is having, it is getting addressed in a newer tool called Web Desk DK from implementation. They are already addressing that issue with the new tool and also the time data with the customer general analytics. So there is something not in workspace analysis and this is what they're addressing in customer general analytics. Which is good.
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Microsoft
  • The race to perfect gathering of Non-Traditional datasets is on-going; with Microsoft arguably not the leader of the pack in this category.
  • Licensing options for PowerBI visualizations may be a factor. I.e. if you need to implement B2C PowerBI visualizations, the cost is considerably high especially for startups.
  • Some clients are still resistant putting their data on the cloud, which restricts lots of functionality to Power BI.
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Likelihood to Renew
Adobe
We've found multiple uses for Adobe Analytics in our organization. Each department analyzes the data they need and creates actionables based off of that data. For E-Commerce, we're constantly using data to analyze user engagement, website performance and evaluate ROI.
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Microsoft
Microsoft BI is fundamental to our suite of BI applications. That being said, Northcraft Analytics is focused on delighting our customers, so if the underlying factors of our decision change, we would choose to re-write our BI applications on a different stack. Luckily, mathematics are the fundamental IP of our technology... and is portable across all BI platforms for the foreseeable future.
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Usability
Adobe
Sometimes the processing times are very long. I have had reports or dashboards time out multiple times during presentations. It could be improved. It is understandable since there is a huge data set that the tool is processing before showing anything, however for a company that large they should invest in optimizing processing times.
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Microsoft
The Microsoft BI tools have great usability for both developers and end users alike. For developers familiar with Visual Studio, there is little learning curve. For those not, the single Visual Studio IDE means not having to learn separate tools for each component. For end-users, the web interface for SSRS is simple to navigate with intuitive controls. For ad-hoc analysis, Excel can connect directly to SSAS and provide a pivot table like experience which is familiar to many users. For database development, there is beginning to be some confusion, as there are now three tool choices (VS, SSMS, Azure Data Studio) for developers. I would like to see Azure Data Studio become the superset of SSMS and eventually supplant it.
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Reliability and Availability
Adobe
I do not ever recall a time when Adobe Analytics was unavailable to me to use in the 8 or so years I have been an end user of the product. My most-used day-to-day analytics tool Parse.ly however, generally has a multiple hours planned offline maintenance every two to four weeks, and sometimes has issues collecting realtime analytics that last anywhere between 15 minutes to an hour, and happen anywhere between 1 to 5 times a month.
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Microsoft
The product has been reliable.
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Performance
Adobe
Again, no issues here. Performance within the day updates hourly. other reports are updated overnight and available to access by the next morning. Pages load quickly, the site navigates easily and the UX is quite straightforward to get command over. On this front, I give Adobe kudos for building a great experience to work within
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Microsoft
SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) can drag at times. We created two report servers and placed them under an F5 load balancer. This configuration has worked well. We have seen sluggish performance at times due to the Windows Firewall.
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Support Rating
Adobe
I barely see any communication from Adobe Analytics. The content on the web is also not that great or easy to read. I would recommend a better communication about the product and the new addons information to come to its user by a better mean.
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Microsoft
While support from Microsoft isn't necessarily always best of breed, you're also not paying the price for premium support that you would on other platforms. The strength of the stack is in the ecosystem that surrounds it. In contrast to other products, there are hundreds, even thousands of bloggers that post daily as well as vibrant user communities that surround the tool. I've had much better luck finding help with SQL Server related issues than I have with any other product, but that help doesn't always come directly from Microsoft.
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In-Person Training
Adobe
It was a one-day training several years ago that cost the organization several thousand dollars. There were only about 10 people in the training class. Adobe tried to cram so much information into that one-day class that none of our users felt like they really learned anything helpful from the experience. Follow-up training is too expensive
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Microsoft
This training was more directed toward what the product was capable of rather than actual programming.
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Online Training
Adobe
The online training for Adobe SiteCatalyst consists of short product videos. These are ok, but only go so far. For a while Adobe charged a fee for this, but recently made these available for free. There are many great blog posts that help users learn how to apply the product as well.
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Microsoft
I have used on-line training from Microsoft and from Pragmatic Works. I would recommend Pragmatic Works as the best way to get up to speed quickly, and then use the Microsoft on-line training to deep dive into specific features that you need to get depth with.
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Implementation Rating
Adobe
One of the benefits and obstacles to successfully using Adobe Analytics is a great / more accurate implementation, make sure your analytics group is intimate with the details of the implementation and that the requirements are driven by the business.
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Microsoft
We are a consulting firm and as such our best resources are always billing on client projects. Our internal implementation has weaknesses, but that's true for any company like ours. My rating is based on the product's ease of implementation.
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Alternatives Considered
Adobe
I think Adobe's been around longer as a product but Tealium, from when I did research, it has auto-tagging. So one of my biggest pet peeves is when I'm rolling out new features, and whether it's an app or a website, is that I have to go speak with our metrics team or tagging team and we have to come up with these different strategies. Okay, how are we gonna tag it? What are we going to name it? It just seems like a lot of wasted time in my opinion. I want to track everything. I want to know every single thing these people are doing. We shouldn't have to have this conversation if we tag this, you might not have time to tag this right away for MVP. It's like that to me right now. That shouldn't even be a conversation. I should be able to release a feature, I should be able to just automatically go pull reports on that. And just figure out exactly what they were doing.
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Microsoft
We have used the built in ConnectWise Manager reports and custom reports. The reports provide static data. PowerBI shows us live data we can drill down into and easily adjust parameters. It's much more useful than a static PDF report.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Adobe
Adobe Analytics is relatively affordable compared to other tools, given it provides a range of flexible variables to use that I have not found in any other tools so far. It is worth investing in if your company is medium or large-sized and brings a steady flow of revenue. For small companies, it can be overpriced.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Scalability
Adobe
My organization uses Adobe Analytics across a multitude of brand portfolios. Each brand has multiple websites, mobile apps and some even have connected TV apps/channels on Roku and similar devices. Adobe can handle the multitude of properties that have simple, small(ish) websites and the larger brand properties that include web, mobile and connected TVs/OTT devices.
Each of those larger brands has multiple categories and channels to keep track of. We can see the data by channel/device or aggregate all the data together. This gives our executive teams the full picture and the departmental teams the view they need to see their own performance.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Professional Services
Adobe
The professional services team is one of the best teams for complex adobe analytics implementations, especially for clients having multiple website and mobile applications. However, the cost of professional services is a bit high which makes few clients opt out of it, but for large scale implementations they are very helpful
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Adobe
  • I like to think it's positive. It's a very steep learning curve, so we do face a lot of challenges with adoption inside of the companies. My team and I evangelize this and also who's in charge of data and advanced analytics, but it's very hard to leverage that with typical business analysis people. These are people who live their life in Excel and SQL and Power BI. They just use this very occasionally and by only looking at that sort of aggregate data, they miss out on behavior and what actually happens in execution. And because it's such a steep learning curve, we do have a challenge pushing it in there.
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Microsoft
  • As a SaaS provider we see being able to provide self-service BI to our client users as a competitive advantage. In fact the MSSQL enabled BI is a contributing factor to many winning RFPs we have done for prospective client organisations.
  • However MSSQL BI requires extensive knowledge and skills to design and develop data warehouses & data models as a foundation to support business analysts and users to interrogate data effectively and efficiently. Often times we find having strong in-house MSSQL expertise is a bless.
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