Microsoft Power BI Reviews & Product Details

What I like best about Microsoft Power BI is its powerful data modeling, interactive dashboards, and advanced visualization capabilities. It integrates well with Excel, SQL Server, and other Microsoft products, making it easier to analyze data from multiple sources. Features such as DAX calculations, Power Query, and automated data refresh help streamline reporting and uncover meaningful business insights. Overall, Power BI is a flexible and powerful tool for building detailed reports and supporting data-driven decision-making Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What I dislike about Microsoft Power BI is that its advanced features, particularly DAX calculations, data modeling, and complex transformations, can have a steep learning curve. Managing large datasets and complex reports can also affect performance. Additionally, licensing costs, workspace permissions, and sharing reports with external users can sometimes be complicated. Improving ease of use, performance, and licensing flexibility would make Power BI even more effective. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The vibrant, personalized dashboard is a standout feature. I can refresh the data at any time to get an updated dashboard, and the drag-and-drop option makes it easy to build dashboards against specific data fields. I also appreciate the focus on information and data security. The accuracy level is exceptionally high, and the data is easy to interpret. It’s also available on both computer and handset. In addition to these points, the acceptability of this tool among business professionals has been inspiring young leaders. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

a. It isn’t easy to use; a new user needs at least some brief, hands-on training to get started with Microsoft Power BI.

b. In the early stages, the software also lacks a solid tutorial to guide you through the basics. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I use it for data analysis and visualization. While I could do some of this in Excel too, what I like most about Power BI is the freedom it gives me to explore my data. It allows me to dig much deeper into the analysis in a more efficient and straightforward way than traditional spreadsheet software. On top of that, it helps me build dashboards for senior management so they can keep track of all the required KPIs.

Additionally, the software can be integrated with many data sources. For example, I connected MySQL to Power BI and created a dashboard to track real-time KPIs.

Regarding performance, I still believe Tableau is a bit more advanced when it comes to analysis and the freedom to work with data. But if your tasks don't require that deep an analysis, Power BI works really well, especially since it is a more economical option compared to Tableau.

There are numerous tutorials available on the internet for Power BI, and it is very user-friendly and easy to learn. Since it is part of Microsoft, the customer support is great.

Although AI is already integrated into Power BI, I would say it is still in the development phase, and there are many things, like agentic AI, that could be integrated in the future. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What I dislike most is the live dashboard update feature. The dashboard doesn’t refresh as soon as new data enters the database; instead, it only updates on a predefined interval.

Also, the built-in forecasting option in the visuals makes it easy to analyze trends. That said, I’m not very happy with it because it doesn’t give me much flexibility to customize the forecast the way Tableau does. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I like Power BI because it makes data analysis and reporting more visual and easier to understand. I find it useful for turning data into interactive reports and dashboards, while the integration with Excel makes it convenient to work with existing datasets. It helps me organize information, identify trends, and present insights in a clear way. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

One challenge I have found with Power BI is that larger or more complex reports can sometimes become harder to navigate and manage. I also find the licensing and pricing structure can be a little difficult to understand, especially when considering different requirements for users and organizations. Clearer navigation for complex reports and simpler pricing options would improve the overall experience. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Honestly the one that got me was the Desktop Bridge — Microsoft basically let AI agents hook into a live Power BI session and loop through editing/checking reports on their own, feels very "agentic AI meets BI." Also liked that TMDL view finally works on the web now, so you can tweak your data model as plain text without even opening Desktop. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Yeah, honestly a few things bug me — DAX is still brutal for beginners, it's powerful but way too easy to mess up and hard to debug. Pricing keeps creeping up too — Pro jumped to $14/user/month from $10, and Premium per-user is $24, and a lot of the good AI/Copilot stuff is locked behind those higher tiers. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What stands out most to me about Power BI is how easy it is to connect straight to our backend data sources—especially when pulling from cloud lakehouses and SQL databases through DirectQuery. Rather than duplicating huge datasets or waiting through long ETL cycles, we can stay connected to our data layer and spin up live dashboards in minutes.

The drag-and-drop report builder also accelerates how quickly we can turn complex data into clean, readable visuals. Writing DAX measures for specific metrics feels intuitive once you get the hang of it, and it gives us strong control over our business logic. Another big win has been how smoothly native Row-Level Security (RLS) fits in: we can maintain one master report while still enforcing strict governance across different teams.

Overall, it closes the gap between data engineering and business reporting. Stakeholders get self-service answers, and our engineering team no longer spends half the week building custom, ad hoc reports. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

While Power BI is a great tool, the learning curve for advanced DAX can be really frustrating. Basic measures are fine, but when you need complex time-intelligence or nested filtering, DAX feels way less intuitive than just writing SQL or Python. Debugging those heavy DAX queries takes up too much time, mostly because the error messages are usually pretty vague.

My biggest headache, though, is version control and team collaboration. Coming from a data engineering background where Git integration and CI/CD pipelines are seamless, dealing with standard .pbix files feels outdated. You cannot easily have multiple developers working on the same dashboard without accidentally overwriting someone's work. Microsoft has rolled out newer developer formats to help with this, but the whole deployment process still feels clunky compared to modern coding environments.

Also, the fact that Power BI Desktop is still strictly a Windows application is a constant hassle. Teammates on Macs have to jump through hoops with virtual machines just to build a report. Bringing the web browser authoring experience up to par with the desktop app would make a world of difference. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What I like most is how easy it is to turn raw data into dashboards that are genuinely useful. Rather than digging through endless rows in Excel, I can build reports with charts, KPIs, and visuals that make it much easier to understand what’s happening.

I’ve mainly used it for reporting and dashboard creation, and I appreciate that it connects to different data sources without much effort. Once the data is set up, creating interactive reports feels straightforward, and sharing them with others is simple as well.

I also like the Copilot features Microsoft has introduced. They can generate report summaries, answer questions about the data, and even suggest visuals using natural language. I don’t rely on it for every report, but it definitely speeds up certain tasks and makes it easier to explore the data.

Overall, it’s one of the best tools I’ve used for reporting because it saves time and presents information in a way that’s easier for everyone to understand. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I don’t really have any major complaints, but there is definitely a learning curve—especially once you start working with DAX, data modeling, and more advanced reports. Building simple dashboards is straightforward, but creating more complex reports takes some practice and time to get comfortable.

At times, refreshing large datasets can take a while, depending on the data source. Also, the desktop version includes so many options that new users may initially find it a bit overwhelming.

Aside from these minor points, it’s been a reliable reporting tool for me. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I use Power BI for my freelance projects to create dashboards, reports and data visualization for clients. Few things I like most:

- Drag and drop interface makes building dashboards and reports easy without any coding

- Connects to multiple data sources like Excel, SQL and CSV all in one place

- Interactive charts and visualizations make data easy to understand and present to clients

- Real time data refresh keeps dashboards always updated without manual efforts

- DAX formulas help create powerful calculations and custom metrics

- Easy to share dashboards through a simple link, mobile friendly too Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

No big dislikes, but Power BI can be quite complex and overwhelming for a newbie, takes some time to get comfortable with all the features and DAX formulas. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I appreciate the technical power and integration with the Microsoft environment. I also value how easy it is to integrate AI (Gemini) and the ability to create DAX measures, which makes it possible to build charts tailored precisely to business needs. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

For those just starting to use Power BI, the learning curve, especially when it comes to DAX measures, is quite steep. In addition, it can become slow when handling large amounts of data. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What I like best about Microsoft Power BI is the quick and easy access to data. It makes it simple to connect data from different sources, including our CRM, and turn it into useful insights. This is especially helpful for supporting the sales process, as we can quickly track performance, identify opportunities, and make more informed decisions based on up-to-date customer and sales data. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

One thing I dislike about Power BI is that it can sometimes feel complex and not very intuitive for sales users, especially when creating or customizing reports. It can also take time to get the right data connections and dashboards set up, and some reports require too many clicks to get to the specific information we need. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.