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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

    Visual Studio

    Score8.8 out of 10
    N/AVisual Studio (now in the 2022 edition) is a 64-bit IDE that makes it easier to work with bigger projects and complex workloads, boasting a fluid and responsive experience for users. The IDE features IntelliCode, its automatic code completion tools that understand code context and that can complete up to a whole line at once to drive accurate and confident coding.

    $45

    per month

    Pricing
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)Visual Studio
    Editions & Modules
    Power BI Pro
    $14
    per month per user
    Power BI Premium
    $24
    per month per user
    Professional
    $45.00
    per month
    Enterprise
    $250.00
    per month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)Visual Studio
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)Visual Studio
    Considered Both Products
    Microsoft
    Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    I'd rather not say to avoid unnecessary arguments. Thanks.
    Incentivized
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    15 Answers
    98%
    Would buy again
    40 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    15 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    40 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    15 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    41 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
    32 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    11 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    36 Answers
    Features
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)Visual Studio
    BI Standard Reporting
    Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Microsoft Visual Studio
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    9.0
    53 Ratings
    10% above category average
    Microsoft Visual Studio
    -
    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 Microsoft Visual Studio
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.5
    53 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Microsoft Visual Studio
    -
    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 Microsoft Visual Studio
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.5
    52 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Microsoft Visual Studio
    -
    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 Microsoft Visual Studio
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.7
    52 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Microsoft Visual Studio
    -
    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 Microsoft Visual Studio
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    9.3
    53 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Microsoft Visual Studio
    -
    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 Microsoft Visual Studio
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.0
    42 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Microsoft Visual Studio
    -
    Ratings
    Responsive Design for Web Access8.239 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile Application8.030 Ratings00 Ratings
    Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile7.739 Ratings00 Ratings
    Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
    Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Microsoft Visual Studio
    Feature
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)
    8.5
    24 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Microsoft Visual Studio
    -
    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
    Best Alternatives
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)Visual Studio
    Small Businesses
    Cyfe
    Score4 out of 10
    IntelliJ IDEA
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
    Score8.1 out of 10
    PyCharm
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Sisense
    Score6.9 out of 10
    WebStorm
    Score9.6 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)Visual Studio
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.9
    (77 ratings)
    9.1
    (118 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.0
    (25 ratings)
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    Usability
    8.9
    (19 ratings)
    9.2
    (15 ratings)
    Availability
    9.5
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.9
    (15 ratings)
    8.8
    (15 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    6.9
    (3 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    8.5
    (2 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.6
    (7 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Configurability
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Data Sharing and Collaboration
    8.5
    (42 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Data Sources
    8.4
    (41 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Microsoft BI (MSBI)Visual Studio
    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
    Microsoft
    When working with base C# code for desktop and web projects, then Microsoft Visual Studio is ideal as it provides the libraries and interfaces needed to quickly create, test and deploy solutions. It is when slightly more complex scenarios are required that issues can arise. The built-in integration for things like PowerBI Paginated Reports and dashboards is far from ideal.
    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
    Microsoft
    • I like how the tabs and panels are organized; everything is gathered together so you can find what you're looking for quickly.
    • If you can't find something, there's a thorough search engine that searches all of Visual Studio's features.
    • The Team Foundation Server feature is fantastic since it allows us to easily deploy and roll back changes on the server.
    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
    Microsoft
    • Would be great if there was a better way to save and restore open tabs.
    • The built-in test runner can be improved, for example, by adding the ability to save a set of commonly run tests, etc.
    • Better integration for Microsoft SQL server would be great.
    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
    Microsoft
    VS is the best and is required for building Microsoft applications. The quality and usefulness of the product far out-weight the licensing costs associated with it.
    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
    Microsoft
    I love the overall usability of Microsoft Visual Studio. I’ve been using this IDE for more than 20 years, and I’ve seen it evolve by leaps and bounds. Today, with AI and code-suggestion/completion features, developers no longer need to remember countless libraries, methods, or language syntax, or invest a huge amount of programming effort to complete a project. It truly offers everything a developer needs to program, debug, test, and deploy in a single IDE.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Microsoft
    The product has been reliable.
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    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
    Microsoft
    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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    Microsoft
    There are many resources available supporting Visual Studio IDE. Microsoft whitepapers, forum posts, and online Visual Studio documentation. There are countless demonstration videos available, as well. If users are having issues, they can call Microsoft Support, but depending on the company's agreement with Microsoft, the number of included support calls will vary from organization to organization. I've found that Microsoft support calls can be hit or miss depending on who you get, but they can usually get you with the right support person for your issue.
    Incentivized
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    In-Person Training
    Microsoft
    This training was more directed toward what the product was capable of rather than actual programming.
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    IT is very complicated to understand all the functions that the environment has if you are not familiar with this type of development environments. It is important to select a good in-person training to achieve to understand all the possibilities and the capacity of the application. In this case, you will be able to develop a lot type of different applications.
    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
    Microsoft
    If you are not accustomed to develop in this type of development environments it would be complicated to follow all the parts of the course because if the course does not include a great tour with all the concepts to develop you will not have the option to understand all the functions.
    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.
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    Microsoft
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    I personally feel Visual Studio IDE has [a] better interface and [is more] user friendly than other IDEs. It has better code maintainability and intellisense. Its inbuilt team foundation server help coders to check on their code then and go. Better nugget package management, quality testing and gives features to extract TRX file as result of testing which includes all the summary of each test case.
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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
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Using the integration between Visual Studio and our source control service, the cost of re-work and losing code is drastically reduced.
    • Paid versions of Visual Studio enable developers to be so much more productive than hacked-together open source solutions that it's hard to imagine developing in Windows without it.
    • When combined with support subscriptions and the vast array of free online help options available, Visual Studio saves our developers time by keeping them coding and testing, not wasting their time trying to guess their way out of problems or spend endless hours online hoping to find answers.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots