Microsoft Power BI vs. Wolfram Mathematica

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Microsoft Power BI
Score 8.5 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
Mathematica
Score 7.0 out of 10
N/A
Wolfram's flagship product Mathematica is a modern technical computing application featuring a flexible symbolic coding language and a wide array of graphing and data visualization capabilities.
$1,520
per year
Pricing
Microsoft Power BIWolfram Mathematica
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Standard Cloud
$1,520
per year
Standard Desktop
$3,040
one-time fee
Standard Desktop & Cloud
$3,344
one-time fee
Mathematica Enterprise Edition
$8,150.00
one-time fee
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft Power BIMathematica
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsDiscounts available for students and educational institutions. The Network Edition reduce per-user license costs through shared deployment across any number of machines on a local-area network.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Microsoft Power BIWolfram Mathematica
Features
Microsoft Power BIWolfram Mathematica
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
Wolfram Mathematica
9.9
6 Ratings
20% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports8.3167 Ratings9.84 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.7195 Ratings9.94 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates8.0178 Ratings9.96 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
Wolfram Mathematica
9.9
9 Ratings
24% above category average
Drill-down analysis8.3191 Ratings9.98 Ratings
Formatting capabilities7.8191 Ratings9.98 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages7.4143 Ratings9.97 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration8.4189 Ratings9.99 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
Wolfram Mathematica
9.3
8 Ratings
13% above category average
Publish to Web8.2177 Ratings9.97 Ratings
Publish to PDF8.1172 Ratings9.08 Ratings
Report Versioning7.7144 Ratings9.97 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling8.2147 Ratings8.95 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers7.9110 Ratings8.95 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
Wolfram Mathematica
9.9
9 Ratings
24% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)8.2181 Ratings9.99 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.1166 Ratings9.98 Ratings
Predictive Analytics7.4136 Ratings9.98 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
Wolfram Mathematica
-
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
Wolfram Mathematica
-
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
Wolfram Mathematica
-
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 BIWolfram Mathematica
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 BIWolfram Mathematica
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(197 ratings)
9.9
(9 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.5
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.3
(113 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(52 ratings)
9.5
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Microsoft Power BIWolfram Mathematica
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
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Wolfram
We are the judgement that Wolfram Mathematica is despite many critics based on the paradigms selected a mark in the fields of the markets for computations of all kind. Wolfram Mathematica is even a choice in fields where other bolide systems reign most of the market. Wolfram Mathematica offers rich flexibility and internally standardizes the right methodologies for his user community. Wolfram Mathematica is not cheap and in need of a hard an long learner journey. That makes it weak in comparison with of-the-shelf-solution packages or even other programming languages. But for systematization of methods Wolfram Mathematica is far in front of almost all the other. Scientist and interested people are able to develop themself further and Wolfram Matheamatica users are a human variant for themself. The reach out for modern mathematics based science is deep and a unique unified framework makes the whole field of mathematics accessable comparable to the brain of Albert Einstein. The paradigms incorporated are the most efficients and consist in assembly on the market. The mathematics is covering and fullfills not just education requirements but the demands and needs of experts.
Mathematica is incompatible with other systems for mCAx and therefore the borders between the systems are hard to overcome. Wolfram Mathematica should be consider one of the more open systems because other code can be imported and run but on the export side it is rathe incompatible by design purposes. A better standard for all that might solve the crisis but there is none in sight. Selection of knowledge of what works will be in the future even more focussed and general system might be one the lossy side. Knowledge of esthetics of what will be in the highest demand in necessary and Wolfram is not a leader in this field of science. Mathematics leves from gathering problems from application fields and less from the glory of itself and the formalization of this.
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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.
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Wolfram
  • It allows straightforward integration of analytic analysis of algebraic expressions and their numerical implemented.
  • Supports varying programmatic paradigms, so one can choose what best fits the problem or task: pure functions, procedural programming, list processing, and even (with a bit of setup) object-oriented programming.
  • The extensive and rich tools for graphical rendering make it very easy to not just get 2D and 3D renderings of final output, but also to do quick-and-dirty 2D and 3D rendering of intermediate results and/or debugging results.
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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.
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Wolfram
  • Should include more libraries and functions.
  • Should include more functions that can be used in Machine Learning.
  • Should include more functions that can be used in Data Science.
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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.
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Wolfram
No answers on this topic
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.
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Wolfram
No answers on this topic
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.
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Wolfram
Wolfram Mathematica is a nice software package. It has very nice features and easy to install and use in your machine. Besides this, there is a nice support from Wolfram. They come to the university frequently to give seminars in Mathematica. I think this is the best thing they are doing. That is very helpful for graduate and undergraduate students who are using Mathematica in their research.
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Implementation Rating
Microsoft
It was integrated with our erp easily and was accessible on cloud.
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Wolfram
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.
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Wolfram
We have evaluated and are using in some cases the Python language in concert with the Jupyter notebook interface. For UI, we using libraries like React to create visually stunning visualizations of such models. Mathematica compares favorably to this alternative in terms of speed of development. Mathematica compares unfavorably to this alternative in terms of license costs.
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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
Wolfram
  • Easy to solve huge mathematical equations, so it saved time there
  • Doing analysis and plotting graphs is also another plus point
  • Learning is very slow, and it took lot of time to learn its scripting language
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