Altair Monarch vs. Microsoft Power BI

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Altair Monarch
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Altair Monarch (formerly Datawatch Monarch, acquired by Altair in December, 2018) works with both relational and multi-structured data including support for a wide range of formats including PDF, XML, HTML, text, spool and ASCII files. The product can access data from invoices, sales reports, balance sheets, customer lists, inventory, logs and more. According to the vendor, the system is easy to use, allowing users to quickly select any data source and automatically convert it into…N/A
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
Pricing
Altair MonarchMicrosoft Power BI
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Altair MonarchMicrosoft Power BI
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Altair MonarchMicrosoft Power BI
Features
Altair MonarchMicrosoft Power BI
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Altair Monarch
-
Ratings
Microsoft Power BI
8.8
140 Ratings
8% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings8.5120 Ratings
Customizable dashboards00 Ratings10.0140 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings8.0128 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Altair Monarch
-
Ratings
Microsoft Power BI
8.2
140 Ratings
2% above category average
Drill-down analysis00 Ratings7.0139 Ratings
Formatting capabilities00 Ratings8.9138 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings8.0103 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration00 Ratings9.0135 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Altair Monarch
-
Ratings
Microsoft Power BI
8.6
134 Ratings
4% above category average
Publish to Web00 Ratings8.0129 Ratings
Publish to PDF00 Ratings9.0122 Ratings
Report Versioning00 Ratings9.0102 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings8.0104 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings8.974 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Altair Monarch
-
Ratings
Microsoft Power BI
8.7
136 Ratings
9% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)00 Ratings8.9131 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings8.0122 Ratings
Predictive Analytics00 Ratings8.9102 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Altair Monarch
-
Ratings
Microsoft Power BI
8.6
127 Ratings
1% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)00 Ratings9.0121 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model00 Ratings9.0102 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)00 Ratings10.0111 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings8.394 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Altair Monarch
-
Ratings
Microsoft Power BI
8.0
117 Ratings
1% above category average
Responsive Design for Web Access00 Ratings8.0111 Ratings
Mobile Application00 Ratings7.793 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile00 Ratings7.7112 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Altair Monarch
-
Ratings
Microsoft Power BI
8.4
80 Ratings
7% above category average
REST API00 Ratings8.072 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings9.956 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings8.055 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings8.046 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings8.163 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings8.444 Ratings
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Altair MonarchMicrosoft Power BI
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User Ratings
Altair MonarchMicrosoft Power BI
Likelihood to Recommend
8.1
(6 ratings)
8.5
(142 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.2
(6 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(58 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(53 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Altair MonarchMicrosoft Power BI
Likelihood to Recommend
Altair Engineering, Inc.
The product is especially useful when you have real-time and/or time series data to analyze. If you have more mundane, simpler requirements, other products might do the job you need for less money (there are even some decent open source visualization tools you can find.) I know the product is very widely used in capital markets applications to monitor and analyze risk and price and volume changes; if you're working in that area, I don't think there's a better tool to use.
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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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Pros
Altair Engineering, Inc.
  • Creating a basic model to extract data from a report is very easy.
  • Advanced features like Calculated Fields and External Lookups allow you to augment the raw data.
  • You can create a "project" to automate the data extraction. Combined with Datapump (a separate DW app), you can fully automate the process once the raw report is generated.
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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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Cons
Altair Engineering, Inc.
  • Recently, we had some major sticker-shock when we wanted to upgrade Data Pump. It is an exceptional product, but when the price jumped from $6,000 to over $60,000, it was impossible to get the funds approved internally for the upgrade.
  • We also paid for yearly maintenance contracts which included Professional Services, but rarely found those services beneficial. However, we did receive all software upgrades for Datapump as part of the contract which we found to be very beneficial. However, with the new pricing, that is not longer the case.
Read full review
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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Likelihood to Renew
Altair Engineering, Inc.
Even though we do not utilize it on a daily basis, I do hope my current company renews it's license. If not, I intend to purchase myself.
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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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Usability
Altair Engineering, Inc.
No answers on this topic
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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Support Rating
Altair Engineering, Inc.
No answers on this topic
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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Implementation Rating
Altair Engineering, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
It was integrated with our erp easily and was accessible on cloud.
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Alternatives Considered
Altair Engineering, Inc.
Datawatch is very good value of money compared to QlikView; QlikView is really more of a BI tool and has a lot of functions that I didn't need. Datawatch is very strong in the real-time area where Tableau, Panorama, and Qlik don't do very well. If you need to set up a visual monitoring dashboard, Datawatch is the best product I've seen for that. if you want to do a lot of in depth statistical analysis of large databases, Tableau is probably a good option.
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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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Return on Investment
Altair Engineering, Inc.
  • Data Pump reduces complexity of report solutions by offering a standardized approach for organizing and scheduling
  • 97% service level for past 5 years for all of our jobs going through Data Pump
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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
ScreenShots

Altair Monarch Screenshots

Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of

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