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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

    ThoughtSpot

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/AThoughtSpot is an Agentic Analytics Platform for enterprises where users ask data questions using natural language and get answers with AI. Code-first for data teams and code-free for business users, ThoughtSpot can handle large, complex cloud data at scale.

    $1,500

    per year (5 users)

    Pricing
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)ThoughtSpot
    Editions & Modules
    Power BI Pro
    $14
    per month per user
    Power BI Premium
    $24
    per month per user
    Thoughtspot Analytics - Pro
    $50
    per month (billed annually) per user (25-1000 users)
    Thoughtspot Analytics - Enterprise
    Custom
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)ThoughtSpot
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)ThoughtSpot
    Considered Both Products
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    ThoughtSpot
    Chose ThoughtSpot
    The main reason for selecting Thoughtspot was to share reporting with other external vendors and ease of doing business.
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    15 Answers
    86%
    Would buy again
    37 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    15 Answers
    91%
    Delivers good value for the price
    29 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    15 Answers
    86%
    Happy with the feature set
    37 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    13 Answers
    80%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    24 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    11 Answers
    91%
    Implementation went as expected
    29 Answers
    Features
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)ThoughtSpot
    BI Standard Reporting
    Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and ThoughtSpot
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    9.0
    53 Ratings
    10% above category average
    ThoughtSpot
    7.3
    89 Ratings
    11% below category average
    Pixel Perfect reports8.546 Ratings6.021 Ratings
    Customizable dashboards9.653 Ratings8.189 Ratings
    Report Formatting Templates8.951 Ratings7.725 Ratings
    Ad-hoc Reporting
    Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and ThoughtSpot
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.5
    53 Ratings
    6% above category average
    ThoughtSpot
    7.5
    91 Ratings
    6% below category average
    Drill-down analysis8.548 Ratings8.390 Ratings
    Formatting capabilities8.253 Ratings7.090 Ratings
    Integration with R or other statistical packages8.342 Ratings5.949 Ratings
    Report sharing and collaboration8.953 Ratings8.888 Ratings
    Report Output and Scheduling
    Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and ThoughtSpot
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.5
    52 Ratings
    3% above category average
    ThoughtSpot
    8.1
    84 Ratings
    1% below category average
    Publish to Web9.348 Ratings8.155 Ratings
    Publish to PDF9.148 Ratings8.478 Ratings
    Report Versioning7.444 Ratings7.918 Ratings
    Report Delivery Scheduling8.547 Ratings8.364 Ratings
    Delivery to Remote Servers8.426 Ratings7.935 Ratings
    Data Discovery and Visualization
    Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and ThoughtSpot
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.7
    52 Ratings
    9% above category average
    ThoughtSpot
    7.2
    86 Ratings
    10% below category average
    Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)9.651 Ratings7.585 Ratings
    Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.748 Ratings7.079 Ratings
    Predictive Analytics7.745 Ratings7.565 Ratings
    Pattern Recognition and Data Mining8.76 Ratings6.913 Ratings
    Access Control and Security
    Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and ThoughtSpot
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    9.3
    53 Ratings
    9% above category average
    ThoughtSpot
    8.1
    86 Ratings
    5% below category average
    Multi-User Support (named login)9.449 Ratings8.282 Ratings
    Role-Based Security Model9.347 Ratings7.974 Ratings
    Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.949 Ratings7.678 Ratings
    Report-Level Access Control9.36 Ratings7.816 Ratings
    Single Sign-On (SSO)9.431 Ratings8.772 Ratings
    Mobile Capabilities
    Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and ThoughtSpot
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.0
    42 Ratings
    3% above category average
    ThoughtSpot
    7.3
    53 Ratings
    6% below category average
    Responsive Design for Web Access8.239 Ratings7.051 Ratings
    Mobile Application8.030 Ratings6.734 Ratings
    Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile7.739 Ratings6.746 Ratings
    Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
    Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and ThoughtSpot
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.5
    24 Ratings
    9% above category average
    ThoughtSpot
    7.2
    51 Ratings
    7% below category average
    REST API9.221 Ratings7.342 Ratings
    Javascript API8.821 Ratings6.835 Ratings
    iFrames8.820 Ratings8.134 Ratings
    Java API8.718 Ratings7.013 Ratings
    Themeable User Interface (UI)8.021 Ratings7.235 Ratings
    Customizable Platform (Open Source)7.319 Ratings7.115 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)ThoughtSpot
    Small Businesses
    Cyfe
    Score4 out of 10
    Cyfe
    Score4 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
    Score8.1 out of 10
    Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
    Score8.1 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Jaspersoft Community Edition
    Score7 out of 10
    Jaspersoft Community Edition
    Score7 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)ThoughtSpot
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.9
    (77 ratings)
    8.4
    (91 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.0
    (25 ratings)
    10.0
    (6 ratings)
    Usability
    8.9
    (19 ratings)
    8.2
    (85 ratings)
    Availability
    9.5
    (2 ratings)
    9.0
    (3 ratings)
    Performance
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    8.0
    (3 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.9
    (15 ratings)
    8.0
    (4 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    6.9
    (3 ratings)
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    8.5
    (2 ratings)
    4.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.6
    (7 ratings)
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    Configurability
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Data Sharing and Collaboration
    8.5
    (42 ratings)
    7.8
    (5 ratings)
    Data Sources
    8.4
    (41 ratings)
    8.4
    (5 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (3 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)ThoughtSpot
    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
    ThoughtSpot
    It is well suited when the same data is consumed by many different people with different analytics and visualization requirements because, if you have the data available in ThoughtSpot, every user can prepare different views. Also, it is a good reporting tool, you can get rid of slides if you have a good dashboard prepared, gaining flexibility and agility.
    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
    ThoughtSpot
    • Beautiful visualizations. The visuals are distinct, clean, and easy to discern from one another.
    • Intelligent querying functionality. When looking to manipulate the data, the search function makes it easy to manipulate the features in the data, along with aggregating them in the way you'd like.
    • Embedding! It has been a smooth process thus far for our product & technical teams to work with ThoughtSpot and bring it into our product.
    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
    ThoughtSpot
    • It would be great if ThoughtSpot can add the feature to filter by clicking on visualizations. i.e if I click on a particular data point in the chart if the full dashboard can filter just for that particular data point.
    • Color coding the heatmap with different colors like green to orange to red.
    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
    ThoughtSpot
    I give it just waiting because passport is brilliant and it has helped our organisation In advancing to the next stage in the age of AI. It has allowed or non-tech people to better service and clients in a cost-effective way. George port has allowed us to create new products for us and for our clients increasing our revenue streams and reducing clients churn
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ThoughtSpot
    The rating is because of the ease of use of the interface as it has a no code interface that makes it easy to setup data pipelines without extensive programming. Cloud native integration: It integrates seamlessly with cloud based data warehouses. Automated data loading, Scalability, Cost Effective, Transformations, Data Governance and security.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Microsoft
    The product has been reliable.
    Read full review
    ThoughtSpot
    it's available unless there is a server or system update etc. sometimes the timing of this is bad (for example during a month end close)
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    ThoughtSpot
    It does what it is supposed to. Would be nice to have a bit more insights
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    ThoughtSpot
    I give it this meeting because the team is not only help able to help us in the current solutions but also amazing and taking feedback and feeding it back to their development team which includes more products and features into ThoughtSpot
    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
    ThoughtSpot
    inhouse in-person training. Took a bit to long to get the basics.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    ThoughtSpot
    poor instructions
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    ThoughtSpot
    Understand use case and model and design accordingly
    Incentivized
    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
    Read full review
    ThoughtSpot
    We also explored Tableau Ask Data. Tableau is our standard for BI in our organization. We want to use the smallest amount of tools in our company to have the best adaption. ThoughSpot will fill a few gaps that we have with our current set up and will also enhance out offering for our employees in the transition of being more data driven within in near future
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    ThoughtSpot
    Because it is very reliable, inside the situation, we need strong internet connection to access a lot of data but easily never had any downtime except during the upgrades
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    ThoughtSpot
    • Time to market ROI is massive vs hiring the full-time dedicated team to build and maintain a frontend multi-tenant SaaS data viz product.
    • It will be interesting to see over time how the advanced features play out in terms of usability and end value, such as Natural Search, which we are very excited about, and the machine learning tools.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    ThoughtSpot Screenshots

    Screenshot of the ThoughtSpot home screenScreenshot of SpotIQ, which offers AI-driven insightsScreenshot of the Spotter AI agent that surfaces insights through natural language queriesScreenshot of AI Assist producing SQL in real timeScreenshot of SpotIQ, which offers AI-driven insightsScreenshot of the integration with dbt models and metrics