Microsoft Power BI vs. MS SharePoint / SQL

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Microsoft Power BI
Score 8.6 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.N/A
MS SharePoint / SQL
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
MS SharePoint / SQL refers to Microsoft Sharepoint, a web-based collaborative platform, being used in tandem with Microsoft SQL Server to provide business intelligence analytics and reporting. They can provide BI content such as data connections, reports, scorecards, dashboards, and more.N/A
Pricing
Microsoft Power BIMS SharePoint / SQL
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft Power BIMS SharePoint / SQL
Free Trial
YesNo
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 BIMS SharePoint / SQL
Considered Both Products
Microsoft Power BI
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 …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Microsoft Power BI is more flexible and can also handle more complex reporting scenarios. While Microsoft Excel is a great tool for analyzing data building visuals is not what it is made for. It is complicated to create Excel reports that will be interactive as a use wants to …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Qlik also builds dashboards upon your data. It's more expensive as Microsoft Power BI and needs as much training as Microsoft Power BI
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Being Microsoft environment it is extremely easy to interconnect the application with other Microsoft tools, such as power point or excel. On top of that, also communication through Microsoft teams is enabled which can result in very good collaboration and exchange of feedback …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
We actually chose both Power BI and Quantum Metric. We use them for different things, but they are very similar tools. Quantum does a good job of integrating with our website and app traffic, whereas we use Power BI for data analysis and importing data sets for further review. …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
We have used Microsoft Power BI for almost seven years. When looking for a reporting platform, remember that you are about to make a long-term choice. Moving reports to another system isn't easy. If you have, for example, more than 100 reports, the move to a different platform …
MS SharePoint / SQL
Chose MS SharePoint / SQL
1. Cost affective as it comes with MS 365 Tenant 2. Natively interactive with tools such MS 365 Dynamics ERP, Power Platform etc
Chose MS SharePoint / SQL
Ease of use being the biggest benefit, speed and availability are right there behind ease of use.
Chose MS SharePoint / SQL
SharePoint is more reliable in terms of data storage, security, and accessibility by only required users compared to ClickUp. Also, SharePoint is easier to learn and use for any user, as tutorials are easily available online. Also, SharePoint is a product of Microsoft, which …
Chose MS SharePoint / SQL
Simple: MS Sharepoint/SQL is the best and robust databases motor now are incorporating some features in order to improve users and DB admins experience.
Chose MS SharePoint / SQL
The user interface and search elements are much better than our outgoing data storage method.
Chose MS SharePoint / SQL
Box is a content storing portal where you can host and share documents/files to others. But it does not have [Sharepoint's] capabilities like... versions, automation, email approvals, etc. And Microsoft Exchange is a mailing database that can be used for exchanging data using …
Chose MS SharePoint / SQL
Has better support than MySQL and more developers are familiar with it. Oracle syntax is more cumbersome and less developers are experienced these days with Oracle.
Chose MS SharePoint / SQL
I have heard that the one that comes close is a tool called Apex. Some of the leading companies are using it instead of SQL.
Chose MS SharePoint / SQL
If you are looking for a document management and collaboration tool to use as a web portal that comes with SQL data base and easy to manage and something you can learn very quick, look no further than SharePoint but if you need a pure database then this is not for you.
Chose MS SharePoint / SQL
We use MS SQL more just because of how widely it's used and how popular it is. It's easier to install, maintain, and support compared to the other ones we've tried.
Chose MS SharePoint / SQL
At the time of the two large projects, SharePoint was the enterprise solution so we were required to use that. We have since lobbied the enterprise teams to review and consider Atlassian confluence and were successful. Confluence is cheaper than Sharepoint which is why we …
Chose MS SharePoint / SQL
At its core, MS SharePoint (with SQL) is for managing document-based content. It falls just short of being a best in class records manager (it does offer some features for this though), and it isn't the easiest to solution to make great looking modern and engaging web sites. …
Chose MS SharePoint / SQL
We looked at Google Drive but it didn't have the API and integration that SharePoint has with 3rd party software providers. Also, Google Drive has basic functionality compared to MS SharePoint and how you can customize and build-out.
Chose MS SharePoint / SQL
I haven't used any other products that compete with it. I started my career at Microsoft and the two subsequent locations have also been Microsoft shops.
Chose MS SharePoint / SQL
Dropbox is a user-friendly product, but Sharepoint is a native Microsoft product that can be implemented into any Microsoft products, which are used mostly in our environment. Finding solutions on the internet is much easier, as it is used commonly by other organizations as …
Chose MS SharePoint / SQL
I am not familiar with any other products similar to SharePoint, so I am unable to compare.
Chose MS SharePoint / SQL
Mostly, we are a Microsoft shop, and SharePoint and SQL integrate with our other applications. They're easy to use, and not too hard to manage.
Chose MS SharePoint / SQL
I have used both Google Drive and Zoho Docs which seem similar to MS SharePoint. The main differences I noticed as a user is that the user interfaces in both Google Drive and Zoho Docs were much more intuitive and they were much easier to navigate than MS SharePoint. There …
Chose MS SharePoint / SQL
We had staff resources able to create, configure, and mange our sharepoint environment, so it made sense for us and gave us greater flexibility than these turnkey solutions. Certainly each solution has its merits and each are completely different price points. We already had …
Chose MS SharePoint / SQL
Most of the applications used within our company have a SharePoint back end therefore I have not used anything other than SharePoint.
Chose MS SharePoint / SQL
We evaluated Atlassian Confluence and compared it to our current SharePoint implementation. We felt that the two products were quite similar in the user experience but we chose to keep our SharePoint farms up and running. This was mainly due to the cost of switching and the …
Chose MS SharePoint / SQL
Actually i didnt work with other than ms sharepoint so i cant say how it is stand for others
Features
Microsoft Power BIMS SharePoint / SQL
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
8.8
Ratings
8% above category average
MS SharePoint / SQL
7.7
Ratings
6% below category average
Pixel Perfect reports8.50 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Customizable dashboards10.00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates8.00 Ratings7.30 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
8.2
Ratings
2% above category average
MS SharePoint / SQL
8.2
Ratings
2% above category average
Drill-down analysis7.00 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Formatting capabilities9.00 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages8.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration9.00 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
8.6
Ratings
3% above category average
MS SharePoint / SQL
8.9
Ratings
7% above category average
Publish to Web8.00 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Publish to PDF9.00 Ratings9.40 Ratings
Report Versioning9.00 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling8.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers9.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
8.7
Ratings
9% above category average
MS SharePoint / SQL
8.6
Ratings
8% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)9.00 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Predictive Analytics9.00 Ratings9.30 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining9.00 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
8.6
Ratings
1% above category average
MS SharePoint / SQL
8.2
Ratings
3% below category average
Multi-User Support (named login)9.00 Ratings7.90 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model9.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)10.00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control7.00 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)8.30 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
8.0
Ratings
2% above category average
MS SharePoint / SQL
9.4
Ratings
18% above category average
Responsive Design for Web Access8.00 Ratings9.40 Ratings
Mobile Application7.70 Ratings9.40 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile7.70 Ratings8.70 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
Ratings
7% above category average
MS SharePoint / SQL
8.8
Ratings
12% above category average
REST API8.00 Ratings9.30 Ratings
Javascript API9.90 Ratings9.30 Ratings
iFrames8.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Java API8.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)8.10 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)8.40 Ratings8.00 Ratings
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Microsoft Power BIMS SharePoint / SQL
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Medium-sized Companies
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User Ratings
Microsoft Power BIMS SharePoint / SQL
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(0 ratings)
8.8
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(0 ratings)
8.8
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.9
(0 ratings)
8.9
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.8
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Microsoft Power BIMS SharePoint / SQL
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.
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As I mentioned in my previous answers, MS SharePoint is very useful as a shared drive for the organization and is very easy to manage. It also helps us import data from SharePoint directly into PowerBI for creating reports. According to my understanding, only share link features should be improved.
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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.
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  • Flexible - able to make any changes we would like vs traditional service desk system.
  • ROI - We were already using SharePoint for internal intranet, so we are simply getting more use out of licensing we had already committed to.
  • Easy to use for end users.
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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.
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  • It is hard to setup and nightmare
  • It requires a of infrastructure, thus it could be costly because of requirement and licensing required for everything to run smoothly
  • If it is not setup and organized properly from the beginning it could be maintenance nightmare
  • It is hard to have "test" environment to do patches or similar
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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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This was a long-term buy-in from a corporate perspective, to remain in the SharePoint space. Migration is certainly possible, which is good for planning and having options further out. At this point, the only planned migration is to eventually move the architecture up to SharePoint/SQL 2013. At that point, we will be able to leverage some greater efficiencies, some enhanced content design and management features, and some more current social features. It is well worth a full consideration in any shop looking at a new implementation of or migration to SharePoint (although you will probably be considering 2013 versions or beyond in those discussions), but the platform should be a strong competitor to any alternatives. Realizing the capability of a fully-branded and customized website was not part of the original choice for the architecture at Lincoln, but seeing it implemented and functioning now with this capacity far beyond original expectations has certainly cemented plans to continue using it.
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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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I gave this rating due to MS SharePoint being a big help with our userbase. We have a lot of users that are just old enough to not have much technical skills or they have been in this industry long enough to where they haven't really needed to utilize much technology. MS SharePoint helped us move beyond that barrier without too many bumps and bruises.
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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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I've only had to call in to support on one occasion but they were able to work though our issue and find a solution that did fully resolve the issue in a timely manner. I can't always say the same about support from other companies so it was a refreshing change to have support that did help.
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Implementation Rating
It was integrated with our erp easily and was accessible on cloud.
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Mo major insight regarding the implementation if very well documented for standard products.
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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
At the time of the two large projects, SharePoint was the enterprise solution so we were required to use that. We have since lobbied the enterprise teams to review and consider Atlassian Confluence and were successful. Confluence is cheaper than Sharepoint which is why we wanted to bring that in. The enterprise has now made Confluence an enterprise solution as an alternative to SharePoint. After using both I think SharePoint has many more add-ins than Confluence. It has much more customization ability than Confluence. SharePoint is not good for mobile readiness. Confluence is so there is a difference that might lead you to Confluence over SharePoint. I would also say that SharePoint is very document-centric and that Confluence has better KM than SharePoint does. even with the use of SQL Server. We were told that we could not use Google Drive even though it had features we liked.
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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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  • ROI for ms SharePoint/SQL considering that is the best database engine with excellent features that help you to have all information in your hand.
  • Something negative could be license format.
  • These are the best relational databases in the market with powerful features that complement your system.
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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