Microsoft BI (MSBI) vs. RapidMiner

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
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
RapidMiner
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
RapidMiner is a data science and data mining platform, from Altair since the late 2022 acquisition. RapidMiner offers full automation for non-coding domain experts, an integrated JupyterLab environment for seasoned data scientists, and a visual drag-and-drop designer. RapidMiner’s project-based framework helps to ensure that others can build off their work using visual workflows or automated data science.
$7,500
Per User Per Month
Pricing
Microsoft BI (MSBI)RapidMiner
Editions & Modules
Power BI Pro
$9.99
per user/per month
Power BI Premium
4,995
per month
Professional
$7,500.00
Per User Per Month
Enterprise
$15,000.00
Per User Per Month
AI Hub
$54,000.00
Per User Per Month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft BI (MSBI)RapidMiner
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Microsoft BI (MSBI)RapidMiner
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Microsoft BI (MSBI)RapidMiner
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
8.6
49 Ratings
5% above category average
RapidMiner
-
Ratings
Pixel Perfect reports9.042 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.049 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates8.947 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
8.7
49 Ratings
7% above category average
RapidMiner
-
Ratings
Drill-down analysis8.944 Ratings00 Ratings
Formatting capabilities8.049 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages8.939 Ratings00 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration8.949 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
8.9
48 Ratings
6% above category average
RapidMiner
-
Ratings
Publish to Web8.944 Ratings00 Ratings
Publish to PDF8.944 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Versioning8.940 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling8.943 Ratings00 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers8.924 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
8.9
48 Ratings
10% above category average
RapidMiner
-
Ratings
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)8.947 Ratings00 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.944 Ratings00 Ratings
Predictive Analytics8.942 Ratings00 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
8.9
49 Ratings
3% above category average
RapidMiner
-
Ratings
Multi-User Support (named login)8.946 Ratings00 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model8.943 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.946 Ratings00 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)8.928 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
8.5
39 Ratings
6% above category average
RapidMiner
-
Ratings
Responsive Design for Web Access8.036 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Application8.027 Ratings00 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile9.936 Ratings00 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
8.8
21 Ratings
10% above category average
RapidMiner
-
Ratings
REST API8.919 Ratings00 Ratings
Javascript API8.919 Ratings00 Ratings
iFrames8.918 Ratings00 Ratings
Java API8.917 Ratings00 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)8.918 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)8.017 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform Connectivity
Comparison of Platform Connectivity features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
-
Ratings
RapidMiner
9.5
2 Ratings
12% above category average
Connect to Multiple Data Sources00 Ratings10.02 Ratings
Extend Existing Data Sources00 Ratings10.02 Ratings
Automatic Data Format Detection00 Ratings9.02 Ratings
MDM Integration00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Data Exploration
Comparison of Data Exploration features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
-
Ratings
RapidMiner
9.0
2 Ratings
7% above category average
Visualization00 Ratings9.02 Ratings
Interactive Data Analysis00 Ratings9.02 Ratings
Data Preparation
Comparison of Data Preparation features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
-
Ratings
RapidMiner
8.8
2 Ratings
7% above category average
Interactive Data Cleaning and Enrichment00 Ratings9.02 Ratings
Data Transformations00 Ratings7.02 Ratings
Data Encryption00 Ratings9.02 Ratings
Built-in Processors00 Ratings10.02 Ratings
Platform Data Modeling
Comparison of Platform Data Modeling features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
-
Ratings
RapidMiner
9.0
2 Ratings
6% above category average
Multiple Model Development Languages and Tools00 Ratings9.02 Ratings
Automated Machine Learning00 Ratings9.02 Ratings
Single platform for multiple model development00 Ratings9.02 Ratings
Self-Service Model Delivery00 Ratings9.02 Ratings
Model Deployment
Comparison of Model Deployment features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
-
Ratings
RapidMiner
9.0
2 Ratings
5% above category average
Flexible Model Publishing Options00 Ratings9.02 Ratings
Security, Governance, and Cost Controls00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
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Microsoft BI (MSBI)RapidMiner
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Score 8.9 out of 10
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Score 7.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
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Score 9.9 out of 10
Mathematica
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Score 8.3 out of 10
Enterprises
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Score 9.7 out of 10
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All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Microsoft BI (MSBI)RapidMiner
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(73 ratings)
10.0
(18 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.0
(25 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.9
(14 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
9.5
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.9
(15 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
6.9
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.5
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.6
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Microsoft BI (MSBI)RapidMiner
Likelihood to Recommend
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
Altair Engineering, Inc.
RapidMiner is really fantastic to perform fast ETL processes and work on your data as you want, no matter what is the source. You will really save a lot of time when you learn how to use it. You can create mining analysis with several algorithms, and thanks to add-ons, you can apply a lot of techniques. It will not replace a business intelligence dashboard but it allows to create great datamarts for your BI tools. One negative thing is that It's no easy to share your outputs.
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.
Read full review
Altair Engineering, Inc.
  • I am very impressed at how easily you can work within RapidMiner without much data analytics training. Plus with the help of the crowd, you can see what steps others have taken with their data analytics projects.
  • Text mining was simple and clean. We used this for our call transcription problem where we didn't have the resources to listen to each call. We needed to qualify each call based on some key phrases.
  • Our direct mail program was large and not very targeted. Using RapidMiner, we were able to isolate a predictive level we felt comfortable with and decided not to send to anyone below that level. We saved quite a bit of money.
Read full review
Cons
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
Altair Engineering, Inc.
  • I hope RapidMiner would be the first data science platform that allows data scientists to change the behaviour of a machine learning algorithm that already exists in the repository. For example, I want to be able to change the way a genetic algorithm mutates.
  • Automatic programming: One day, I hope RapidMiner can automatically generate codes in any 4th generation programming language based on the developed model.
  • More tutorials/samples needed: Why doesn't RapidMiner becomes the next 'UC Irvine Machine Learning Repository'? Provide real examples and real cases for users to study and understand the best practices in modelling. RapidMiner already has some datasets for a tutorial. Besides the existing samples, I hope RapidMiner can provide more sample data and examples.
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
Altair Engineering, Inc.
Very fast and user-friendly tool
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Altair Engineering, Inc.
Very use to use and learn
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Microsoft
The product has been reliable.
Read full review
Altair Engineering, Inc.
No answers on this topic
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
Altair Engineering, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
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.
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Altair Engineering, Inc.
No answers on this topic
In-Person Training
Microsoft
This training was more directed toward what the product was capable of rather than actual programming.
Read full review
Altair Engineering, Inc.
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
Altair Engineering, Inc.
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.
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Altair Engineering, Inc.
No answers on this topic
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.
Read full review
Altair Engineering, Inc.
We tried different data tools and we figured we give RapidMinder Studio a shot as one of our employees had experience with it, and when compared to some of the other tools that we used it was the best fit among the test group that we used. Overall it was a little more fluid and user-friendly.
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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.
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Altair Engineering, Inc.
  • Thanks to the patters that RapidMiner has detected, we have been able to follow clues in the right direction, both for the Protein Interaction Network Analysis and for the Epilepsy Research
  • Students and participants of the machine learning workshops have learned about this technology and about the tool
Read full review
ScreenShots