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Altair SmartSight vs. Microsoft BI (MSBI) vs. Strategy Analytics

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Altair SmartSight

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/AAltair SmartSight (formerly Carriots Analytics) is a cloud data analytics platform for embedded, Big Data, and IoT applications. It provides secure and rapid free-form data visualization and exploration, scalable throughout the enterprise in real time.N/A

    Microsoft BI (MSBI)

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft 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.

    $14

    per month per user

    Strategy Analytics

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/AMicroStrategy Analytics is an enterprise business analytics and mobility platform. Key features include automatic big data analysis and reporting, data discovery and visualization, digital security credentials, and support for mobile devices.N/A
    Pricing
    Altair SmartSightMicrosoft BI (MSBI)Strategy Analytics
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Power BI Pro
    $14
    per month per user
    Power BI Premium
    $24
    per month per user
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Altair SmartSightMicrosoft BI (MSBI)Strategy Analytics
    Free Trial
    YesNoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional DetailsMust contact sales team for pricing information.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Altair SmartSightMicrosoft BI (MSBI)Strategy Analytics
    Considered Multiple Products
    Altair Engineering, Inc.
    No answer on this topic
    Microsoft
    Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    Ease of use and it's fluent with Office products for exporting and presentations of data.
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    Microsoft BI is mainly based on Microsoft SQL Server, so it is perfectly integrated. Many of the Microsoft BI components require using SQL Server as the database engine. Generally, the functionalities that are achieved when using SQL Server as a database engine are greater than …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    One of the main reasons Microsoft BI was chosen by our company is because it is a reliable program. We tried different programs in the past (and currently also use other ones for certain reporting and analysis needs) but Microsoft BI was the least buggy out of our top choices.
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    Oracle is primarily one amongst the leader in ERP applications and they have quite easily leveraged their BI products to offer pre-built dashboard and operational reporting which is received well by the users. But with Microsoft BI there are host of other features which beats …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    Microstrategy - I went with Microsoft BI because of features, usability, integration capabilities, performance, availability of talent, cost, and end-user (self-service) capabilities.
    Strategy
    Chose Strategy Analytics
    [I feel like} Microsoft BI - MicroStrategy Analytics is worse in every way. Less templates, less canned reports, less third party integrations, less knowledgable consultants/employees, less core capability, much worse migration path to the cloud (Azure in Microsoft's case), and …
    Incentivized
    Chose Strategy Analytics
    Factors in going with MicroStrategy Analytics are cost, cloud saas, ease of integration, strong peer community, strong consulting partnership, and pre-existing relationships. The cost factor and pre-existing relationships played a defining role in the selection of the product.
    Incentivized
    Chose Strategy Analytics
    Tableau is probably MicroStrategy Analytic's biggest competitor I've noticed over time, and I'm not sure why. Tableau only covers visualizations independently for each business user, which then creates the issues of every employee creating their own version of the data, and …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    80%
    Would buy again
    4 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    15 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    5 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    15 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    5 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    15 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    13 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    11 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    Altair SmartSightMicrosoft BI (MSBI)Strategy Analytics
    BI Standard Reporting
    Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Altair SmartSight and Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Strategy Analytics
    Feature
    Altair SmartSight
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    9.0
    53 Ratings
    10% above category average
    Strategy Analytics
    10.0
    26 Ratings
    20% above category average
    Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings8.546 Ratings10.023 Ratings
    Customizable dashboards00 Ratings9.653 Ratings10.023 Ratings
    Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings8.951 Ratings10.024 Ratings
    Ad-hoc Reporting
    Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Altair SmartSight and Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Strategy Analytics
    Feature
    Altair SmartSight
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.5
    53 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Strategy Analytics
    10.0
    24 Ratings
    22% above category average
    Drill-down analysis00 Ratings8.548 Ratings10.022 Ratings
    Formatting capabilities00 Ratings8.253 Ratings10.024 Ratings
    Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings8.342 Ratings10.016 Ratings
    Report sharing and collaboration00 Ratings8.953 Ratings10.023 Ratings
    Report Output and Scheduling
    Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Altair SmartSight and Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Strategy Analytics
    Feature
    Altair SmartSight
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.5
    52 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Strategy Analytics
    10.0
    23 Ratings
    20% above category average
    Publish to Web00 Ratings9.348 Ratings10.022 Ratings
    Publish to PDF00 Ratings9.148 Ratings10.023 Ratings
    Report Versioning00 Ratings7.444 Ratings10.020 Ratings
    Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings8.547 Ratings10.022 Ratings
    Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings8.426 Ratings10.05 Ratings
    Data Discovery and Visualization
    Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Altair SmartSight and Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Strategy Analytics
    Feature
    Altair SmartSight
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.7
    52 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Strategy Analytics
    10.0
    22 Ratings
    22% above category average
    Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)00 Ratings9.651 Ratings10.020 Ratings
    Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings8.748 Ratings10.019 Ratings
    Predictive Analytics00 Ratings7.845 Ratings10.018 Ratings
    Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings8.76 Ratings10.01 Ratings
    Access Control and Security
    Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Altair SmartSight and Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Strategy Analytics
    Feature
    Altair SmartSight
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    9.3
    53 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Strategy Analytics
    10.0
    21 Ratings
    16% above category average
    Multi-User Support (named login)00 Ratings9.449 Ratings10.019 Ratings
    Role-Based Security Model00 Ratings9.347 Ratings10.020 Ratings
    Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)00 Ratings8.949 Ratings10.020 Ratings
    Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings9.36 Ratings10.01 Ratings
    Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings9.431 Ratings10.09 Ratings
    Mobile Capabilities
    Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Altair SmartSight and Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Strategy Analytics
    Feature
    Altair SmartSight
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.0
    42 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Strategy Analytics
    9.7
    19 Ratings
    22% above category average
    Responsive Design for Web Access00 Ratings8.239 Ratings10.019 Ratings
    Mobile Application00 Ratings8.030 Ratings10.015 Ratings
    Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile00 Ratings7.839 Ratings10.019 Ratings
    Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
    Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Altair SmartSight and Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Strategy Analytics
    Feature
    Altair SmartSight
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.5
    24 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Strategy Analytics
    10.0
    8 Ratings
    25% above category average
    REST API00 Ratings9.221 Ratings10.06 Ratings
    Javascript API00 Ratings8.821 Ratings10.07 Ratings
    iFrames00 Ratings8.820 Ratings10.05 Ratings
    Java API00 Ratings8.718 Ratings10.04 Ratings
    Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings8.021 Ratings10.05 Ratings
    Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings7.319 Ratings10.06 Ratings
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    Altair SmartSightMicrosoft BI (MSBI)Strategy Analytics
    Small Businesses
    Cyfe
    Score4 out of 10
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    Score4 out of 10
    Cyfe
    Score4 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
    Score8.2 out of 10
    Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
    Score8.2 out of 10
    Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
    Score8.2 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Jaspersoft Community Edition
    Score7 out of 10
    Jaspersoft Community Edition
    Score7 out of 10
    Jaspersoft Community Edition
    Score7 out of 10
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    User Ratings
    Altair SmartSightMicrosoft BI (MSBI)Strategy Analytics
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.4
    (5 ratings)
    8.9
    (77 ratings)
    10.0
    (50 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (25 ratings)
    9.9
    (27 ratings)
    Usability
    8.3
    (5 ratings)
    8.9
    (19 ratings)
    3.2
    (5 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.5
    (2 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.7
    (5 ratings)
    8.9
    (15 ratings)
    2.2
    (5 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.9
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.5
    (2 ratings)
    9.0
    (5 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.6
    (7 ratings)
    9.0
    (4 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Data Sharing and Collaboration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.5
    (42 ratings)
    8.0
    (21 ratings)
    Data Sources
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.4
    (41 ratings)
    8.8
    (21 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Altair SmartSightMicrosoft BI (MSBI)Strategy Analytics
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Altair Engineering, Inc.
    As per my knowledge and Altair Product experience, It is really a good product that comes with multiple features like IoT, BigData, dashboards, and other things. I personally really enjoyed using the services provided by Altair. It is well suited for the organizations who don't spend much time setting up their own platform, maintenance, and much more because Altair not only provides the platform but they will care about your products with good customer support and maintenance. I only found a bit low in the case of machine learning and AI products because I have checked different products that provide these services with good accuracy.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Microsoft BI has a lot of features and is a very powerful tool, especially if you have folks on your team that know how to utilize all of its capabilities. To truly unlock all that it can do, it does require people to have a deep understanding of its capabilities. That's where the software really shines. If you are looking for a simpler, more basic reporting tool, there are other programs available that do not require such a steep learning curve.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Strategy
    MSTR is great for any organization that is looking for a way to deliver complicated data in an uncomplicated way. From business teams to marketing and finance, several departments benefit from using MSTR to keep track of KPIs enabling teams to make optimizations along the way. MSTR provides great visual representations of data enabling team members to distill thousands of data points into easily digestible charts and graphs
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Altair Engineering, Inc.
    • The global navigation bar with links to the library for easy access and management within the platform.
    • Simplified task viewer where we can find the profile, performance, help, resources and a link also to manage your account.
    • System administrators can define profiles for task execution.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Strategy
    • They sell the product well, and make promises you will actually believe
    • "checks the box" for most features a company would need. Doesn't actually deliver them though
    • They answer the phone in a timely manner. Can't answer your questions or provide support, but the queue time isn't bad
    • They have online documentation. It's not up to date, and likely doesn't reflect the version of software you are using, but hey... they can point to it.
    Read full review
    Cons
    Altair Engineering, Inc.
    • Integration with other systems could be better.
    • Ability to handle large amount of data.
    • Expertise services might be better.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • MSBI designs can work on increasing data processing capabilities enough to handle the huge datasets etc.
    • It would be a lot better if it is a little low on cost.
    • it needs to create opportunities little more than they do regarding customization of some very unique visualization effects
    Read full review
    Strategy
    • The graph options are not as robust as an Excel user might want.
    • The metadata layer can sometimes be slower, and it takes a long time for reports to run.
    • Viewing the data feed entered can be cumbersome at times, in terms of validation with reports.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Altair Engineering, Inc.
    No answers on this topic
    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.
    Read full review
    Strategy
    I would always choose to renew MicroStrategy as long as they lead the market in features, functionality and price. The support of MicroStrategy is timely and professional, I frequently get answers to my questions within 24 hours and normally have solutions within 48 hours. Training available for MicroStrategy completely covers everything required to be able to expertly use MicroStrategy and understand data warehousing.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Altair Engineering, Inc.
    Very user-friendly UI and visual representation is also good for the price offered. Good tool but lacks some advanced and AI-based insights. It has an edge over other tools for the price of this tool. It has some great potential and i would consider this in my top 5 when considering tools of this domain
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Strategy
    The standard grid reporting could look more like the styling and object used for the Import and Visual Insight products. In addition, object properties almost seem to be hidden when first using the product. It's as if they are asking the engineers to only use the presets we make available...and, these presets are 10+ years old. On the positive side, Microstrategy seems to be the only product, not named Cognos, which can scale to Big Data. The product is "hackable" via the SDK or tricking the Intelligence Server to do uncommon things. The Microstrategy development team also seems to be very involved with their OEM partners; especially when it comes to features and enhancements. A large majority of the improvements we suggested have made it into the product or on the roadmap for future enhancements. Only suckas fall for the shiny objects from most other vendors; Microstrategy is really the only choice for Enterprise BI.
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Altair Engineering, Inc.
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    The product has been reliable.
    Read full review
    Strategy
    I've never had an issue with MicroStrategy not being available due to MicroStrategy application malfunction. It is very robust and only failures I've seen were due to user error or the platform the machine running the service failed some how.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    Altair Engineering, Inc.
    No answers on this topic
    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.
    Read full review
    Strategy
    Being able to customize the performance based on the business need is extremely powerful. Proper configuration and understanding of the usage pattern is key, if the technical ability of the architect is not at top level, then the product will not be configured correctly which will lead to poor performance.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Altair Engineering, Inc.
    I only had one problem with the software, and the support system response was very quick.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    MSBI natively has a site that allows you to vote on user enhancements and bug fixes. This allows the largest nagging issues to float to the top and the development team can prioritize accordingly. As mentioned earlier, the large community base of MSBI developers assist technical resources in handling technical questions.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Strategy
    Good user community. Support team is available if you are under AMC. You get decent support after raising the support ticket. If it is product bug they will inform you and let you know which patch will resolve the same.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Altair Engineering, Inc.
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    This training was more directed toward what the product was capable of rather than actual programming.
    Read full review
    Strategy
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    Altair Engineering, Inc.
    No answers on this topic
    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.
    Read full review
    Strategy
    I have attended many trainings offered by MicroStrategy; both distance and in-person training. I earned my CRD (Certified Report Developer) certification via the online training. I found the training to be well organized and concise. Overall I will definitely continue to increase my knowledge with MicroStrategy via the online training offering.
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Altair Engineering, Inc.
    No answers on this topic
    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.
    Read full review
    Strategy
    We measured following KPI for the success
    • Increase in Business Feeds Loads
    • Reduction in Controllers Manual Work.
    • Conversion of Manual Work into Systematic Workflows.
    • Increase in Customer Spend
    • Reduction in Service costs
    • Reduction in time-to-market for new campaigns
    • Increase in cross sell and Up sell
    • Error reduction in customer Identification
    • Existing client retained
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Altair Engineering, Inc.
    Altair smart sight stacks up against all the products mentioned above because it comes with a wide variety of applications and services like Big Data, IoT services, Embedded systems, cloud-based service, data visualization, Machine learning, dashboarding, and much more. I have used the other products like Logi Composer, Tableau CRM, and PowerBI but they only handle the specific use cases. So Because of that Altair Smartsight really provide a good and wide range of solution.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Strategy
    Tableau is probably MicroStrategy Analytic's biggest competitor I've noticed over time, and I'm not sure why. Tableau only covers visualizations independently for each business user, which then creates the issues of every employee creating their own version of the data, and then you have 20 versions of the truth. A enterprise data warehouse and MicroStrategy's Visual Insight is a better method.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Altair Engineering, Inc.
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Strategy
    This software is extremely scaleable, one can add more core servers which performs as a load balancing. The configurations available to manage usage patterns and daily activity are as high a caliber as any other enterprise level software. This product can be installed on both a windows and unix platform allow for integration on a budget.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Altair Engineering, Inc.
    • The workflow interface consists of the workflow canvas where we do our actual pipeline and workflow execution log, display information and each process.
    • You can use it to create a workflow and the available execution profiles in which to run them.
    • We currently have one session running for each workflow.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Strategy
    • MicroStrategy was helpful for reducing the amount of time we needed to spend number crunching large data sets, and in doing so, allowed me as the primary users to spend more time gleaning insights from the data that in turn informed our leadership team to make strategic decisions.
    • By creating numerous canned reports available to all members of the team through email distribution or basic access to the platform, we were able to reduce the time I spent showing people how to pull the data in Microsoft Excel by nearly 40% .
    • We ended up needing to make many changes to the way our DMP was feeding data into MicroStrategy due to incorrect reporting that caused complications in accounting and finance.
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Altair SmartSight Screenshots

    Product screenshotProduct screenshot