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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    IBM Cloudant

    Score7.4 out of 10
    N/ACloudant is an open source non-relational, distributed database service that requires zero-configuration. It's based on the Apache-backed CouchDB project and the creator of the open source BigCouch project. Cloudant's service provides integrated data management, search, and analytics engine designed for web applications. Cloudant scales your database on the CouchDB framework and provides hosting, administrative tools, analytics and commercial support for CouchDB and BigCouch. Cloudant is often…

    $1

    per month per GB of storage above the included 20 GB

    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
    IBM CloudantMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
    Editions & Modules
    Standard
    $1
    per month per GB of storage above the included 20 GB
    Standard
    $75
    per month 100 reads/second ; 50 writes/second ; 5 global queries/second
    Lite
    Free
    20 reads/second ; 10 writes/second ; 5 global queries / second ; 1 GB of storage capacity
    Standard
    Included
    per month 20 GB of storage
    Power BI Pro
    $14
    per month per user
    Power BI Premium
    $24
    per month per user
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    IBM CloudantMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    IBM CloudantMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
    Considered Both Products
    IBM
    No answer on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    86%
    Would buy again
    6 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    15 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    5 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    15 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    7 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    15 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    7 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    13 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    7 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    11 Answers
    Features
    IBM CloudantMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
    NoSQL Databases
    Comparison of NoSQL Databases features of IBM Cloudant and Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    Feature
    IBM Cloudant
    9.1
    21 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    -
    Ratings
    Performance9.721 Ratings00 Ratings
    Availability8.321 Ratings00 Ratings
    Concurrency9.821 Ratings00 Ratings
    Security8.221 Ratings00 Ratings
    Scalability9.021 Ratings00 Ratings
    Data model flexibility9.821 Ratings00 Ratings
    Deployment model flexibility9.021 Ratings00 Ratings
    BI Standard Reporting
    Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of IBM Cloudant and Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    Feature
    IBM Cloudant
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    9.0
    53 Ratings
    10% above category average
    Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings8.546 Ratings
    Customizable dashboards00 Ratings9.653 Ratings
    Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings8.951 Ratings
    Ad-hoc Reporting
    Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of IBM Cloudant and Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    Feature
    IBM Cloudant
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.5
    53 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Drill-down analysis00 Ratings8.548 Ratings
    Formatting capabilities00 Ratings8.253 Ratings
    Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings8.342 Ratings
    Report sharing and collaboration00 Ratings8.953 Ratings
    Report Output and Scheduling
    Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of IBM Cloudant and Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    Feature
    IBM Cloudant
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.5
    52 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Publish to Web00 Ratings9.348 Ratings
    Publish to PDF00 Ratings9.148 Ratings
    Report Versioning00 Ratings7.444 Ratings
    Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings8.547 Ratings
    Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings8.426 Ratings
    Data Discovery and Visualization
    Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of IBM Cloudant and Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    Feature
    IBM Cloudant
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.7
    52 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)00 Ratings9.651 Ratings
    Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings8.748 Ratings
    Predictive Analytics00 Ratings7.745 Ratings
    Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings8.76 Ratings
    Access Control and Security
    Comparison of Access Control and Security features of IBM Cloudant and Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    Feature
    IBM Cloudant
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    9.3
    53 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Multi-User Support (named login)00 Ratings9.449 Ratings
    Role-Based Security Model00 Ratings9.347 Ratings
    Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)00 Ratings8.949 Ratings
    Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings9.36 Ratings
    Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings9.431 Ratings
    Mobile Capabilities
    Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of IBM Cloudant and Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    Feature
    IBM Cloudant
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.0
    42 Ratings
    4% above category average
    Responsive Design for Web Access00 Ratings8.239 Ratings
    Mobile Application00 Ratings8.030 Ratings
    Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile00 Ratings7.839 Ratings
    Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
    Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of IBM Cloudant and Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    Feature
    IBM Cloudant
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.5
    24 Ratings
    9% above category average
    REST API00 Ratings9.221 Ratings
    Javascript API00 Ratings8.821 Ratings
    iFrames00 Ratings8.820 Ratings
    Java API00 Ratings8.718 Ratings
    Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings8.021 Ratings
    Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings7.319 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    IBM CloudantMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
    Small Businesses
    RavenDB
    Score8.1 out of 10
    Cyfe
    Score4 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Amazon DynamoDB
    Score7.9 out of 10
    Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
    Score8.1 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Amazon DynamoDB
    Score7.9 out of 10
    Sisense
    Score6.9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    IBM CloudantMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    7.0
    (45 ratings)
    8.9
    (77 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (25 ratings)
    Usability
    7.7
    (5 ratings)
    8.9
    (19 ratings)
    Availability
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    9.5
    (2 ratings)
    Performance
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.6
    (4 ratings)
    8.9
    (15 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.9
    (3 ratings)
    Online Training
    7.3
    (2 ratings)
    8.5
    (2 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    8.2
    (4 ratings)
    9.6
    (7 ratings)
    Configurability
    8.5
    (3 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Data Sharing and Collaboration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.5
    (42 ratings)
    Data Sources
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.4
    (41 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    9.6
    (23 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    IBM CloudantMicrosoft BI (MSBI)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    IBM
    Our organization found Cloudant most suitable if One, a fixed pricing structure would make the most sense, for example in a situation where the project Cloudant is being used in makes its revenue in procurement or fixed retainer — thus the predictability of costs is paramount; Two, where you need to frequently edit the data and/or share access to the query engine to non-engineers — this is where the GUI shines.
    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
    Pros
    IBM
    • For us, performance and scalability is the key, and Cloudant DB backed by CouchDB is scalable and performant.
    • IBM Cloudant dB is very easy to provision for sandbox, development, QA as well as production.
    • Support for Java for CouchDB app server analytics enables a greater control for over developers.
    • Schema free oriented very easy to program and build applications on it.
    • We love it!!
    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
    Cons
    IBM
    • It was only after we went with the cloud-based solution that IBM rolled out an on-premise version.
    • We found that a 3rd-party ODBC driver was required for a few applications that needed to pull data out of Cloudant.
    • The sales process was difficult because the salesperson we used was not as versed on Cloudant as I had hoped.
    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
    IBM
    the flexibility of NoSQL allow us to modify and upgrade our apps very fast and in a convenient way. Having the solution hosted by IBM is also giving us the chance to focus on features and the improvement of our apps. It's one thing less to be worried about
    Incentivized
    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
    IBM
    It's mostly just a straight forward API to a data store. I knock one off for the full text search thing, but I don't need it much anyways. Also, the dashboard UI they give is pretty nice to use. It provides syntax-highlighting for writing views and queries are easy to test. I wish other DBs had a UI like this.
    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
    Reliability and Availability
    IBM
    it is a highly available solution in the IBM cloud portfolio and hence we have never had any issues with the data base being available - we also do continuous replication to be on the safer side just in case some thing goes awry. We also perform twice a year disaster recovery tests.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    The product has been reliable.
    Read full review
    Performance
    IBM
    very easy to get started and is very developer friendly given that it uses couchDB analytics. It is a cloud based solution and hence there is no hardware investment in a server and staging the server to get started and the associated delays/bureaucracy involved to get started. Good documentation is also available.
    Incentivized
    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
    IBM
    Very happy by the commitment given by the team which has been really good over the last 7 years of usage.
    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
    In-Person Training
    IBM
    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
    IBM
    online resources are good enough to understand but there is nothing like testing. In our case, we discovered some not documented behavior that we take in count now. Also, the experience in NodeJs is critical. Also, take in count that most of the "good practices" with cloudant are not in online courses but in blogs and pages from independent developers
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    IBM
    • Test the architecture on CouchDB helped us to address initial design flaws.
    • The migration to Cloudant as such was very painless.
    • We have migrate our replication system to Cloudant Android Sync for mobile devices.
    • We have regular informal contact with the Cloudant leadership to discuss our use cases and implementation strategies.
    Incentivized
    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
    IBM
    The feature-set, including security, is very comparable. Overall, IBM's services added to the product are mature and stable, although product support and engineers could be a little better. Global availability is improving, and Disaster Recover Capabilities are great. Overall, it's very comparable to MongoDB as a DBaaS offer, available globally and with great documentation.
    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
    Scalability
    IBM
    The service scales incredibly well. As you would expect from CloudDB and IBM combination. The only reason I wouldn't score it a 10 is the fact that document trees can get nested and nested very quickly if you are attempting to do very complex datasets. Which makes your code that much more complex to deal. Its very possible we could find a solution to this problem with better database planning to begin with, but one of the reasons we chose a service over a self-hosted solution was so we could set it up quick and forget about it. So we weren't going to dedicate a team to architecture optimization.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    IBM
    • IBM Cloudant is very secure and we never have to worry about losing data/unauthorized access
    • It is one of the best data backup system and works well
    • Global availability means it is easy to connect to the nearest data center and this reduces load time which is great.
    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
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