Apache Airflow vs. Microsoft Power BI

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Apache Airflow
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Apache Airflow is an open source tool that can be used to programmatically author, schedule and monitor data pipelines using Python and SQL. Created at Airbnb as an open-source project in 2014, Airflow was brought into the Apache Software Foundation’s Incubator Program 2016 and announced as Top-Level Apache Project in 2019. It is used as a data orchestration solution, with over 140 integrations and community support.N/A
Microsoft Power BI
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Power BI is a visualization and data discovery tool from Microsoft. It allows users to convert data into visuals and graphics, visually explore and analyze data, collaborate on interactive dashboards and reports, and scale across their organization with built-in governance and security.
$10
per month per user
Pricing
Apache AirflowMicrosoft Power BI
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Apache AirflowMicrosoft Power BI
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Apache AirflowMicrosoft Power BI
Considered Both Products
Apache Airflow
Chose Apache Airflow
Much easy to deploy Apache Airflow as opposed to other products, with flexible deployment options as well as flexible integration with other tools and platforms.
Microsoft Power BI

No answer on this topic

Features
Apache AirflowMicrosoft Power BI
Workload Automation
Comparison of Workload Automation features of Product A and Product B
Apache Airflow
8.8
12 Ratings
5% above category average
Microsoft Power BI
-
Ratings
Multi-platform scheduling9.312 Ratings00 Ratings
Central monitoring9.012 Ratings00 Ratings
Logging8.612 Ratings00 Ratings
Alerts and notifications9.312 Ratings00 Ratings
Analysis and visualization6.912 Ratings00 Ratings
Application integration9.312 Ratings00 Ratings
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Apache Airflow
-
Ratings
Microsoft Power BI
8.3
195 Ratings
2% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings8.3166 Ratings
Customizable dashboards00 Ratings8.8194 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings8.0177 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Apache Airflow
-
Ratings
Microsoft Power BI
8.0
193 Ratings
0% below category average
Drill-down analysis00 Ratings8.3190 Ratings
Formatting capabilities00 Ratings7.8190 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings7.4142 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration00 Ratings8.4188 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Apache Airflow
-
Ratings
Microsoft Power BI
8.0
186 Ratings
3% below category average
Publish to Web00 Ratings8.3176 Ratings
Publish to PDF00 Ratings8.0171 Ratings
Report Versioning00 Ratings7.7143 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings8.2146 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings7.9109 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Apache Airflow
-
Ratings
Microsoft Power BI
7.8
186 Ratings
2% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)00 Ratings8.2180 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings8.1165 Ratings
Predictive Analytics00 Ratings7.4135 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings7.436 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Apache Airflow
-
Ratings
Microsoft Power BI
8.5
177 Ratings
0% below category average
Multi-User Support (named login)00 Ratings8.8167 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model00 Ratings8.4145 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)00 Ratings8.4157 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings8.346 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings8.7139 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Apache Airflow
-
Ratings
Microsoft Power BI
8.0
159 Ratings
3% above category average
Responsive Design for Web Access00 Ratings7.7149 Ratings
Mobile Application00 Ratings7.6130 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile00 Ratings7.9152 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Apache Airflow
-
Ratings
Microsoft Power BI
7.8
115 Ratings
1% above category average
REST API00 Ratings8.1103 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings7.684 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings8.055 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings7.068 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings7.690 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings8.444 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Apache AirflowMicrosoft Power BI
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
ActiveBatch Workload Automation
ActiveBatch Workload Automation
Score 7.6 out of 10
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Control-M
Control-M
Score 9.3 out of 10
Kyvos Semantic Layer
Kyvos Semantic Layer
Score 9.5 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Apache AirflowMicrosoft Power BI
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(10 ratings)
8.5
(193 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.5
(3 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.3
(110 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(52 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Apache AirflowMicrosoft Power BI
Likelihood to Recommend
Apache
Airflow is well-suited for data engineering pipelines, creating scheduled workflows, and working with various data sources. You can implement almost any kind of DAG for any use case using the different operators or enforce your operator using the Python operator with ease. The MLOps feature of Airflow can be enhanced to match MLFlow-like features, making Airflow the go-to solution for all workloads, from data science to data engineering.
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Microsoft
Has significantly improved collation of data and visualisation especially with business across Europe. Has given me the ability to see the Site availability at the click of a button to see which Site is in the "money" and seize opportunities based on Market data
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Pros
Apache
  • Apache Airflow is one of the best Orchestration platforms and a go-to scheduler for teams building a data platform or pipelines.
  • Apache Airflow supports multiple operators, such as the Databricks, Spark, and Python operators. All of these provide us with functionality to implement any business logic.
  • Apache Airflow is highly scalable, and we can run a large number of DAGs with ease. It provided HA and replication for workers. Maintaining airflow deployments is very easy, even for smaller teams, and we also get lots of metrics for observability.
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Microsoft
  • Options for data source connections are immense. Not just which sources, but your options for *how* the data is brought in.
  • Constant updates (this is both good and bad at times).
  • User friendliness. I can get the data connections set up and draft some quick visuals, then release to the target audience and let them expand on it how they want to.
Read full review
Cons
Apache
  • UI/Dashboard can be updated to be customisable, and jobs summary in groups of errors/failures/success, instead of each job, so that a summary of errors can be used as a starting point for reviewing them.
  • Navigation - It's a bit dated. Could do with more modern web navigation UX. i.e. sidebars navigation instead of browser back/forward.
  • Again core functional reorg in terms of UX. Navigation can be improved for core functions as well, instead of discovery.
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Microsoft
  • It would be easier for users could Microsoft Power BI and Excel used the same programming languages.
  • Would like to see the online version of Microsoft Power BI be as powerful as the desktop version.
  • Publishing a Microsoft Power BI file online and then having to save the file is somewhat redundant.
  • Would like to export each page or chart as an image.
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Likelihood to Renew
Apache
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Microsoft Power BI is an excellent and scalable tool. It has a learning curve, but once you get past that, the sky is the limit and you can build from the most simple to the most complex dashboards. I have built everything from simple reports with only a few data points to complex reports with many pages and advanced filtering.
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Usability
Apache
For its capability to connect with multicloud environments. Access Control management is something that we don't get in all the schedulers and orchestrators. But although it provides so many flexibility and options to due to python , some level of knowledge of python is needed to be able to build workflows.
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Microsoft
Automating reporting has reduced manual data processing by 50-70%, freeing up analysts for higher-value tasks. A finance team that previously spent 20+ hours per week on Excel-based reports now does it in minutes with Microsoft Power BI's automated Real-time dashboards have shortened decision cycles by 30-40%, enabling leadership to react quickly to sales trends, operational bottlenecks, and customer behavior.
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Support Rating
Apache
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
It is a fantastic tool, you can do almost everything related with data and reports, it is a perfect substitutive of Power Point and Excel with a high evolution and flexibility, and also it is very friendly and easy to share. I think all companies should have Power BI (or other BI tool) in their software package and if they are in the MS Suite, for sure Power BI should be the one due to all the benefits of the MS ecosystem.
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Implementation Rating
Apache
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
It was integrated with our erp easily and was accessible on cloud.
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Alternatives Considered
Apache
Multiple DAGs can be orchestrated simultaneously at varying times, and runs can be reproduced or replicated with relative ease. Overall, utilizing Apache Airflow is easier to use than other solutions now on the market. It is simple to integrate in Apache Airflow, and the workflow can be monitored and scheduling can be done quickly using Apache Airflow. We advocate using this tool for automating the data pipeline or process.
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Microsoft
Microsoft Power BI is free. If I didn't want to create a custom platform (i.e. my organization insisted on an existing platform that I *had* to use), I'd use Microsoft Power BI. For any start-up or SMB, I'd just use Claude & Grok to build it quickly, also for free. Would not pay for Tableau or Sigma anymore. Not worth it at all.
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Return on Investment
Apache
  • Impact Depends on number of workflows. If there are lot of workflows then it has a better usecase as the implementation is justified as it needs resources , dedicated VMs, Database that has a cost
  • Donot use it if you have very less usecases
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Microsoft
  • Power BI usage reduced the effort of analytical reports creation by about 80%
  • Empowered all the level of employee to be more vigilant of the data and business insights, gained the profit of 8% overall.
  • AI-powered predictive analytics improved forecasting accuracy by 17%, that topped the overall sales.
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ScreenShots

Microsoft Power BI Screenshots

Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Turns insights into impact for business usersScreenshot of Power BI integrates easily with Microsoft 365Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - AI-Powered CapabilitiesScreenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Copilot can be used to create reportsScreenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Data HubScreenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Scales as organizational needs grow