Microsoft Power BI vs. Roambi (discontinued)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Microsoft Power BI
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Power BI is a visualization and data discovery tool from Microsoft. It allows users to convert data into visuals and graphics, visually explore and analyze data, collaborate on interactive dashboards and reports, and scale across their organization with built-in governance and security.
$10
per month per user
Roambi (discontinued)
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
Roambi was a cloud-based solution designed specifically for mobile data consumers, used to create touch-based data visualizations. It was acquired by SAP in 2016 for the SAP Analytics portfolio, and has since been discontinued as a standalone product.
$10
per user per month
Pricing
Microsoft Power BIRoambi (discontinued)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Starter
$10
per user per month
Business
$39
per user per month
Enterprise
$59
per user per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft Power BIRoambi (discontinued)
Free Trial
YesYes
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 Power BIRoambi (discontinued)
Features
Microsoft Power BIRoambi (discontinued)
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
8.3
196 Ratings
2% above category average
Roambi (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Pixel Perfect reports8.3167 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.7195 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates8.0178 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
8.0
194 Ratings
0% below category average
Roambi (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Drill-down analysis8.3191 Ratings00 Ratings
Formatting capabilities7.8191 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages7.4143 Ratings00 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration8.4189 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
8.0
187 Ratings
2% below category average
Roambi (discontinued)
9.0
1 Ratings
9% above category average
Publish to Web8.2177 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Publish to PDF8.1172 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Versioning7.7144 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling8.2147 Ratings00 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers7.9110 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
7.8
187 Ratings
2% below category average
Roambi (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)8.2181 Ratings00 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.1166 Ratings00 Ratings
Predictive Analytics7.4136 Ratings00 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining7.437 Ratings00 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
8.5
178 Ratings
0% above category average
Roambi (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Multi-User Support (named login)8.7168 Ratings00 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model8.4146 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.4158 Ratings00 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control8.347 Ratings00 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)8.7140 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
8.0
160 Ratings
3% above category average
Roambi (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Responsive Design for Web Access7.7150 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Application7.6131 Ratings00 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile7.9153 Ratings00 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
7.8
115 Ratings
1% above category average
Roambi (discontinued)
-
Ratings
REST API8.1103 Ratings00 Ratings
Javascript API7.684 Ratings00 Ratings
iFrames8.055 Ratings00 Ratings
Java API7.068 Ratings00 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)7.690 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)8.444 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Microsoft Power BIRoambi (discontinued)
Small Businesses
Yellowfin
Yellowfin
Score 8.8 out of 10
Supermetrics
Supermetrics
Score 9.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Supermetrics
Supermetrics
Score 9.9 out of 10
Enterprises
Kyvos Semantic Layer
Kyvos Semantic Layer
Score 9.5 out of 10
IBM Analytics Engine
IBM Analytics Engine
Score 8.5 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Microsoft Power BIRoambi (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(197 ratings)
8.0
(11 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.5
(3 ratings)
6.8
(10 ratings)
Usability
8.3
(113 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(52 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Microsoft Power BIRoambi (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft
Has significantly improved collation of data and visualisation especially with business across Europe. Has given me the ability to see the Site availability at the click of a button to see which Site is in the "money" and seize opportunities based on Market data
Read full review
Discontinued Products
Getting Roambi up to speed in your company certainly is a quick win. After just a few days, several of our reports were mobilized, interactive and automatically updated. Building Roambi reports is not hard to do; the intuitive interface allows virtually any type of user to create his or her own reports.
Read full review
Pros
Microsoft
  • Options for data source connections are immense. Not just which sources, but your options for *how* the data is brought in.
  • Constant updates (this is both good and bad at times).
  • User friendliness. I can get the data connections set up and draft some quick visuals, then release to the target audience and let them expand on it how they want to.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
  • Report templates that are easy to learn, use, update and maintain.
  • Great looking reports that stay up-to-date with what Apple is producing. When Apple rolled out the new look and feel to their iOS7 release, Roambi created a brand new set of reports within two weeks to go along with the iOS7 changes.
  • Seamless integration with our existing BI environment, SAP Business Objects XI, 3.1. This drastically reduced the time from purchase to client-ready roll out from months to weeks.
Read full review
Cons
Microsoft
  • It would be easier for users could Microsoft Power BI and Excel used the same programming languages.
  • Would like to see the online version of Microsoft Power BI be as powerful as the desktop version.
  • Publishing a Microsoft Power BI file online and then having to save the file is somewhat redundant.
  • Would like to export each page or chart as an image.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
  • cardex type of presentation is already innovated in roambi in 2012, even iOS safari browser idea was created from this cardex style
  • blink view is only available for sap and ms sql
  • roambi publisher is very user-friendly and understandable for non technical person as well
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Microsoft
Microsoft Power BI is an excellent and scalable tool. It has a learning curve, but once you get past that, the sky is the limit and you can build from the most simple to the most complex dashboards. I have built everything from simple reports with only a few data points to complex reports with many pages and advanced filtering.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
I would definitely use Roambi again because of its ease-of-use, but its lack of customization ability makes it difficult to recommend to businesses as business needs are always changing. People are picky, and on the Roambi project, we were not able to fully live up to the customer's expectations, limited by Roambi's preset limitations.
Read full review
Usability
Microsoft
Automating reporting has reduced manual data processing by 50-70%, freeing up analysts for higher-value tasks. A finance team that previously spent 20+ hours per week on Excel-based reports now does it in minutes with Microsoft Power BI's automated Real-time dashboards have shortened decision cycles by 30-40%, enabling leadership to react quickly to sales trends, operational bottlenecks, and customer behavior.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
VERY easy to use. Only limited by how the graphs and data is initially set up.
Read full review
Support Rating
Microsoft
It is a fantastic tool, you can do almost everything related with data and reports, it is a perfect substitutive of Power Point and Excel with a high evolution and flexibility, and also it is very friendly and easy to share. I think all companies should have Power BI (or other BI tool) in their software package and if they are in the MS Suite, for sure Power BI should be the one due to all the benefits of the MS ecosystem.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Microsoft
It was integrated with our erp easily and was accessible on cloud.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Microsoft
Microsoft Power BI is free. If I didn't want to create a custom platform (i.e. my organization insisted on an existing platform that I *had* to use), I'd use Microsoft Power BI. For any start-up or SMB, I'd just use Claude & Grok to build it quickly, also for free. Would not pay for Tableau or Sigma anymore. Not worth it at all.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
We have compared Roambi against Business Objects, Reporting Services (on tablet) and Cubeware Cockpit. All those solutions lack in support of touch capabilities and responsiveness. Roambi "feels" just right. There is no training required and users love to explore the application. Compared to Roambi all other solutions feel very technical and hard to understand.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Microsoft
  • Power BI usage reduced the effort of analytical reports creation by about 80%
  • Empowered all the level of employee to be more vigilant of the data and business insights, gained the profit of 8% overall.
  • AI-powered predictive analytics improved forecasting accuracy by 17%, that topped the overall sales.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
  • Increased insights on customer success metrics (using a Layers report).
  • Higher motivation of employees, better communication towards employees, tighter bonds with the company - because of Roambi Flow. Periodic Flow magazines with analytic capabilities are sent out to the employees, as we value frequent and meaningful contact - both ways.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Microsoft Power BI Screenshots

Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Turns insights into impact for business usersScreenshot of Power BI integrates easily with Microsoft 365Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - AI-Powered CapabilitiesScreenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Copilot can be used to create reportsScreenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Data HubScreenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Scales as organizational needs grow