Amazon Web Services vs. Microsoft BI (MSBI)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Amazon Web Services
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon that provides on-demand cloud computing services. With over 165 services offered, AWS services can provide users with a comprehensive suite of infrastructure and computing building blocks and tools.
$100
per month
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
Score 8.5 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.
$14
per month per user
Pricing
Amazon Web ServicesMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
Editions & Modules
Free Tier
$0
per month
Basic Environment
$100 - $200
per month
Intermediate Environment
$250 - $600
per month
Advanced Environment
$600-$2500
per month
Power BI Pro
$14
per month per user
Power BI Premium
$24
per month per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Amazon Web ServicesMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsAWS allows a “save when you commit” option that offers lower prices when you sign up for a 1- or 3- year term that includes an AWS service or category of services.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Amazon Web ServicesMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
Features
Amazon Web ServicesMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Product A and Product B
Amazon Web Services
8.4
77 Ratings
2% above category average
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
-
Ratings
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime9.072 Ratings00 Ratings
Dynamic scaling8.873 Ratings00 Ratings
Elastic load balancing9.369 Ratings00 Ratings
Pre-configured templates7.166 Ratings00 Ratings
Monitoring tools8.373 Ratings00 Ratings
Pre-defined machine images8.066 Ratings00 Ratings
Operating system support8.571 Ratings00 Ratings
Security controls8.674 Ratings00 Ratings
Automation8.325 Ratings00 Ratings
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Amazon Web Services
-
Ratings
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
9.6
49 Ratings
16% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings9.742 Ratings
Customizable dashboards00 Ratings9.349 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings9.747 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Amazon Web Services
-
Ratings
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
9.6
49 Ratings
18% above category average
Drill-down analysis00 Ratings9.744 Ratings
Formatting capabilities00 Ratings9.349 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings9.739 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration00 Ratings9.749 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Amazon Web Services
-
Ratings
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
9.7
48 Ratings
16% above category average
Publish to Web00 Ratings9.744 Ratings
Publish to PDF00 Ratings9.744 Ratings
Report Versioning00 Ratings9.740 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings9.743 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings9.724 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Amazon Web Services
-
Ratings
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
9.7
48 Ratings
20% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)00 Ratings9.747 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings9.744 Ratings
Predictive Analytics00 Ratings9.742 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings9.72 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Amazon Web Services
-
Ratings
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
9.7
49 Ratings
13% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)00 Ratings9.746 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model00 Ratings9.743 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)00 Ratings9.746 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings9.72 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings9.728 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Amazon Web Services
-
Ratings
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
8.7
39 Ratings
11% above category average
Responsive Design for Web Access00 Ratings8.736 Ratings
Mobile Application00 Ratings8.027 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile00 Ratings10.036 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Amazon Web Services
-
Ratings
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
9.6
21 Ratings
21% above category average
REST API00 Ratings9.719 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings9.719 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings9.718 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings9.717 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings9.718 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings9.317 Ratings
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Amazon Web ServicesMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
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Score 9.3 out of 10
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Score 8.9 out of 10
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Score 9.0 out of 10
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Score 10.0 out of 10
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Score 9.0 out of 10
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Score 9.5 out of 10
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User Ratings
Amazon Web ServicesMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(81 ratings)
9.7
(73 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.4
(10 ratings)
8.0
(25 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(12 ratings)
10.0
(15 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(1 ratings)
9.5
(2 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
7.2
(24 ratings)
8.9
(15 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
6.9
(3 ratings)
Online Training
7.0
(1 ratings)
8.5
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(3 ratings)
9.6
(7 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
Amazon Web ServicesMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
Likelihood to Recommend
Amazon AWS
This is something that is actually common across most cloud providers. A comprehensive understanding of one's use cases, constraints and future directions is key to determining if you even need a cloud solution. If you are a 2-person startup developing something with a best-scenario audience of 1k DAU in a year, you would very likely best served by a dirt-cheap dedicated Linux server somewhere (and your options to graduate to a cloud solution will still be open). If, however, you are a bigger fish, and/or you are actively considering build-vs-buy decisions for complicated, highly-loaded, six-figure requests per minute systems, global loadbalancing, extreme growth projections - then MAYBE you solve all or part of it with a cloud provider. And depending on your taste for risk, reliability, flexibility, track record - it might be AWS.
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.
Read full review
Pros
Amazon AWS
  • During the month-end, we experience high resource utilization; however, with AWS's scalability, we can effectively tackle the peak load.
  • With AWS IAM, we don't need to set up complete infrastructure for identity and access management, as AWS provides end-to-end IAM services.
  • With AWS, development has become very easy as it's very quick to spin up and destroy the environment, which saves costs.
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.
Read full review
Cons
Amazon AWS
  • When there is any misconfiguration of EC2 related to SSM Connect. It doesn't clearly states that what particular configuration is missing.
  • Debugging networking related issues could be improved.
  • From the security group page, it's difficult to determine which resource a security group is associated with.
Read full review
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
Amazon AWS
We are almost entirely satisfied with the service. In order to move off it, we'd have to build for ourselves many of the services that AWS provides and the cost would be prohibitive. Although there are cost savings and security benefits to returning to the colo facility, we could never afford to do it, and we'd hate to give up the innovation and constant cycle of new features that AWS gives us.
Read full review
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
Amazon AWS
AWS offers a wide range of powerful services that cater to various business needs which is significant strength. The ability to scale resources on-demand is a major advantage making it suitable for businesses of all sizes. The sheer volume of options and configurations can be overwhelming for new users leading to a steep learning curve. While functional the AWS management console can feel cluttered and less intuitive compared to some competitors which can hinder navigation. Although some documentation lacks clarity and practical examples which can frustrate users trying to implement specific solutions.
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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
Amazon AWS
Availability is very good, with the exception of occasional spectacular outages.
Read full review
Microsoft
The product has been reliable.
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Performance
Amazon AWS
AWS does not provide the raw performance that you can get by building your own custom infrastructure. However, it is often the case that the benefits of specialized, high-performance hardware do not necessarily outweigh the significant extra cost and risk. Performance as perceived by the user is very different from raw throughput.
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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.
Read full review
Support Rating
Amazon AWS
The customer support of Amazon Web Services are quick in their responses. I appreciate its entire team, which works amazingly, and provides professional support. AWS is a great tool, indeed, to provide customers a suitable way to
immediately search for their compatible software's and also to guide them in a
good direction. Moreover, this product is a good suggestion for every type of
company because of its affordability and ease of use.
Read full review
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
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
This training was more directed toward what the product was capable of rather than actual programming.
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Online Training
Amazon AWS
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.
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Implementation Rating
Amazon AWS
The API's were very well documented and was Janova's main point of entry into the services.
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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
Amazon AWS
Amazon Web Services fits best for all levels of organisations like startup, mid level or enterprise. The services are easy to use and doesn't require a high level of understanding as you can learn via blogs or youtube videos. AWS is Reasonable in cost as the plan is pay as you use.
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.
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Return on Investment
Amazon AWS
  • Using Amazon Web Services has allowed us to develop and deploy new SAAS solutions quicker than we did when we used traditional web hosting. This has allowed us to grow our service offerings to clients and also add more value to our existing services.
  • Having AWS deployed has also allowed our development team to focus on delivering high-quality software without worrying about whether our servers will be able to handle the demand. Since AWS allows you to adjust your server needs based on demand, we can easily assign a faster server instance to ease and improve service without the client even knowing what we did.
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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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