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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    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

    Posit

    Score10 out of 10
    N/APosit, formerly RStudio, is a modular data science platform, combining open source and commercial products.N/A
    Pricing
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)Posit
    Editions & Modules
    Power BI Pro
    $14
    per month per user
    Power BI Premium
    $24
    per month per user
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)Posit
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)Posit
    Considered Both Products
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Posit (formerly RStudio)
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    15 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    44 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    15 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    44 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    15 Answers
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    42 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    13 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    28 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    11 Answers
    97%
    Implementation went as expected
    38 Answers
    Features
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)Posit
    BI Standard Reporting
    Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Posit
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    9.0
    53 Ratings
    10% above category average
    Posit
    -
    Ratings
    Pixel Perfect reports8.546 Ratings00 Ratings
    Customizable dashboards9.653 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report Formatting Templates8.951 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad-hoc Reporting
    Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Posit
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.5
    53 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Posit
    -
    Ratings
    Drill-down analysis8.548 Ratings00 Ratings
    Formatting capabilities8.253 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integration with R or other statistical packages8.342 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report sharing and collaboration8.953 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report Output and Scheduling
    Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Posit
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.5
    52 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Posit
    -
    Ratings
    Publish to Web9.348 Ratings00 Ratings
    Publish to PDF9.148 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report Versioning7.444 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report Delivery Scheduling8.547 Ratings00 Ratings
    Delivery to Remote Servers8.426 Ratings00 Ratings
    Data Discovery and Visualization
    Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Posit
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.7
    52 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Posit
    -
    Ratings
    Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)9.651 Ratings00 Ratings
    Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.748 Ratings00 Ratings
    Predictive Analytics7.745 Ratings00 Ratings
    Pattern Recognition and Data Mining8.76 Ratings00 Ratings
    Access Control and Security
    Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Posit
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    9.3
    53 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Posit
    -
    Ratings
    Multi-User Support (named login)9.449 Ratings00 Ratings
    Role-Based Security Model9.347 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.949 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report-Level Access Control9.36 Ratings00 Ratings
    Single Sign-On (SSO)9.431 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile Capabilities
    Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Posit
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.0
    42 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Posit
    -
    Ratings
    Responsive Design for Web Access8.239 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile Application8.030 Ratings00 Ratings
    Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile7.839 Ratings00 Ratings
    Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
    Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Posit
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.5
    24 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Posit
    -
    Ratings
    REST API9.221 Ratings00 Ratings
    Javascript API8.821 Ratings00 Ratings
    iFrames8.820 Ratings00 Ratings
    Java API8.718 Ratings00 Ratings
    Themeable User Interface (UI)8.021 Ratings00 Ratings
    Customizable Platform (Open Source)7.319 Ratings00 Ratings
    Platform Connectivity
    Comparison of Platform Connectivity features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Posit
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    -
    Ratings
    Posit
    9.3
    27 Ratings
    11% above category average
    Connect to Multiple Data Sources00 Ratings8.026 Ratings
    Extend Existing Data Sources00 Ratings10.027 Ratings
    Automatic Data Format Detection00 Ratings10.026 Ratings
    Data Exploration
    Comparison of Data Exploration features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Posit
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    -
    Ratings
    Posit
    9.0
    27 Ratings
    7% above category average
    Visualization00 Ratings8.027 Ratings
    Interactive Data Analysis00 Ratings10.024 Ratings
    Data Preparation
    Comparison of Data Preparation features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Posit
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    -
    Ratings
    Posit
    10.0
    26 Ratings
    20% above category average
    Interactive Data Cleaning and Enrichment00 Ratings10.024 Ratings
    Data Transformations00 Ratings10.026 Ratings
    Platform Data Modeling
    Comparison of Platform Data Modeling features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Posit
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    -
    Ratings
    Posit
    10.0
    22 Ratings
    17% above category average
    Multiple Model Development Languages and Tools00 Ratings10.022 Ratings
    Single platform for multiple model development00 Ratings10.022 Ratings
    Self-Service Model Delivery00 Ratings10.019 Ratings
    Model Deployment
    Comparison of Model Deployment features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Posit
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    -
    Ratings
    Posit
    9.9
    18 Ratings
    15% above category average
    Flexible Model Publishing Options00 Ratings10.018 Ratings
    Security, Governance, and Cost Controls00 Ratings9.915 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)Posit
    Small Businesses
    Cyfe
    Score4 out of 10
    RapidMiner
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
    Score8.1 out of 10
    Anaconda
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Sisense
    Score6.9 out of 10
    IBM Watson Studio
    Score10 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)Posit
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.9
    (77 ratings)
    10.0
    (123 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.0
    (25 ratings)
    9.7
    (17 ratings)
    Usability
    8.9
    (19 ratings)
    8.0
    (4 ratings)
    Availability
    9.5
    (2 ratings)
    9.4
    (3 ratings)
    Performance
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.9
    (15 ratings)
    8.9
    (9 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    6.9
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    8.5
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.6
    (7 ratings)
    9.3
    (4 ratings)
    Configurability
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Data Sharing and Collaboration
    8.5
    (42 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Data Sources
    8.4
    (41 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.2
    (3 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)Posit
    Likelihood to Recommend
    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
    Posit (formerly RStudio)
    In my humble opinion, if you are working on something related to Statistics, RStudio is your go-to tool. But if you are looking for something in Machine Learning, look out for Python. The beauty is that there are packages now by which you can write Python/SQL in R. Cross-platform functionality like such makes RStudio way ahead of its competition. A couple of chinks in RStudio armor are very small and can be considered as nagging just for the sake of argument. Other than completely based on programming language, I couldn't find significant drawbacks to using RStudio. It is one of the best free software available in the market at present.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    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
    Posit (formerly RStudio)
    • The support is incredibly professional and helpful, and they often go out of their way to help me when something doesn't work.
    • The one-click publishing from RStudio Connect is absolutely amazing, and I really like the way that it deploys your exact package versions, because otherwise, you can get in a terrible mess.
    • Python doesn't feel quite as native as R at the moment but I have definitely deployed stuff in R and Python that works beautifully which is really nice indeed.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    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
    Posit (formerly RStudio)
    • Python integration is newer and still can be rough, especially with when using virtual environments.
    • RStudio Connect pricing feels very department focused, not quite an enterprise perspective.
    • Some of the RStudio packages don't follow conventional development guidelines (API breaking changes with minor version numbers) which can make supporting larger projects over longer timeframes difficult.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    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
    Posit (formerly RStudio)
    There is no viable alternative right now. The toolset is good and the functionality is increasing with every release. It is backed by regular releases and ongoing development by the RStudio team. There is good engagement with RStudio directly when support is required. Also there's a strong and growing community of developers who provide additional support and sample code.
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    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
    Posit (formerly RStudio)
    For someone who learns how to use the software and picks up on the "language" of R, it's very easy to use. For beginners, it can be hard and might require a course, as well as the appropriate statistical training to understand what packages to use and when
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Microsoft
    The product has been reliable.
    Read full review
    Posit (formerly RStudio)
    RStudio is very available and cheap to use. It needs to be updated every once in a while, but the updates tend to be quick and they do not hinder my ability to make progress. I have not experienced any RStudio outages, and I have used the application quite a bit for a variety of statistical analyses
    Incentivized
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    Performance
    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
    Posit (formerly RStudio)
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    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
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    Posit (formerly RStudio)
    Since R is trendy among statisticians, you can find lots of help from the data science/ stats communities. If you need help with anything related to RStudio or R, google it or search on StackOverflow, you might easily find the solution that you are looking for.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Microsoft
    This training was more directed toward what the product was capable of rather than actual programming.
    Read full review
    Posit (formerly RStudio)
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    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
    Posit (formerly RStudio)
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    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
    Posit (formerly RStudio)
    We did it at the individual level: anyone willing to code in R can use it. No real deployment involved.
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    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
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    Posit (formerly RStudio)
    RStudio was provided as the most customizable. It was also strictly the most feature-rich as far as enabling our organization to script, run, and make use of R open-source packages in our data analysis workstreams. It also provided some support for python, which was useful when we had R heavy code with some python threaded in. Overall we picked Rstudio for the features it provided for our data analysis needs and the ability to interface with our existing resources.
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Posit (formerly RStudio)
    RStudio is very scalable as a product. The issue I have is that it doesn't necessarily fit in nicely with the mainly Microsoft environment that everybody else is using. Having RStudio for us means dedicated servers and recruiting staff who know how to manage the environment. This isn't a fault of the product at all, it's just part of the data science landscape that we all have to put up with. Having said that RStudio is absolutely great for running on low spec servers and there are loads of options to handle concurrency, memory use, etc.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    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
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    Posit (formerly RStudio)
    • Using it for data science in a very big and old company, the most positive impact, from my point of view, has been the ability of spreading data culture across the group. Shortening the path from data to value.
    • Still it's hard to quantify economic benefits, we are struggling and it's a great point of attention, since splitting out the contribution of the single aspects of a project (and getting the RStudio pie) is complicated.
    • What is sure is that, in the long run, RStudio is boosting productivity and making the process in which is embedded more efficient (cost reduction).
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots

    Posit Screenshots

    Screenshot of Posit runs on most desktops or on a server and accessed over the webScreenshot of Posit supports authoring HTML, PDF, Word Documents, and slide showsScreenshot of Posit supports interactive graphics with Shiny and ggvisScreenshot of Shiny combines the computational power of R with the interactivity of the modern webScreenshot of Remote Interactive Sessions: Start R and Python processes from Posit Workbench within various systems such as Kubernetes and SLURM with Launcher.Screenshot of Jupyter: Author and edit Python code with Jupyter using the same Posit Workbench infrastructure.