The key to any small business is to have a business intelligence solution that works and that can be maintained at a cost that is affordable. This comparison is based on a BI tool usage scenario that is common in small companies: cloud BI, one power-user setups data sources / data models / canned reports ("publisher") and 10 users that consume reports with GUI and do some self-service data exploration ("viewers").
| Product | Notes | Min price for 1 publisher + 10 viewers |
|---|---|---|
| SeekTable | Advanced pivot tables (fully functional for all data sources), exports to Excel (Excel PivotTable), PDF, custom calculations over both non-aggregated and aggregated values. Only basic charts (and no maps - but anything may be added as custom visuals in dashboards). Dashboards are IT-centric (defined with HTML templates) and available only for on-premise installations. Free self-hosted version + paid features (white label mode, SSO etc). | $25 / month = $25 (team sharing) + $0*10 (viewers are free users) |
| Amazon QuickSight | No formulas over aggregated values. No totals/sub-totals in pivot tables for custom metrics like distinct count. Complicated sharing to non-Amazon (IAM) users. No export to PDF for visuals (only a whole dashboard). Limited set of data connectors. No self-hosted version. | $74 / month (without Q) = $24 (author) + $5*10 (viewers) |
| Microsoft PowerBI | Self-hosted / unlimited viewers plan is expensive (PBI Premium = $4990/month). No version control / deployments strategy. Live connection (direct query mode) is not available for many data sources / features are limited for this kind of connectivity. No expland/collapse for pivot table columns. Pro users have only 8/day refreshes. | $109.89 / month = $9.99 (publisher) + $9.99*10 (viewers) |
| Metabase | No PDF exports. No custom visuals (ability to use own JS code). Pivot tables are not well polished yet (slowness, cannot sort by metric, SQL generation cannot be tuned for efficient filtering/joins etc). No version control for reports. | $110 / month = $85 Starter (includes 5 users) + $5*5 (5 viewers) |
| bipp | Very limited embedding capabilities (single visual cannot be embedded at all), no API for reports automation, weak pivot tables. | $110 / month = $10*11 (Premium subscription) |
| Zoho Analytics (Reporting) | Suitable only for small datasets. No live connections to DB (only data import). | €112 / month = Premium subscription plan (15 users) |
| Oracle Analytics Cloud | (help us with drawbacks/limitations!) | $176 / month = $16*11 (Professional plan) |
| Slemma | No self-hosted version. MDX syntax for calculations. | $189 / month = Standard subscription plan (includes 30 users) |
| GoodData | No live connections (no SQL), pricing per GB. | $200 / month = $20*10 (unlimited users, max 1GB/workspace) |
| Preset.io Apache Superset in cloud |
Not suitable for secure embedding. No drill-downs. | $220 / month = $20*11 |
| Holistics.io | Pivot tables are basic (no expand/collapse and other things). No unlimited viewers. No custom visuals. | $250 / month = (minimal price, options unknown) |
| Cluvio | Pivot tables are (very) basic. | €249 / month = Pro team subscription plan |
| Qlik Sense | Many limitations in the live connection (direct discovery) mode. | $330 / month = $30*11 (minimal price per user/mo) |
| SAP Analytics Cloud | Live connections are supported only for SAP products (HANA) (?). | $396 / month = $36*11 (BI plan) |
| Tableau | Viewer price is $12/mo but min number of viewers is 100. | $420 / month = $70 (creator) + $35*10 (explorers) |
| Chartio | Weak in tabular/pivot table reports. Chartio will be shutting down on March 1, 2022. |
$440 / month = $40*11 (Startup plan) |