Infor Birst vs. Sisense

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Infor Birst
Score 3.7 out of 10
N/A
Infor Birst offers multi-tenant cloud BI for deployment in a public or private cloud, or on-premises. It provides an in-memory columnar data store and a BI layer comprising a reporting engine, predictive analytics tools, mobile native apps, dashboards, discovery tools, and an open client interface.
$30,000
Per 20 Users Per Year
Sisense
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Sisense is a BI software and analytics platform. With what the vendor calls their In-Chip™ and Single Stack™ technologies, users have access to a comprehensive tool to analyze and visualize large, disparate data sets without IT resources.N/A
Pricing
Infor BirstSisense
Editions & Modules
Basic License
$30,000
Per 20 Users Per Year
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Infor BirstSisense
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsMust contact sales team for pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Infor BirstSisense
Considered Both Products
Infor Birst
Chose Infor Birst
The ability to scale was the primary factor for our CIO's approval. The other products had solutions for scale, but Birst has the one we preferred. As an IoT company our CIO concentrates on products that will meet our requirements today and far into the future. The other …
Chose Infor Birst
We needed multi-tenancy, embedding, scalability and preferred a cloud solution that removed the need for us to manage upgrades.
Sisense
Chose Sisense
Sisense - in POC alongside Birst and Qlik, Sisense ran circles around Birst and Qlik and made them look stupid by comparison

Birst - ETL was super slow and complex AND requires you to learn a proprietary scripting language
Chose Sisense
Sisense offered very reasonable enterprise licensing and was eaiser for end users than most other tools that can interface w/ the iSeries.
Chose Sisense
Few companies worked as hard to gain our business as Sisense - they were committed to getting us a working demo using our actual data to show us it was possible. Sisense isn't the cheapest but it is not the most expensive either by far. The single stack approach [played a role …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Infor BirstSisense
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Infor Birst
7.4
77 Ratings
10% below category average
Sisense
8.7
46 Ratings
6% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports7.068 Ratings8.036 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.077 Ratings9.046 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates7.159 Ratings9.032 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Infor Birst
7.0
78 Ratings
15% below category average
Sisense
8.3
46 Ratings
2% above category average
Drill-down analysis8.078 Ratings8.046 Ratings
Formatting capabilities7.077 Ratings9.046 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages6.127 Ratings9.026 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration7.068 Ratings7.33 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Infor Birst
8.0
75 Ratings
4% below category average
Sisense
8.2
45 Ratings
2% below category average
Publish to Web8.052 Ratings8.035 Ratings
Publish to PDF8.067 Ratings9.045 Ratings
Report Versioning7.28 Ratings8.023 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling9.066 Ratings8.038 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Infor Birst
6.9
72 Ratings
16% below category average
Sisense
9.0
44 Ratings
11% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)8.072 Ratings9.044 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization7.058 Ratings9.041 Ratings
Predictive Analytics5.833 Ratings9.028 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Infor Birst
8.3
72 Ratings
4% below category average
Sisense
10.0
44 Ratings
15% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)9.070 Ratings10.044 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model8.068 Ratings10.043 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.069 Ratings10.044 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Infor Birst
5.0
54 Ratings
46% below category average
Sisense
9.0
39 Ratings
12% above category average
Responsive Design for Web Access7.052 Ratings9.039 Ratings
Mobile Application3.034 Ratings10.024 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile3.042 Ratings8.033 Ratings
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Infor BirstSisense
Small Businesses
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Score 8.9 out of 10
BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
Reveal
Score 9.9 out of 10
Reveal
Reveal
Score 9.9 out of 10
Enterprises
TIBCO Jaspersoft Community Edition
TIBCO Jaspersoft Community Edition
Score 9.7 out of 10
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Score 9.7 out of 10
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User Ratings
Infor BirstSisense
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(96 ratings)
6.1
(57 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(35 ratings)
8.9
(14 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(12 ratings)
8.0
(5 ratings)
Availability
4.1
(6 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Performance
7.5
(6 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
6.0
(19 ratings)
9.0
(6 ratings)
In-Person Training
9.1
(4 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Online Training
8.0
(2 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
5.3
(6 ratings)
7.1
(3 ratings)
Configurability
7.0
(2 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
5.0
(2 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
6.0
(2 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
5.0
(2 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
7.0
(2 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Infor BirstSisense
Likelihood to Recommend
Infor
Birst is well suited for an organization looking for a cloud-hosted analytics solution that is contained within one package. It is able to connect to a very wide variety of different data sources, and has options for either light or involved ETL procedures, depending on the users experience with preparing data. As with any BI project, it would not be suitable for an organization where there is no dedicated team to maintain and manage the project.
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Sisense Ltd
I believe Sisense is perfectly suited for any organization of any size that have access to the proper resources, as the tool is very expensive. The data connectors come in all shapes and sizes out of the box, which allows a great deal of data control within the ElastiCubes. Additionally, while the platform only runs on Windows platforms, the web application can be accessed on any client: mobile, Apple, Windows, etc. This allows a much more flexible user experience, resulting in data and dashboards reaching further than any other tool.
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Pros
Infor
  • Birst is an platform that provides connectors to some of the applications we use, but also allows us to bring in data from disparate systems to perform ETL and integrate all of the data for analyses. It makes no assumptions about your data, which is good for us, as we have a lot of customizations to many of our systems.
  • Birst is making inroads towards a more modern UI.
Read full review
Sisense Ltd
  • Customization - lots of supported and community plugins available. Users can also adjust the look and feel through JavaScript.
  • Innovation - Sisense is continuing to push the envelope by developing new features through Sisense Labs.
  • Customer support - the commitment to excellent customer service and ensuring organizations get the most out of their investment.
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Cons
Infor
  • Birst prices are fairly expensive. License plus cost of users can add up pretty quickly
  • Depending on the size of data, rendering of reports can take a little bit. Need faster processing of data
  • Takes a little time to understand how to build reports, not the most intuitive UI
Read full review
Sisense Ltd
  • The usability of the application on mobile devices needs some improvement, especially navigation and filtering.
  • Dashboards that are created by multiple users can be a bit of a hassle to share by Admins.
  • If you need to embed dashboards into your website, you are require to buy a license separate from the user and platform license. This is a norm on most BI visualization tools, but Sisense can seem a bit on the high side, cost-wide.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Infor
We have been able to overcome any of the drawbacks we've found with Birst easily and it has fulfilled almost all of our analytic needs to date. Having seen their roadmap it would be highly unlikely we would move away from this platform any time soon. You simply can't beat the functionality that Birst provides for the price and the things I see coming out of the company solidify that our decision to choose Birst was the best possible choice. We have never regretted the decision.
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Sisense Ltd
I think the business and myself as a user has come to rely on SiSense as a dashboarding and quick ad-hoc reporting tool. I am hoping to integrate SiSense dashboards into more parts of the business in the future. We have reduced our report turn-around time for the most part from hours/days to minutes and in some cases almost the speed of thought. Reports are also easier on the eye and more easily distributed. I would also like to say that the support and professionalism from the SiSense team has been excellent.
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Usability
Infor
I would like to see additional usability put into the ETL scripting. Recently, Birst added a nice function reference inline to formula creation which has kept me from having to return to documentation so much. The same in ETL would be very beneficial. The interface problems related to the Flex framework are being addressed in a rewrite to HTML 5, but for now they are still a hindrance to a higher usability rating.
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Sisense Ltd
New V5 is ground floor of an exciting collection of possibilities. Weekly Sisense developers come up with new functionality that they share with us in their forums. The move to HTML5 has been pleasing in that widgets auto size themselves into appropriate forms in the board but everyone of them can be popped out to full page size to be looked at in more detail
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Reliability and Availability
Infor
We frequently experience -103 errors due to us using the Live Connect functionality, which does not seem to handle even minor interruptions in connectivity, and treats all future connection attempts or data requests as errors, even if the issue does not exist any longer
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Sisense Ltd
There are very few situations when there is unexpected downtime. Mostly during development, new dashboard implementation and during upgrades. other then that there were very few crashes.
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Performance
Infor
Everything runs very fast and smoothly. The only process that I wish was faster would be processing the data after uploading new data or making changes to the existing data model. It can take 15-20 minutes (roughly) to upload and process new data once you start getting into 10's of millions of rows. Given my experience with how long it takes me to pull the same data using SQL Server Management Studio, I don't think Birst is unreasonably slow - but for me to give a higher rating, I would want it to be unreasonably fast
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Sisense Ltd
SiSense is usually performing better then other solutions even if going for complex reports/dashboards(of course within reasonable frames). I haven't noticed any bad influence on other systems, usually if something happens it stays within SiSense.
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Support Rating
Infor
When we have an issue that is stopping our business from proceeding, I want answers sooner than later. While Birst does have a published response time for each case level, we always wish it could be quicker. What response improvement could there be with a larger support team? In response to first question: Blackhole of issues - Birst needs to improve upon closing issues that resolution was dependent upon code fixes or enhancements, perhaps someone to add a comment on all case tickets at least every 60 days. Escalation - I always have the ability to electronically or via phone escalate a ticket. I also have my Customer Success Manager through whom I can escalate topics.
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Sisense Ltd
SiSense's support ninjas are very knowledgeable and are exceptionally responsive. So far, all of the issues we ran into were resolved within minimum time. My sense of dealing with the support staff at SiSense is that they are very focused on not just answering your immediate question, but also to delve into the cause of the matter.
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In-Person Training
Infor
I have attended two different training sessions. The first one was my initial training on the system. It was well paced, clear and concise. If there were questions that were not able to be answered by the instructor, he took down the question and actually followed up and provided us a response quickly. The second session was specific to the dashboard and report design components. This training was very good though there were some attendants who had little or no experience and their questions slowed the class.
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Sisense Ltd
Easy and free training that allowed us quickly understand basics in SiSense and start using them. More advanced features requires some browsing through SiSense forums, but there is always support to help, and SiSense support is one of the best whith which I worked so far.
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Online Training
Infor
Although I found the online resources helpful, a lack of appropriate examples for certain tasks key to report creation and advanced modeling make the online training/documentation less than perfect. For an inexperienced BI professional, the online training would not enable a streamlined launch of the product.
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Sisense Ltd
Many examples, videos and scenarios which you try on your own right away. This combined with in-person training gives you enough to utilize most of SiSense's power.
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Implementation Rating
Infor
Have clean data! Birst flexibility allows - Start small, then introduce functionality and complexity along the way. If you try to present all the functionality [bells and whistles] and wow them, but bad data is uncovered, the end user blames the new application and turns away.
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Sisense Ltd
Remember to migrate the plugins. The documentation however is pretty straight forward.
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Alternatives Considered
Infor
During the vetting process, we looked at 14 different products (one of them internal) to see if they would fit our needs and whittled it down to this one over a three month period. We did not contact sales for all of them (sales sites were enough to rule out some), but did have a lot of demos with a significant portion of them and reviewed several of the major industry studies as well. We had representatives of both user interests/design and the technical backend on the evaluation process.
The major features we were looking for a product that we could embed inside our own SaaS application, connect to a sharded Postgres database, had multitenancy and allowed for customer generated reports/ self-reporting. Some of the minor "nice to have" features we were looking at was scheduled reports, especially if we could plug it into our own scheduling system (for CAN-SPAM compliance), internationalization, and support.
In the evaluation, Birst hit all of the must-haves and enough of the nice to haves that they made it down to our final two and the trial was the clincher to make it our final choice.
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Sisense Ltd
1) Easy to use, really, there is nothing too much to say. The set up is easy and not confusing. You can use it internally or externally.
2) Customer Service, having spoken to various product reps from similar industry. Sisense rep provides you with the best support to get started, and it is really appreciated.
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Scalability
Infor
we can see that loading a lot of data can cause a noticable slow down in performance. Birst support indicated that they don't really consider anything less than 30 seconds to be an issue, but that is not the case for our customers, so we have had to change some of implementation to address this
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Sisense Ltd
Product is quite easily scalable. The whole installation can be easily moved to stronger machine if needed.
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Return on Investment
Infor
  • Being a manufacturing company we tend to lag behind technologically. But having all the data for different ERP systems in one place has been an eye opener for the executives. It has lessened the need to convert some legacy ERP systems.
  • Having such a simple reporting tool is a great asset to some of our sites that have traditionally had trouble gathering data from AS400 systems.
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Sisense Ltd
  • Report development time is reduced from 2~3 days to 2~3 hours.
  • Report querying time is improved from 0.5~10 mins to 2~30 seconds.
  • A 2-staff team delivers 10 times the BI output that we did on the old system.
  • We were able to deliver BI and data analysis for all business functions instead of a very limited group of users
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ScreenShots

Infor Birst Screenshots

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