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 8.4 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
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
$9.99
per user/per month
Power BI Premium
4,995
per month
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)
Top Pros
Top Cons
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
8.9
67 Ratings
9% above category average
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
-
Ratings
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime8.863 Ratings00 Ratings
Dynamic scaling9.164 Ratings00 Ratings
Elastic load balancing9.360 Ratings00 Ratings
Pre-configured templates7.956 Ratings00 Ratings
Monitoring tools9.164 Ratings00 Ratings
Pre-defined machine images8.457 Ratings00 Ratings
Operating system support9.062 Ratings00 Ratings
Security controls9.365 Ratings00 Ratings
Automation9.116 Ratings00 Ratings
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Amazon Web Services
-
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
Amazon Web Services
-
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
Amazon Web Services
-
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
Amazon Web Services
-
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
Amazon Web Services
-
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
Amazon Web Services
-
Ratings
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
8.5
39 Ratings
7% 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
Amazon Web Services
-
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
Amazon Web ServicesMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
Small Businesses
Linode
Linode
Score 9.0 out of 10
BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.1 out of 10
Reveal
Reveal
Score 9.9 out of 10
Enterprises
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.1 out of 10
TIBCO Jaspersoft Community Edition
TIBCO Jaspersoft Community Edition
Score 9.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Amazon Web ServicesMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(79 ratings)
8.7
(73 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.4
(10 ratings)
8.0
(25 ratings)
Usability
7.2
(9 ratings)
8.9
(14 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
We recommend AWS Lightsail with Plesk Ubuntu Web Admin (free) edition for launching WordPress websites. Pricing starts with 3.5$ per month and they are providing 3 months free. In order to access advanced features of Plesk, consider upgrading to paid Plesk plans that starts with 13.50$ per month (10 websites supported). Up to 40% discount is available for the first year. Anyway, even the free Plesk Web Admin version is by itself self sufficient with free SSL.
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
  • Starting an instance and accessing it for testing purpose, demo or production deployment its always easy.
  • All the things which are available over AWS are pretty well managed and easy to use.
  • You might find everything you required for an product and other development over AWS.
  • Its suitable for both either an enterprise or an startup
  • Various resources and documentation are available in case you struck somewhere.
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
  • If there is one thing I think AWS needs improvement on, it is the administration dashboard. It can be a nightmare to use especially when trying to access billing. This could be made better, honestly, as there should be a simplified way to access simple admin features.
  • While AWS was fairly easy to integrate into our solutions, it is not as easy to use without some IT knowledge. The dashboards are complicated and designed for someone who is computer savvy. If you are just want to keep track of billing, for example, you may need to take a course or spend a few hours with someone being walked through the admin console.
  • AWS does tend to be slow at times. If you do not have a fast internet connection, it can take time to access services that are hosted on AWS. This is not always the case but we have had clients complain about this if they are trying to access a service from multiple points (IP addresses). The only real fix we found was to make our files cache to another server and only keep current data accessible to clients.
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.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Usability
Amazon AWS
Our cloud platform architecture was designed in order to collect, analyze, and optimize modern networks, from AWS-powered computing, networking, storage, and more. So, we needed a reliable, scalable, and secure global computing infrastructure. Auto Scaling and Elastic Load Balancing were key features in our evaluation and later on for scalability and high performance. We being a cybersecurity company, we needed to ensure that our cloud provider utilizes an end-to-end approach to secure and harden the infrastructure, including physical, operational, and software measures - which AWS had all in place.
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.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Amazon AWS
The API's were very well documented and was Janova's main point of entry into the services.
Read full review
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
Amazon Web Services is well suited when we have a huge amount of data to store, process, manipulate and get meaningful information out of. It is also suitable when we need very fast data retrieval from the database. They provide a superior product at a fair price which allows us to further our goals and push the limits of what we are capable of as a team / company.
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.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Amazon AWS
  • AWS has lowered our employee cost, because you don't have to hire Network/Server Admins to manage infrastructure.
  • Increased productivity by incorporating Continuous Integration with AWS and our development life cycle.
  • Increased customer confidence by being able to provide HIPAA level security in our development and production environments
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.
Read full review
ScreenShots