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Amazon EMR (Elastic MapReduce) vs. Azure HDInsight vs. Microsoft BI (MSBI)

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Amazon EMR

    Score9.1 out of 10
    N/AAmazon EMR is a cloud-native big data platform for processing vast amounts of data quickly, at scale. Using open source tools such as Apache Spark, Apache Hive, Apache HBase, Apache Flink, Apache Hudi (Incubating), and Presto, coupled with the scalability of Amazon EC2 and scalable storage of Amazon S3, EMR gives analytical teams the engines and elasticity to run Petabyte-scale analysis.N/A

    Azure HDInsight

    Score8.7 out of 10
    N/AHDInsight is an implementation of the Apache Hadoop technology stack on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform: It is based on the Hortonworks Hadoop distribution. Microsoft Azure HDInsight includes implementations of Apache Spark, HBase, Storm, Pig, Hive, Sqoop, Oozie, Ambari, etc. It also integrates with with business intelligence (BI) tools such as Power BI, Excel, SQL Server Analysis Services, and SQL Server Reporting Services.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

    Pricing
    Amazon EMRAzure HDInsightMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Power BI Pro
    $14
    per month per user
    Power BI Premium
    $24
    per month per user
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Amazon EMRAzure HDInsightMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
    Free Trial
    NoNoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details———
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Amazon EMRAzure HDInsightMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
    Considered Multiple Products
    Amazon AWS
    Chose Amazon EMR
    Amazon EMR is faster, cheaper, easier, and enjoyed more by our employees compared to Azure HDInsight. We selected Amazon because we saw an advertisement and wanted to try it out to see how it was. We will continue to use it until it is not around or until we find something that …
    Incentivized
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    15 Answers
    80%
    Would buy again
    4 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    15 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    93%
    Delivers good value for the price
    13 Answers
    80%
    Delivers good value for the price
    4 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    15 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    15 Answers
    80%
    Happy with the feature set
    4 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    15 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    92%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    12 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    13 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    15 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    11 Answers
    Features
    Amazon EMRAzure HDInsightMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
    BI Standard Reporting
    Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Amazon EMR (Elastic MapReduce) and Azure HDInsight and Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    Feature
    Amazon EMR (Elastic MapReduce)
    -
    Ratings
    Azure HDInsight
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    9.0
    53 Ratings
    10% above category average
    Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings00 Ratings8.546 Ratings
    Customizable dashboards00 Ratings00 Ratings9.653 Ratings
    Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings00 Ratings8.951 Ratings
    Ad-hoc Reporting
    Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Amazon EMR (Elastic MapReduce) and Azure HDInsight and Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    Feature
    Amazon EMR (Elastic MapReduce)
    -
    Ratings
    Azure HDInsight
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.5
    53 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Drill-down analysis00 Ratings00 Ratings8.548 Ratings
    Formatting capabilities00 Ratings00 Ratings8.253 Ratings
    Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings00 Ratings8.342 Ratings
    Report sharing and collaboration00 Ratings00 Ratings8.953 Ratings
    Report Output and Scheduling
    Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Amazon EMR (Elastic MapReduce) and Azure HDInsight and Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    Feature
    Amazon EMR (Elastic MapReduce)
    -
    Ratings
    Azure HDInsight
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.5
    52 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Publish to Web00 Ratings00 Ratings9.348 Ratings
    Publish to PDF00 Ratings00 Ratings9.148 Ratings
    Report Versioning00 Ratings00 Ratings7.344 Ratings
    Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings00 Ratings8.547 Ratings
    Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings00 Ratings8.426 Ratings
    Data Discovery and Visualization
    Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Amazon EMR (Elastic MapReduce) and Azure HDInsight and Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    Feature
    Amazon EMR (Elastic MapReduce)
    -
    Ratings
    Azure HDInsight
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.7
    52 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)00 Ratings00 Ratings9.651 Ratings
    Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings00 Ratings8.748 Ratings
    Predictive Analytics00 Ratings00 Ratings7.745 Ratings
    Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings00 Ratings8.76 Ratings
    Access Control and Security
    Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Amazon EMR (Elastic MapReduce) and Azure HDInsight and Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    Feature
    Amazon EMR (Elastic MapReduce)
    -
    Ratings
    Azure HDInsight
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    9.3
    53 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Multi-User Support (named login)00 Ratings00 Ratings9.449 Ratings
    Role-Based Security Model00 Ratings00 Ratings9.347 Ratings
    Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)00 Ratings00 Ratings8.949 Ratings
    Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings00 Ratings9.36 Ratings
    Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings00 Ratings9.431 Ratings
    Mobile Capabilities
    Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Amazon EMR (Elastic MapReduce) and Azure HDInsight and Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    Feature
    Amazon EMR (Elastic MapReduce)
    -
    Ratings
    Azure HDInsight
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.0
    42 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Responsive Design for Web Access00 Ratings00 Ratings8.139 Ratings
    Mobile Application00 Ratings00 Ratings8.030 Ratings
    Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile00 Ratings00 Ratings7.739 Ratings
    Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
    Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Amazon EMR (Elastic MapReduce) and Azure HDInsight and Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    Feature
    Amazon EMR (Elastic MapReduce)
    -
    Ratings
    Azure HDInsight
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.5
    24 Ratings
    9% above category average
    REST API00 Ratings00 Ratings9.221 Ratings
    Javascript API00 Ratings00 Ratings8.821 Ratings
    iFrames00 Ratings00 Ratings8.820 Ratings
    Java API00 Ratings00 Ratings8.718 Ratings
    Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings00 Ratings8.021 Ratings
    Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings00 Ratings7.219 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Amazon EMRAzure HDInsightMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Cyfe
    Score4 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Cloudera Manager (no longer available standalone)
    Score9.9 out of 10
    Cloudera Manager (no longer available standalone)
    Score9.9 out of 10
    Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
    Score8.1 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Hadoop
    Score7.5 out of 10
    Hadoop
    Score7.5 out of 10
    Jaspersoft Community Edition
    Score7 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Amazon EMRAzure HDInsightMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (19 ratings)
    4.0
    (6 ratings)
    8.9
    (77 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (25 ratings)
    Usability
    7.0
    (4 ratings)
    8.9
    (4 ratings)
    8.9
    (19 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.5
    (2 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.0
    (3 ratings)
    1.0
    (5 ratings)
    8.9
    (15 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.9
    (3 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.5
    (2 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.6
    (7 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Data Sharing and Collaboration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.5
    (42 ratings)
    Data Sources
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.4
    (41 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Amazon EMRAzure HDInsightMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Amazon AWS
    We are running it to perform preparation which takes a few hours on EC2 to be running on a spark-based EMR cluster to total the preparation inside minutes rather than a few hours. Ease of utilization and capacity to select from either Hadoop or spark. Processing time diminishes from 5-8 hours to 25-30 minutes compared with the Ec2 occurrence and more in a few cases.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Well suited: A tiny-mid sized company with no immediate plans of growing the volume of their data processing, that can afford long response times from support. Also it helps if you are not prone to put your hands on Linux and Spark configuration. In fact, it can make things go really faster if you also work with the bundle-in Jupyter. And, if you need to perform some diagnostics and / or administrative tasks, that's full of tools to find an understand the Root Cause. Ideal for non experts. Less appropriate: Big Data company, intense on demand cluster creation, mission critical, costs reduction, latest versions of libraries required, sophisticate customizations required.
    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
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    Pros
    Amazon AWS
    • EMR does well in managing the cost as it uses the task node cores to process the data and these instances are cheaper when the data is stored on s3. It is really cost efficient. No need to maintain any libraries to connect to AWS resources.
    • EMR is highly available, secure and easy to launch. No much hassle in launching the cluster (Simple and easy).
    • EMR manages the big data frameworks which the developer need not worry (no need to maintain the memory and framework settings) about the framework settings. It's all setup on launch time. The bootstrapping feature is great.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Data is presented without interfering others (IT or other dept).
    • Data is managed properly and is available for retrievable any time.
    • Legacy use of CD/DVD and Pendrive are not required.
    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
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    Cons
    Amazon AWS
    • It would have been better if packages like HBase and Flume were available with Amazon EMR. This would make the product even more helpful in some cases.
    • Products like Cloudera provide the options to move the whole deployment into a dedicated server and use it at our discretion. This would have been a good option if available with EMR.
    • If EMR gave the option to be used with any choice of cloud provider, it would have helped instead of having to move the data from another cloud service to S3.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • The only problem I have come across is when loading large volumes of data I sometimes get an error message, I assume this means something is corrupt from within. I would love a way for this to be resolved without having to start over.
    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
    Likelihood to Renew
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    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
    Usability
    Amazon AWS
    Documentation is quite good and the product is regularly updated, so new features regularly come out. The setup is straightforward enough, especially once you have already established the overall platform infrastructure and the aws-cli APIs are easy enough to use. It would be nice to have some out-of-the-box integrations for checking logs and the Spark UI, rather than relying on know-how and digging through multiple levels to find the informations
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Azure HDInsight is usable on the top of Azure Data Lake and gives us the benefit of analyzing large scale data workload in Hadoop. Usability and support from Microsoft are outstanding.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    The product has been reliable.
    Read full review
    Performance
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    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
    Support Rating
    Amazon AWS
    I give the overall support for Amazon EMR this rating because while the support technicians are very knowledgeable and always able to help, it sometimes takes a very long time to get in contact with one of the support technicians. So overall the support is pretty good for Amazon EMR.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    Inexpert, isolated teams... not good for support an excessively complex platform. Lots of weeks or months for a complex problem troubleshoot. Many time lost stuck on MindTree, before the case was finally escalated with Microsoft!
    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
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    In-Person Training
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    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
    Online Training
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    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
    Implementation Rating
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    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
    Alternatives Considered
    Amazon AWS
    Snowflake is a lot easier to get started with than the other options. Snowflake's data lake building capabilities are far more powerful. Although Amazon EMR isn't our first pick, we've had an excellent experience with EC2 and S3. Because of our current API interfaces, it made more sense for us to continue with Hadoop rather than explore other options.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    At this time I have not used any other similar products... I am open to it but Azure HDInsight and its components really work well for our organization.
    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
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    Return on Investment
    Amazon AWS
    • It was obviously cheaper and convenient to use as most of our data processing and pipelines are on AWS. It was fast and readily available with a click and that saved a ton of time rather than having to figure out the down time of the cluster if its on premises.
    • It saved time on processing chunks of big data which had to be processed in short period with minimal costs. EMR solved this as the cluster setup time and processing was simple, easy, cheap and fast.
    • It had a negative impact as it was very difficult in submitting the test jobs as it lags a UI to submit spark code snippets.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    • ROI is of course there, as no legacy software for data presentation.
    • No manual intervention for data retrieval.
    • Data is available anywhere as requested.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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