Microsoft Power BI vs. SAS Visual Analytics

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Microsoft Power BI
Score 8.3 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
SAS Visual Analytics
Score 8.3 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
SAS Visual Analytics provides a complete platform for analytics visualization, enabling users to identify patterns and relationships in data that weren't initially evident. Interactive, self-service BI and reporting capabilities are combined with out-of-the-box advanced analytics so everyone can discover insights from any size and type of data, including text.
$0
Annual By Users: 5, 10, 20
Pricing
Microsoft Power BISAS Visual Analytics
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
SAS Visual Analytics for SAS Cloud
Annual By Users: 5, 10, 20
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft Power BISAS Visual Analytics
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsSAS Visual Statistics and SAS Office Analytics are also available as add-ons.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Microsoft Power BISAS Visual Analytics
Top Pros
Top Cons
TrustRadius Insights
Microsoft Power BISAS Visual Analytics
Highlights

TrustRadius
Research Team Insight
Published

Microsoft Power BI and SAS Visual Analytics are both data visualization and business intelligence (BI) tools aimed at helping businesses gain insights from business data. Microsoft Power BI has a strong community presence, with an open-source repository of user-created visualizations. SAS Visual Analytics, as part of the SAS suite of products, is an industry standard with strong predictive analytics and data preparation features. 

SAS Visual Analytics is most popular by far with enterprise-level companies, who likely get more value out of the overall SAS suite of business intelligence tools than smaller businesses would. Microsoft Power BI, on the other hand, is almost equally popular with mid-size businesses as well as enterprise-level corporations, likely due to its cheaper per-user licensing and integration with the Microsoft Office 365 suite.

Features

Although both SAS Visual Analytics and Microsoft Power BI offer self-service data visualization and individualized dashboards, they each stand out in their own ways.

Microsoft Power BI offers an extensive degree of variety and customization for their visualizations through their open-source repository. The charts offered are professional and granular, making it easy to drill down on specific data points or categories. The software is designed with sharing in mind, making it easy to share visualizations with other users. 

SAS Visual Analytics is commonly praised for its solid performance, especially at scale. It can effectively support many simultaneous users without slowing down. Its data preparation capabilities help users ensure that the data they’re visualizing is meaningful and properly formatted.

Limitations

Microsoft Power BI and SAS Visual Analytics are each powerful tools in their own right, but they also have key limitations that you should consider before choosing one or the other.

SAS Visual Analytics has a more limited set of visualizations than Microsoft Power BI, since there’s no open-source database to pull from or contribute to. Some users may find its visual customization options too limiting.Others found that its tools for generating PDF reports left much to be desired. SAS Visual Analytics also has a much higher price point than Microsoft Power BI, which can be exclusionary for smaller businesses.

Microsoft Power BI’s open-source visualization repository can also be a drawback. Tracking down documentation for visualizations can be difficult, if the documentation exists at all. Beginner users often report that they have a hard time getting started with the software, and there’s a steep learning curve before they’re able to use its more advanced features. It can also take a lot of computer resources, and might run slowly for some users.

Pricing

Microsoft Power BI offers two options for pricing. The Power BI Pro tier is $9.99 monthly per user and includes all of its self-service visualization and BI features on the cloud, with 10 GB of storage per user and a limitation of 1 GB for each individual dataset. The Power BI Premium tier is $4,995 monthly with no additional per-user fee and adds features aimed at enterprise-level BI, including big data analytics and on-premises deployment. It also expands the storage to 100 TB total, with a 10 GB maximum size per dataset.

Pricing for SAS Visual Analytics is available via quote from the vendor.

Features
Microsoft Power BISAS Visual Analytics
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
7.3
138 Ratings
12% below category average
SAS Visual Analytics
8.3
12 Ratings
1% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports6.6118 Ratings8.012 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.1138 Ratings8.012 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates7.3126 Ratings9.011 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
7.1
139 Ratings
13% below category average
SAS Visual Analytics
8.8
13 Ratings
8% above category average
Drill-down analysis7.3138 Ratings9.013 Ratings
Formatting capabilities6.5137 Ratings8.013 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages7.6102 Ratings8.011 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration7.0134 Ratings10.012 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
7.8
133 Ratings
7% below category average
SAS Visual Analytics
9.2
13 Ratings
10% above category average
Publish to Web8.2128 Ratings9.012 Ratings
Publish to PDF8.2121 Ratings9.013 Ratings
Report Versioning7.3101 Ratings9.010 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling8.6103 Ratings10.012 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers6.873 Ratings9.07 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
7.6
135 Ratings
6% below category average
SAS Visual Analytics
9.7
11 Ratings
18% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)7.6130 Ratings10.010 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization7.8121 Ratings10.011 Ratings
Predictive Analytics7.5101 Ratings9.010 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
8.2
126 Ratings
5% below category average
SAS Visual Analytics
8.3
12 Ratings
4% below category average
Multi-User Support (named login)8.2120 Ratings9.012 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model8.8102 Ratings8.011 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.3110 Ratings8.012 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control7.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)8.694 Ratings8.08 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
7.9
117 Ratings
1% below category average
SAS Visual Analytics
8.3
10 Ratings
4% above category average
Responsive Design for Web Access8.0111 Ratings10.010 Ratings
Mobile Application7.493 Ratings9.08 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile7.5112 Ratings9.09 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
8.4
80 Ratings
6% above category average
SAS Visual Analytics
9.2
6 Ratings
15% above category average
REST API8.172 Ratings10.05 Ratings
Javascript API9.556 Ratings9.05 Ratings
iFrames8.055 Ratings9.05 Ratings
Java API7.946 Ratings9.05 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)8.263 Ratings9.05 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)8.344 Ratings9.03 Ratings
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User Ratings
Microsoft Power BISAS Visual Analytics
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(140 ratings)
9.0
(18 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.3
(3 ratings)
Usability
8.9
(56 ratings)
6.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(52 ratings)
8.0
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
Microsoft Power BISAS Visual Analytics
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft
In operations we use the tool for many different topics, from factory quality systems to high level reviews. We have created kind of an internal "App Store" based on Power BI where you have a lot of different dashboards for different solutions (cost, cash, health and safety, sales, factories, distribution centers...) and you as an user just need to get in that "App Store" and enter in whatever tool can be useful for you. It is open to all the operations employees and can use on demand. Also it has raised the imagination of our colleagues, as they are not only working by themselves creating new reports, but also raising fantastic ideas that can be extended for the usage of all the community.
Read full review
SAS
I was in a meeting with the client and there I have to show them some analytic data to them. But I was confused about how I will manage to show big data to clients with accuracy. But then the SAS Visual Analytics software helps me in presenting accurate data at the moment and it was very presentable and through that, I got the deal for that business.
Read full review
Pros
Microsoft
  • Quickly filter and view granular data sets with easily configurable reporting figures.
  • The ability to quickly switch between tabs allows for historical data comparisons and progress tracking.
  • It's helpful to dive into the data and break it down from high levels to small.
  • Achieve actionable insights faster by using real-time data. It's incredible to have online access to reports.
Read full review
SAS
  • Provides the flexibility to the end user to slice and dice the data.
  • Anyone can make predictive models with the help of in-built algorithms without the need to write a single line of code or knowledge of what's under the hood of algorithms.
  • The feature to simply ask a question related to data and getting a response in form of text, chart or graph is amazing.
Read full review
Cons
Microsoft
  • The desktop app is great but needs a lot of performance improvements
  • No MacOS Version for the Desktop app, this is a big limitation for business since executives prefer Macs
  • Premium Cloud Version of Power BI is awfully expensive
  • On-Premise Version of the Power BI Reports Server is bundled only with SQL Server Enterprise License and cannot be purchased separately and requires Software Assurance Subscription
  • On-Premise Power BI Report Server doesn't support ADFS, AzureAD or any Claims-Based authentication platform, a sad disadvantage for enterprises
Read full review
SAS
  • SAS is relatively expensive when compared to other BI tools and requires a large amount of upfront fee which becomes an issue for smaller organizations.
  • UI for the dashboards looks a little date in comparison to competitors like Tableau and Microstrategy.
  • Integration with other open source software like Python needs to be built in.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Microsoft
I find it helpful and easy to use
Read full review
SAS
SAS really is the cutting edge in Business Intelligence. That is all they do! They are constantly coming out with new products, product upgrades, and their tech support is second to none. In addition, their support of Education has made our ability to acquire their product possible.
Read full review
Usability
Microsoft
At this point, I think we all know who has taken the lead in the business intelligence and analytics market worldwide. With fresh new updates every other day on top of an already robustly built product with all features that one can dream of is a no brainer, I feel. Microsoft will invariably be synonymous with quality and professionalism.
Read full review
SAS
SAS BI is good for creating reports and dashboards and then sharing it with the users. It also has ability to manage access to the reports and dashboards but somehow with most of the world moving to open source languages R, Python and Julia, SAS BI feels to be archaic in terms of feature set and integrations it allow[s]. Also, comparing it with other Business Intelligence tools like Tableau and Microsoft BI, the functionality of SAS BI is very limited and doesn't justify the pricing.
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Support Rating
Microsoft
I can't really speak to the support overall, [but] I will say that in the almost three years I have used the system, I have only needed to contact their support team once. I think the team was helpful, but it did take some time for us to resolve the issues/ request that they had. I guess the good news is that the system is pretty stable, and I personally have rarely needed to contact their technical support team.
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SAS
When you call tech support, you are immediately routed to a person who can answer your question. Often they can answer on the spot. However, if they cannot, you are given a track number and then followed up with. There have been times when I have had multiple track numbers open and they will actually TRACK YOU DOWN to ensure that your problem has been resolved. Issues do not fall into black holes with SAS. They are also willing to do a WebEx with you to diagnose the problem by seeing your environment, which is always helpful.
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Alternatives Considered
Microsoft
[Microsoft] Power BI is practical and effective, like a hammer for a nail, it is easy to use and produces very quickly the results that in most cases are urgently required by clients (nice reports to share on the web). To start using [Microsoft] Power BI you need a business email address, with that you create an account in Power BI Service and in less than 1 hour you will have installed Power BI Desktop, a report will have been created and it will have been published on the web .
Read full review
SAS
SAS Business Intelligence is not the cream of the crop for business intelligence applications, but it is not far behind. The software is generally easier to apply than most other business intelligence software. Additionally, SAS Business Intelligence runs smoothly in the background when making real-time updates. With that said, the software is not as efficient of many of the other business intelligence software applications that have been on the market for longer than this one.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Microsoft
  • It helps us track and achieve company goals.
  • It shows us [our] performance in areas we could not previously track and allows us to see and work on how to improve their performance.
  • Quick easy access for executives to use in helping teams and addressing issues.
Read full review
SAS
  • SAS Visual Analytics licensing cost should be reduced to enable users to use it in mass scale.
  • More statistical and mathematical equations and theories should be converted into SAS functions for reusing.
  • Because of enriched ETL and reporting capabilities SAS Visual Analytics is most preferred by business users.
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

SAS Visual Analytics Screenshots

Screenshot of Explore your data using analytics and interactive data visualizations.