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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Microsoft Power BI

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft 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

    Spotfire

    Score8.1 out of 10
    N/ASpotfire, formerly known as TIBCO Spotfire, is a visual data science platform that combines visual analytics, data science, and data wrangling, so users can analyze data at-rest and at-scale to solve complex industry-specific problems.N/A
    Pricing
    Microsoft Power BISpotfire
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Microsoft Power BISpotfire
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional DetailsFor Enterprise engagements, contact Spotfire directly for a custom price quote.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Microsoft Power BISpotfire
    Considered Both Products
    Microsoft
    Chose Microsoft Power BI
    Microsoft Power BI has a better UI for the most part, runs efficiently, and has an excellent data management & transformation mechanism.

    It is lacking some more advanced features of the latter (TIBCO Spotfire), but I firmly believe this is the better tool for most pieces of …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Power BI
    Power BI from a price perspective is the lowest cost (probably even from a total cost of ownership perspective) of all the offerings I have ever evaluated. The piece that really stands out for Power BI is the data transformation layer called Power Query. This section allows you …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Power BI
    Power BI is, in my opinion, the overall best visualization tool on the market today. While there are niche areas where others may have small advantages, the overall feature/functionality, approachability, and value proposition that Power BI provides give it the edge. Cost is …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Power BI
    Power BI has the advantage that it works well with other Microsoft products. The software is nowhere near as strong on speed and advances in modeling capabilities. The user base also seems less knowledgeable about optimal data practices and cutting edge data visualization. …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Power BI
    R is very well integrated with Power BI. Also, Power BI is very well integrated with other Microsoft applications as compared to other applications which gives an edge to the application.
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Power BI
    Tableau and Spotfire are all around better tools, but Power BI can be useful especially because of its cheap price.
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Power BI
    Based on the latest reviews from Magic Quadrant, Tableau is rated high among all the applications in this category with its rich features in terms of connectivity, visualizations, and various other features. But the cost of using the application is bit high from my personal …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Power BI
    As mentioned earlier it is free of cost and easy to learn as it is part of the Microsoft suite product. It blends well with ETL package tools such as SSRS and SSIS. It is also easy to distribute the dashboard to users of Office 365. It is a a complete Microsoft product which …
    Incentivized
    Spotfire
    Chose Spotfire
    I find both Microsoft Power BI and Spotfire very easy to use. I would rate them on par with each other. There isn’t much to differentiate them. Maybe the learning curve on Spotfire is a bit steeper than Microsoft Power BI.
    Incentivized
    Chose Spotfire
    Spotfire is much more powerful in terms of data visualization and data connections compared to Microsoft Power BI. Mapping and geographic analysis is another area where Spotfire is strong. Perhaps Power BI is the cost effective option. I see both being equally easy to use to …
    Incentivized
    Chose Spotfire
    Spotfire is stronger than other tools to built complex metrics within the tool, without needs of etl updates and query changing. It has lots of useful visualizations to deep dive data and give interesting analysis to business users. Moreover, with some studies and tests, you …
    Incentivized
    Chose Spotfire
    Because of Spotfire's robust features and capabilities, I chose it as my preferred software. Spotfire's greater overall performance and scalability set it apart from other software solutions. It can handle
    Incentivized
    Chose Spotfire
    Spotfire is more suited for manufacturing industries with regards the huge data to process to make relevant decision that use big data for making decisions, besides this Spotfire supports more and excels at Availability & Scalability, Data Sources Connectivity and Deployment …
    Incentivized
    Chose Spotfire
    I prefer Spotfire greatly. While is may seem like a "one trick pony", it does that one trick really well.
    Incentivized
    Chose Spotfire
    I choose Spotfire because of the following - custom visual using JavaScript - on the fly chart property update using iron python - easy report Deployment and update -easy to manage user access via so or ldap - best report data Extraction -mix data sources -custom data load …
    Incentivized
    Chose Spotfire
    Spotfire is significantly ahead of both products from an ETL and data ingestion capability. Spotfire also has substantially better visualizations than Power BI, and although the native visualizations aren't as flexible in Tableau, Spotfire enables users to create completely …
    Incentivized
    Chose Spotfire
    Spotfire's key strength les in extent of customization possible and it's inherent Data Analytics capabilities. With in-memory and in-database analysis capabilities, it comes out as a high performance and high efficiency BI solution.
    Adding to it, Spotfire integrates the …
    Incentivized
    Chose Spotfire
    I haven’t tried any other tools by TIBCO. The only tool we use in our company is Spotfire, so my analysis is limited to Spotfire.
    Incentivized
    Chose Spotfire
    Spotfire is the best application for power users by virtue of its wide variety of visualizations, incorporated analytics, superior data canvas, and ability to integrate code such as R or Python. The learning curve is steeper and the menus are Windows 7 once you are past some …
    Incentivized
    Chose Spotfire
    I have only briefly used Power BI and I found the interface more familiar as it leverages a lot of familiar aspects that come from Excel. However, I did not find it was a clean an interface for visualizations as Spotfire was.
    Incentivized
    Chose Spotfire
    It looks more complete, configurable, and easy to use compared to those. It is also expandable thanks to the other tools in the Spotfire Suite.
    Incentivized
    Chose Spotfire
    We evaluated Power BI and Tableau 4 years ago. Power BI at that time was in its infancy, but over the last 4 years have made huge leaps of improvements. At that time, the two products weren't comparable. Tableau 4 years ago was a very strong product and the acquisition from …
    Incentivized
    Chose Spotfire
    The latest version of Spotfire enables users to join data without any friction. For example, if the column in one table has different prefixes and/or postfixes, the tool would automatically join the two tables together without causing any potential debugging alarm or issues …
    Incentivized
    Chose Spotfire
    Spotfire is much user-friendly and able to handle many million rows seamlessly. Automation is so easy. Connecting to various data sources is easy. Upgrade from one version to the latest version is easy.
    Incentivized
    Chose Spotfire
    A few that are not listed are Metabase and ReDash--they are both open source. I like Spotfire the best by far. I was surprised how far behind it Tableau is. I could just never get the feel for Tableau, while I really enjoyed working in Spotfire. The open-source ones are nice …
    Incentivized
    Chose Spotfire
    This tool was selected in my organization around 10 years back. It was suggested to be one of the best and it proved to be. My users are also satisfied with the performance of the tool, but we had some setbacks with SharePoint online and the Azure SQL database. Hopefully, if …
    Incentivized
    Chose Spotfire
    Spotfire is a very good product and stacks up well against the competition for creating customized dashboards. It also has intuitive capabilities to create visualizations that could help the user see their data. Moreover, it also has a lot of options for customization in terms …
    Incentivized
    Chose Spotfire
    We are dealing with and evaluate as many data analytics and BI tools as it is feasible for us in order to be able to suggest the best tool to our clients. Spotfire is strong in intuitive and easy to learn analytics, plus it has built-in functionality to work with R, which is a …
    Incentivized
    Chose Spotfire
    I have access to tools mentioned above, but I use Spotfire most, because most colleagues I'm working with have Spotfire access, and sharing data and visulization in Spotfire is the most convenient way.
    Incentivized
    Chose Spotfire
    We use both Spotfire and Power BI. Spotfire is more used by technical and engineering folks. Power BI has won a nice following with people in finance/marketing/accounting. I think it speaks to the difference in data between these groups. Spotfire is better for discovery and …
    Incentivized
    Chose Spotfire
    Affordable infrastructure and flexibility over other platforms evaluated at the time
    Incentivized
    Chose Spotfire
    The flexibility of Spotfire provides a clear advantage above for instance Power BI.
    Incentivized
    Chose Spotfire
    • Tableau - Does not have the best ETL capabilities.
    • SAC - Although it is on the cloud, speed seems to be an issue most times.
    • Power BI - Data modeling is key to a good dashboard. Not a tool non-IT savvy people can easily use.
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    95%
    Would buy again
    101 Answers
    92%
    Would buy again
    45 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    99%
    Delivers good value for the price
    96 Answers
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    38 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    97%
    Happy with the feature set
    103 Answers
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    47 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    98%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    63 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    31 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    67 Answers
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    33 Answers
    Features
    Microsoft Power BISpotfire
    BI Standard Reporting
    Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Microsoft Power BI and Spotfire
    Feature
    Microsoft Power BI
    8.8
    140 Ratings
    8% above category average
    Spotfire
    -
    Ratings
    Pixel Perfect reports8.5120 Ratings00 Ratings
    Customizable dashboards10.0140 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report Formatting Templates8.0128 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad-hoc Reporting
    Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Microsoft Power BI and Spotfire
    Feature
    Microsoft Power BI
    8.2
    140 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Spotfire
    -
    Ratings
    Drill-down analysis7.0139 Ratings00 Ratings
    Formatting capabilities9.0138 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integration with R or other statistical packages8.0103 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report sharing and collaboration9.0135 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report Output and Scheduling
    Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Microsoft Power BI and Spotfire
    Feature
    Microsoft Power BI
    8.6
    134 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Spotfire
    -
    Ratings
    Publish to Web8.0129 Ratings00 Ratings
    Publish to PDF9.0122 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report Versioning9.0102 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report Delivery Scheduling8.0104 Ratings00 Ratings
    Delivery to Remote Servers9.074 Ratings00 Ratings
    Data Discovery and Visualization
    Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Microsoft Power BI and Spotfire
    Feature
    Microsoft Power BI
    8.7
    136 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Spotfire
    -
    Ratings
    Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)9.0131 Ratings00 Ratings
    Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.0122 Ratings00 Ratings
    Predictive Analytics9.0102 Ratings00 Ratings
    Pattern Recognition and Data Mining9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Access Control and Security
    Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Microsoft Power BI and Spotfire
    Feature
    Microsoft Power BI
    8.6
    127 Ratings
    1% above category average
    Spotfire
    -
    Ratings
    Multi-User Support (named login)9.0121 Ratings00 Ratings
    Role-Based Security Model9.0102 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)10.0111 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report-Level Access Control7.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Single Sign-On (SSO)8.394 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile Capabilities
    Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Microsoft Power BI and Spotfire
    Feature
    Microsoft Power BI
    8.0
    117 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Spotfire
    -
    Ratings
    Responsive Design for Web Access8.0111 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile Application7.793 Ratings00 Ratings
    Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile7.7112 Ratings00 Ratings
    Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
    Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Microsoft Power BI and Spotfire
    Feature
    Microsoft Power BI
    8.4
    80 Ratings
    8% above category average
    Spotfire
    -
    Ratings
    REST API8.072 Ratings00 Ratings
    Javascript API9.956 Ratings00 Ratings
    iFrames8.055 Ratings00 Ratings
    Java API8.046 Ratings00 Ratings
    Themeable User Interface (UI)8.163 Ratings00 Ratings
    Customizable Platform (Open Source)8.444 Ratings00 Ratings
    Platform Connectivity
    Comparison of Platform Connectivity features of Microsoft Power BI and Spotfire
    Feature
    Microsoft Power BI
    -
    Ratings
    Spotfire
    7.2
    8 Ratings
    15% below category average
    Connect to Multiple Data Sources00 Ratings7.88 Ratings
    Extend Existing Data Sources00 Ratings7.48 Ratings
    Automatic Data Format Detection00 Ratings7.88 Ratings
    MDM Integration00 Ratings6.05 Ratings
    Data Exploration
    Comparison of Data Exploration features of Microsoft Power BI and Spotfire
    Feature
    Microsoft Power BI
    -
    Ratings
    Spotfire
    9.1
    8 Ratings
    8% above category average
    Visualization00 Ratings9.08 Ratings
    Interactive Data Analysis00 Ratings9.28 Ratings
    Data Preparation
    Comparison of Data Preparation features of Microsoft Power BI and Spotfire
    Feature
    Microsoft Power BI
    -
    Ratings
    Spotfire
    7.4
    8 Ratings
    10% below category average
    Interactive Data Cleaning and Enrichment00 Ratings7.28 Ratings
    Data Transformations00 Ratings8.08 Ratings
    Data Encryption00 Ratings7.05 Ratings
    Built-in Processors00 Ratings7.55 Ratings
    Platform Data Modeling
    Comparison of Platform Data Modeling features of Microsoft Power BI and Spotfire
    Feature
    Microsoft Power BI
    -
    Ratings
    Spotfire
    7.6
    8 Ratings
    10% below category average
    Multiple Model Development Languages and Tools00 Ratings7.57 Ratings
    Automated Machine Learning00 Ratings8.55 Ratings
    Single platform for multiple model development00 Ratings7.68 Ratings
    Self-Service Model Delivery00 Ratings6.76 Ratings
    Model Deployment
    Comparison of Model Deployment features of Microsoft Power BI and Spotfire
    Feature
    Microsoft Power BI
    -
    Ratings
    Spotfire
    7.4
    7 Ratings
    14% below category average
    Flexible Model Publishing Options00 Ratings7.87 Ratings
    Security, Governance, and Cost Controls00 Ratings7.07 Ratings
    User Ratings
    Microsoft Power BISpotfire
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.5
    (142 ratings)
    8.4
    (351 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    9.6
    (30 ratings)
    Usability
    7.9
    (58 ratings)
    8.0
    (27 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (14 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.1
    (14 ratings)
    Support Rating
    10.0
    (53 ratings)
    8.7
    (27 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.3
    (52 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (55 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.4
    (17 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.1
    (3 ratings)
    Data Sharing and Collaboration
    8.5
    (82 ratings)
    8.5
    (36 ratings)
    Data Sources
    9.0
    (81 ratings)
    9.3
    (36 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (4 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Microsoft Power BISpotfire
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Spotfire
    A high level of data integration is available here it supports various data sources and so on. Collaborating features allow users to give access to the dashboard and merge data analytics with other team members. It can meet the demands of both small and large size business enterprises. A customized dashboard and reports are provided to meet the specific needs and get support of extensibility through APIs and customized scripts.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Spotfire
    • It has the best coding integration (python, R) of any BI product
    • The ability to work with very large datasets (10 mil+) is better than competitors
    • Export options are more complete and have better functionality
    • The data canvas is the best tool to join and transform data vs. competitors
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Spotfire
    • The donut chart is I guess a powerful illustrations but I hope it should be done quite simple in Spotfire. But in Spotfire there are lots of steps involve just to build a simple donut chart.
    • Table calculation (like Row or Column Differences) should be made simple or there should be drag and drop function for Table Calculation. No need for scripting.
    • Information Link should be changed. If new columns are added to the table just refreshing the data should be able to capture the new column. No need extra step to add column
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Read full review
    Spotfire
    -Easy to distribute information throughout the enterprise using the webplayer. -Ad hoc analysis is possible throughout the enterprise using business author in the webplayer or the thick client. -Low level of support needed by IT team. Access interfaces with LDAP and numerous other authentication methods. -Possible to continually extend the platform with JavaScript, R scripts, HTML, and custom extensions. -Ability to standardize data logic through pre-built queries in the Information Designer. Everyone in the enterprise is using the same logic -Tagging and bookmarking data allows for quick sharing of insights. -Integration with numerous data sources... flat files, data bases, big data, images, etc. -Much improved mapping capability. Also includes the ability to apply data points over any image.
    Read full review
    Usability
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Spotfire
    Basic tasks like generating meaningful information from large sets of raw data are very easy. The next step of linking to multiple live data sources and linking those tables and performing on the fly analysis of the imported data is understandably more difficult.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Spotfire
    Even though, it's a rather stable and predictable tool that's also fast, it does have some bugs and inconsistencies that shut down the system. Depending on the details, it could happen as often as 2-3 times a week, especially during the development period.
    Read full review
    Performance
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Spotfire
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Spotfire
    Support has been helpful with issues. Support seems to know their product and its capabilities. It would also seem that they have a good sense of the context of the problem; where we are going with this issue and what we want the end outcome to be.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Spotfire
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Spotfire
    The online training is good, provides a good base of knowledge. The video demonstrations were well-done and easy to follow along. Provided exercises are good as well, but I think there could be more challenging exercises. The training has also gone up in price significantly in the last 3 years (in USD, which hurts us even more in Canada), and I'm not sure it is worth the money it now costs (it is worth how much it cost 3 years ago, but not double that.)
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Microsoft
    It was integrated with our erp easily and was accessible on cloud.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Spotfire
    The original architecture I created for our implementation had only a particular set of internal business units in mind. Over the years, Spotfire gained in popularity in our company and was being utilized across many more business units. Soon, its usage went beyond what the original architectural implementation could provide. We've since learned about how the product is used by the different teams and are currently in the middle of rolling out a new architecture. I suggest:
    • Have clearly defined service level agreements with all the teams that will use Spotfire. Your business intelligence group might only need availability during normal working hours, but your production support group might need 24/7 availability. If these groups share one Spotfire server, maintenance of that server might be a problem.
    • Know the different types of data you will be working with. One group might be working with "public" data while another group might work with sensitive data. Design your Library accordingly and with the proper permissions.
    • Know the roles of the users of Spotfire. Will there only be a small set of report writers or does everyone have write access to the Library?
    • ALWAYS add a timestamp prompt to your reports. You don't want multiple users opening a report that will try and pull down millions of rows of data to their local workstations. Another option, of course, is to just hard code a time range in the backing database view (i.e. where activity_date >= sysdate - 90, etc.), but I'd rather educate/train the user base if possible.
    • This probably goes without saying, but if possible, point to a separate reporting database or a logical standby database. You don't want the company pounding on your primaries and take down your order system.
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Spotfire
    No answers on this topic
    Scalability
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Spotfire
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Spotfire
    No answers on this topic
    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

    Spotfire Screenshots

    Screenshot of Smart Visual AnalyticsScreenshot of Geospatial AnalyticsScreenshot of Intelligent Data WranglingScreenshot of Point-and-click Data ScienceScreenshot of Real-time Streaming Analytics