Microsoft Power BI vs. Sigma Computing

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.
$14
per month (billed annually) per user
Sigma
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Sigma Computing headquartered in San Francisco provides a suite of data services such as code free data modeling, data search and explorating, and related BI and data visualization services.N/A
Pricing
Microsoft Power BISigma Computing
Editions & Modules
Power BI Pro
$14
per month (billed annually) per user
Power BI Premium
$24
per month (billed annually) per user
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft Power BISigma
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional DetailsPower BI Desktop is the data exploration and report authoring experience for Power BI, and is available as a free download.Contact us for pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Microsoft Power BISigma Computing
Considered Both Products
Microsoft Power BI
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Tableau having pure visuals, we can't make custom visuals. Power BI costs around $10 per month, but Tableau costs around $30-$40 per month, so comparing with Power BI it is costly. Using Power BI is very easy for everyone (technical/non-technical), but tableau is only can …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Plotly has been used to create time-series charts that we are hosting internally. Sometimes, it hasn't been easy for us to set up a data gateway. (for security) To get an internal report, we used Plotly instead of Power BI. Plotly does require some JavaScript knowledge to …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Microsoft Power BI has more templates and the control panel for modifying data visualizations is more powerful with more choices of line charts, bar charts, maps/scatter points than Google sheets, which is limited to simple bar charts and pie charts.
Chose Microsoft Power BI
We were able to bundle Power BI with other Microsoft products we rely on heavily. This and the customization options were the main sellers for us.
Chose Microsoft Power BI
All others apps are enablers and Microsoft Power BI is the visual that end user sees which often adds more value to the end user to make strategic decisions from this. All are equally great but Microsoft Power BI is the end result
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Microsoft Power BI vs. Tableau Power BI cheaper and works well with Microsoft tools. Tableau has better visuals but is costly. Microsoft Power BII vs. Looker Looker is good for big data, but Microsoft Power BI is easier to use. Microsoft Power BI vs. Qlik Qlik is fast for big …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Microsoft Power BI provide a user friendly in many ways to analyse the data and visualization of the data .Stacking makes the works easier easily attach the table ,chart row and column through the various available tool ..it also reduces the work part and manpower mechanically …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Microsoft Power BI is more flexible and it requires less effort in order to create a working environment. The results have an attractive and customizable display. The model is a star schema therefore it do not require specific database adaptation. Excel and csv files could be …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
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 …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Same need to be large scale.
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Microsoft Power BI is easier to learn, a lot of examples on YouTube, internet documentation books helps to the implementation and personalization of the dashboards easier to use than other platforms.
Chose Microsoft Power BI
While excel can be useful for a very quick data dump, Microsoft Power BI is able to bring that data to life, and show trends and the actual story of what is happening. Microsoft Power BI is the ultimate display tool, and allows us to share information quickly to the CORRECT …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Compared to this tool, Microsoft Power BI doesn't involve heavy coding and provides user friendly interface to visualize data. Microsoft Power BI reports can be shared and published without exposing your source code. Also, the reports are interactive providing drill down …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Power BI is much simple to use, and more modern than BusinessObjects, which has now been discontinued. It costs much less to license than Tableau which is perhaps more niche and designed better. It is also much more powerful for data analysis than excel, smartsheet, airtable, …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Some of the strengths are 1. User-Friendliness 2. Self-Service BI (Caters to all levels of the employees 3. Cost-effective. 4. Easy integration with Microsoft Suits. 5. DAX Calculations 6. Familiar Interface like traditional Excel. 7. Easier Self-Service platform for …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
It's got a larger user base and seems better supported. Personally it feels like alot more work getting comparable results from Tableau. Microsoft Power BI will be WAY easier to work with all your various data sources, if you are working in an environment with M365 already. …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
After several years using Google Looker Studio and BigQuery, Microsoft Power BI is a step-up in terms of visualizations. It is also much more powerful, leading to less errors and has a more intuitive interface. Looker studio has a focus on google analytics whereas Microsoft …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
NA - did not use any other software, yet. Happy with the services and features provided by Microsoft Power BI which helps us navigate through the client requests on a daily basis while also providing actionable insights / solutions with maximum efficiency and that too in a …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
It's the most widely used tool in most organizations
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Each has a different function. I think Microsoft Power BI is easier to use than Tableau and cheaper but SQL and databricks have so much more versatility
Chose Microsoft Power BI
We use Microsoft Power BI in addition to other software.
Chose Microsoft Power BI
I prefer Power BI because of its affordability and fewer complicated tools than Tableau. It's easy to use and compatible with other Microsoft products, which are mostly used in the IT industry. It's not limited to only one platform like Looker Studio, which is mostly used in …
Sigma
Chose Sigma
I am not an expert in any of these, though from my brief exposure to Looker it felt like a steeper learning curve, more appropriate to companies with dedicated and skilled BI engineers, whereas Sigma (and Tableau, and Looker Studio) offer a quicker and more intuitive interface …
Chose Sigma
Ease of use, access for teams, adhoc and iterative data analyses, from non-technical users, to experience data analysis teams.
Chose Sigma
Sigma Computing exclusively uses Snowflake as its data source, which enhances data security by not caching or extracting data locally. Tableau, on the other hand, allows a broader range of internal databases and files like SQL Server, Postgres, etc., and supports extracted …
Chose Sigma
Microsoft Power BI, Qlik Analytics Platform and Microsoft Excel
Chose Sigma
maintianed is very user friendly. Its various ways of embedding helped us in various aspects. The usage of control ids of the filters as parameters helped us in optimizing very longSQL queries. The live Support team every weekday is a very great intiative that helped in quick …
Chose Sigma
I'd rate Sigma to be extremely similar to Sisense except it looks not as nice. I would say that as a tool, Sigma is more user-friendly than Tableau, Power BI, Trevor, and Metabase.

I do feel that Looker is far more powerful and looks great, but I also recognize that Looker does …
Chose Sigma
Sigma computing has better pricing than the competitors. We're always looking for what is good for the price but also gives us all we need to complete our reporting. It also brings about a lot of updates that are nice to see. The embedding helps other BI tools sometimes.
Chose Sigma
We did not have any similar reporting system like Sigma.
Chose Sigma
Sigma has a better view of tables and it is much easier to create new data sets/aggregations. Tableau is better in some visual aspects because there is more customization available, albeit more confusing than Sigma to do. Sigma is very intuitive and did not take long to learn …
Chose Sigma
Sigma Computing had better functionality and is beginner friendly. While Tableau is a more well known product, Sigma Computing has a better user interface that is easier to comprehend for those without a non-technical background. This makes it easier to showcase dashboards to …
Chose Sigma
Sigma is better than Tableau in my opinion because Sigma has the connection to live data, rather than stale csv files.
Chose Sigma
Sigma is the easiest to use from a workbook developer perspective, and from a non-technical end user perspective. Everything from administration, semantic layer setup, to creating dashboards is easier in Sigma than these other tools. Developing content in Sigma is enjoyable, …
Chose Sigma
Sigma has the capabilities of the other BI tools. I think it's pretty user friendly and easy to learn. Many of our stakeholders are used to using Excel so it's nice that it is a smooth onboarding process for them. We haven't looked into much of the visualization capabilities so …
Chose Sigma
I have found that Tableau can be used to create a greater variety of custom and complex visuals, though these visuals are far more difficult to create in a quick turnaround. While Sigma may be more limited in terms of what types of visuals can be create or how customized they …
Chose Sigma
With Looker, to be effective, a substantial amount of coding & modeling needs to happen in LookML. Being another language to learn, users have to context switch again from at a minimum either SQL or Python into LookML. The concept of being able to source control, code review, …
Chose Sigma
Less visually appealing. Feels like fewer pixels. Harder to make graphs and visuals. Really good integration with snowflake and intuitive usage for custom equations and filters.
Chose Sigma
2 biggest reasons for Sigma were easy of use for power users, and cost of having a large amount of viewers of the data.
Chose Sigma
Much more customizable than Looker Studio
Some features are way better than Cluvio. But Cluvio search bar was better.
Chose Sigma
I was not involved in the buying and decision-making process.
Chose Sigma
Not even a comparison, Sigma is a far superior BI and data visualization tool
Chose Sigma
sorta in the middle.
One thing that differs than domo or power bi, is that those softwares bring in the data into the platform, instead of how sigma runs a query against our data warehouse each time a user interacts with the dashboard (there is some small caching, so not always)
Chose Sigma
Sigma is by far the best. It is easiest to learn and easiest to use on a day to day basis. I never have to wait for dashboards to load and it's very easy to understand the variables that are going into my visualizations. Best of all I can manipulate the data within Sigma …
Chose Sigma
flexibility, works really well with snowflake, export capability, level of support, the fact that Sigma Computing is a start up and improving so quickly. Web based software
Features
Microsoft Power BISigma Computing
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
8.2
Ratings
0% above category average
Sigma Computing
7.5
Ratings
9% below category average
Pixel Perfect reports8.10 Ratings5.60 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.60 Ratings9.30 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates7.80 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
7.9
Ratings
1% below category average
Sigma Computing
7.6
Ratings
5% below category average
Drill-down analysis8.30 Ratings8.10 Ratings
Formatting capabilities7.70 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages7.40 Ratings7.30 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration8.20 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
8.0
Ratings
2% below category average
Sigma Computing
7.6
Ratings
7% below category average
Publish to Web8.10 Ratings7.40 Ratings
Publish to PDF7.80 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Report Versioning7.70 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling8.30 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers7.90 Ratings7.90 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
7.7
Ratings
4% below category average
Sigma Computing
6.8
Ratings
16% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)8.30 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.10 Ratings5.60 Ratings
Predictive Analytics7.20 Ratings6.20 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining7.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
8.4
Ratings
1% below category average
Sigma Computing
-
Ratings
Multi-User Support (named login)8.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)8.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
7.9
Ratings
2% above category average
Sigma Computing
-
Ratings
Responsive Design for Web Access7.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Application7.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile7.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
7.6
Ratings
2% below category average
Sigma Computing
-
Ratings
REST API7.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Javascript API7.40 Ratings00 Ratings
iFrames8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Java API6.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)7.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)8.40 Ratings00 Ratings
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Microsoft Power BISigma Computing
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Score 10.0 out of 10
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Score 10.0 out of 10
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User Ratings
Microsoft Power BISigma Computing
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(0 ratings)
8.3
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.6
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.3
(0 ratings)
7.6
(0 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Microsoft Power BISigma Computing
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft Power BI is great for sales tracking, financial reporting, and real-time operations monitoring. It integrates data from multiple sources, creating interactive dashboards for better decision-making. However, it's less ideal for real-time big data processing, offline access, or when deep customization is needed. It works best for structured reporting but struggles with highly complex data models.
Read full review
Scenarios where Sigma Computing is well suited: - Data Reporting and Visualisation : It is suitable for dashboards that integrate data from multiple back-office systems - Search and Filtering Capabilities: It provides a robust platform for searching through datasets and visualisations. Scenarios where Sigma Computing is less appropriate: Handling of null values and dynamic table adjustments
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Pros
  • It is great at taking in large amounts of data and housing it all.
  • Microsoft Power BI is so user friendly and it's dashboards are very easy on the eye.
  • The ease of sharing dashboards makes it great for use across a large company.
Read full review
  • Allows end users to easily dive into the data without having direct access to the table in our database management software.
  • Can easily turnaround dashboards that are detailed and visually pleasing.
  • Sigma is intuitive and as new features are rolled out it is easy to adopt and incorporate them into new and existing dashboards.
Read full review
Cons
  • 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
  • Viewer level license is quite limited. These users can't download data or even add filters on datasets. Something to keep in mind.
  • Directly querying the underlying data warehouse will lead to increased usage. Not a big deal on something like Redshift, but your Snowflake consumption will increase, potentially by a lot.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
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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Because we are very satisfied with the product and would most likely renew because of the services it provides. It is a tool that you bring into your organization and let it change the way you analyze your data, present your data and share you date within the Respective teams
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Usability
Takes a little bit to get used to it. Not natively intuitive but fairly straight forward to pick up. Also docking it a few points because you can create a really clean, simple UI in Claude very quickly that's faster than building all of this yourself in Microsoft Power BI.
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It has a clean and modern interface. However, it is not completely intuitive. I think it would be better and easier to navigate with more Windows style drop down menus and/or tabls. There is a significant learning curve, but that may be due in part to the technical nature of this type of software tool.
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Reliability and Availability
No answers on this topic
Yes, as long as you don’t conduct user error sigma is always up and running and waiting for you to complete your dashboards
Read full review
Performance
No answers on this topic
It depends, it loads quickly for smaller dashboards but when loading larger amounts of data it takes more time to do so
Read full review
Support Rating
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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They are very friendly and informative. They are quick in resolving our queries and help us understand very minute things as well. They are quick in creating feature tickets based on our custom requirements, and they would also create a bug ticket if there is any discrepancy and get that checked on time.
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Implementation Rating
It was integrated with our erp easily and was accessible on cloud.
Read full review
Was not involved in implementation
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
All others apps are enablers and Microsoft Power BI is the visual that end user sees which often adds more value to the end user to make strategic decisions from this. All are equally great but Microsoft Power BI is the end result
Read full review
I am not an expert in any of these, though from my brief exposure to Looker it felt like a steeper learning curve, more appropriate to companies with dedicated and skilled BI engineers, whereas Sigma (and Tableau, and Looker Studio) offer a quicker and more intuitive interface for smaller companies like ours without dedicated BI resources on staff.
Read full review
Scalability
No answers on this topic
It is a cloud service offering that is able to expand based on your usage
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • We're still early in the adoption process at this company, but we've illustrated how bad data keeps us from being more productive. ~25% of a team's work week was dedicated to effectively cleaning up entries, but it was always seen as a normal to them.
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  • Monitoring health of cloud platform has allowed the company to anticipate issues before they affect customers – Sigma prompted us building a canary monitoring process that provides customer container health.
  • Customer success has used an activity report to discover customers running runaway processes that they were unaware of, creating an alert to contact the customer and prevent an embarrassing situation.
  • Customer success uses the activity report to prompt conversations regarding increases or declines in behavior that led to increasing contract limits or addressing churn concerns.
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