Our Recommended PowerBI Alternatives in 2024
Microsoft's Power BI has long been a go-to business intelligence platform, empowering teams to self-serve their data insights. Since its launch in 2011 as Project Crescent, Power BI quickly gained popularity and became a trusted tool for thousands of businesses, thanks partly to its deep integration with Microsoft Office 365 in 2013.
But Power BI isn't always the right fit for everyone. This guide covers in-depth our recommended PowerBI alternatives. We'll look at the features, strengths, and limitations of several popular options, including Embeddable, BlazeSQL, Holistics, Looker, Google Data Studio, and Metabase, giving you an easy-to-understand overview to help you figure out which tool best suits you.
Embeddable
Embeddable is a powerful toolkit designed to integrate advanced analytics seamlessly into your applications. Unlike traditional BI tools, Embeddable focuses on creating exceptional user-facing analytics experiences. It combines a front-end SDK, a back-end engine, and a no-code builder, offering flexibility for designers and rapid deployment for developers—all at a fraction of the time compared to building custom solutions from scratch.
Features
Full Customisation Capabilities: Embeddable offers designers and developers extensive customisation, allowing them to define visual and functional elements directly in React or other preferred frameworks. This customisation empowers teams to integrate analytics components that align with their existing product.
High-Performance No-Code Builder: Embeddables no-code builder accelerates the creation of analytics interfaces, reducing development time while maintaining flexibility for more complex customisations as needed.
Interactive Elements for Enhanced Engagement: Built-in interactive tools, like dynamic filters, drill-downs, and time-series adjustments, enable users to explore data in detail, supporting more engaging and actionable analytics experiences.
Flexible Hosting Options: Embeddable supports both self-hosting and fully managed cloud-based services.
Data Protection with Row-Level Security (RLS): Security is a top priority with RLS, ensuring that only relevant data is shown to each user.
Multiple Caching Layers for Instant Loading: Embeddable’s multi-layer caching reduces data load times, making data instantly accessible to users without lag, even in complex or high-traffic environments.
Limitations
Requires Integration Effort: The initial setup to customise and integrate analytics into complex applications may need dedicated time and resources to get everything running smoothly and fully aligned with existing systems.
BlazeSQL
BlazeSQL became popular for its SQL AI analyst and conversational assistant, converting plain English requests into SQL queries to make data analysis accessible to everyone in an organisation. This no-code platform enables users to connect to SQL databases, visualise data effortlessly, and generate insights without needing SQL expertise. BlazeSQL empowers individuals across all skill levels to unlock valuable information from business data by allowing users to ask questions in English and receive real-time SQL-driven insights.
Features
Data Visualization: Interactive dashboards make it easy to create visualisations, including line and bar charts, with minimal effort.
AI Analytics Chatbot: An AI-driven chatbot that transforms questions into SQL queries and generates easy-to-understand insights without needing technical skills.
Robust Data Security: Sensitive data is never sent to external servers. All database metadata used for query generation is fully anonymised, with de-anonymisation happening only on your local device, ensuring data privacy at every step.
Quick Database Connection: Fast and straightforward database connections to popular SQL platforms like Snowflake, Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, and more.
Automated Reporting: Schedule customised reports to be generated and delivered to your team at set intervals, keeping everyone informed without needing to create reports recurring reports manually each time.
Limitations
Requires a Subscription: BlazeSQL offers a free trial, but ongoing access to its full feature set is available only through a paid subscription.
Holistics
Holistics is a robust cloud-based BI platform simplifies data exploration for technical and non-technical teams. It enables data teams to define key metrics and build reusable data models, which can then be accessed by non-technical users through an easy-to-navigate interface. This has been said to reduce the back-and-forth between data and business teams, as users can independently create reports and query data without needing SQL skills. Holistics’ emphasis on “Analytics as Code” brings version control and modularity to analytics, ensuring consistency across reports while maintaining high data accuracy and integrity.
Features
User-Friendly Interface: An intuitive, drag-and-drop interface allows users to build charts and explore data insights without needing SQL, making data analysis accessible to everyone on the team.
Advanced SQL Support: For in-depth analysis, Holistics supports SQL-based querying, enabling advanced users to create custom, complex queries as needed.
Customisable Filters: Users can apply custom filters to slice and dice data, enabling granular analysis.
Sharing: Holistics enables report export and sharing across various channels, including Google Sheets, PDFs, email, Slack, and via URL.
Realtime Data: Direct integration with SQL databases provides live data access, ensuring users can work with the most up-to-date information without delay.
Robust Data Security: Holistics employs encrypted server connections to safeguard data during analysis, ensuring data privacy without storing sensitive information on external servers.
Limitations
Limited Visualisation Options: Holistics offers basic visualisations but lacks some of the richer and more advanced chart types available in more visualisation-centric tools like Power BI, which may be limiting for users needing more advanced visuals.
Requires Data Modelling Knowledge: To leverage Holistics fully, users need a basic understanding of data modelling and relationships, which may be challenging for non-technical users without prior experience in BI or data structuring.
Looker
Now part of Google Cloud, Looker is a powerful BI tool tailored for organisations with dedicated data teams and substantial analytics needs. Often, you will find this tool is recommended as a Tabular alternative. It uses LookML, its SQL-based modelling language, allowing data teams to create reusable, standardised data models. Once these models are in place, business users can easily explore data, run ad hoc queries, and apply custom filters to get precise insights without SQL skills. Looker’s emphasis on data governance and integration makes it ideal for teams looking to simplify data access across departments and maintain consistency in reporting, all within a scalable, cloud-based platform.
Features
Customisable, Interactive Dashboards: Real-time, interactive dashboards with drag-and-drop capabilities allow users to create tailored views for data exploration.
Comprehensive API Integrations: Looker provides APIs to connect seamlessly with custom or third-party applications, adding flexibility for embedding analytics and expanding functionality within existing systems.
Automated Scheduling and Sharing: Users can automate reports and share insights across various channels, including email, Slack, and Segment, to keep teams updated.
Embedded Analytics: Robust options for embedding dashboards and reports into third-party websites, portals, or applications.
Workflow Automation Support: Looker integrates with various third-party applications, supporting workflow automation.
Diverse Database Connectivity: Connects with multiple cloud and on-premises databases, supporting hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
Optimised Performance with Secure Connection: A secure, single connection to databases with built-in caching improves performance, ensuring fast, real-time access to data without retaining data on Looker’s servers.
Limitations
Steep Learning Curve: Due to LookML's complexity, Looker often requires setup and maintenance by skilled data analysts. Learning LookML, Looker’s proprietary modelling language can take time for new users and may pose a barrier for less technical teams.
Performance Issues with Complex Queries: Looker can experience slow loading or rendering times, especially when handling complex or resource-intensive queries, which may impact user experience in data-heavy environments.
Google Data Studio
Google Data Studio is a free, cloud-based data visualisation tool that simplifies the process of creating interactive reports and dashboards. Part of the Google Marketing Platform, it integrates smoothly with other Google Analytics tools, making it a natural fit for users within the Google ecosystem. With its no-code setup and easy sharing options, Data Studio is ideal for marketing teams, small businesses, and anyone looking to generate insights without needing advanced technical skills.
Features
No-Code Data Explorer: A user-friendly, no-SQL interface enables ad hoc queries and data exploration, making it accessible for all skill levels.
Customisable Templates and Visualisations: Various built-in visualisation options and customisable templates allow users to compare data over time and build insights quickly.
Custom Metrics and Dimensions: Users can create new metrics and dimensions with custom formulas.
Real-Time Collaboration and Sharing: Reports can be shared easily through URLs, and they are integrated with Google Drive for real-time collaboration.
Native and Third-Party Connectors: Data Studio seamlessly integrates with Google Analytics, Google Ads, BigQuery, YouTube, and third-party connectors like Facebook Ads and other platforms.
Database Integration: Supports various data sources, including Google Sheets, PostgreSQL, and MySQL, allowing users to pull and analyse data from multiple systems
Limitations
Limited Visualisation and Analysis Options: Unlike more advanced BI tools, Data Studio’s visualisation options and complex analytical capabilities are somewhat limited. This may restrict users seeking in-depth data manipulation.
Steep Learning Curve for Advanced Features: While basic reporting is accessible, some of Data Studio’s advanced functionalities require learning time and may benefit from in-house support or technical guidance for practical use.
No Direct Excel Integration: Google Data Studio lacks native support for directly importing data from Excel, which could be inconvenient for users reliant on Excel for data storage.
Metabase
Metabase is a popular power BI alternative that is open source and designed to make data exploration accessible and intuitive, especially for non-technical users. With a simple setup and a no-code visual query builder, Metabase enables users to dive into their data, create reports, and build dashboards without SQL skills. It’s versatile enough to deploy on-premises or in the cloud, making it a flexible solution for organisations of all sizes. Built for teams looking to democratise data access, Metabase supports collaborative data insights with user-friendly tools that make data-driven decision-making easier across departments.
Features
Visual Query Builder with SQL Support: Users can add filters, joins, aggregations, and variables through an intuitive visual query builder or opt for SQL for more advanced queries, catering to non-technical and advanced users.
Interactive Visualisations and Auto-Refreshing Dashboards: Metabase provides a range of visualisation options, from bar charts to heat maps, with dashboards that auto-refresh to keep insights up-to-date.
Automated Report Sharing: Reports can be scheduled and shared easily via URLs, with direct delivery through email, Slack or URL.
Embedded Analytics (Enterprise Edition): The Enterprise Edition allows users to embed Metabase dashboards and reports into third-party applications, enabling organisations to bring data insights directly into their existing workflows.
Supported Databases: Metabase supports a wide variety of SQL and NoSQL databases; it’s unlikely that your database of choice won’t be supported.
Limitations
SQL Knowledge Required for Advanced Queries: While Metabase’s visual query builder is accessible, making the most of its advanced querying options often requires basic SQL skills, which can limit ease of use for entirely non-technical users.
Limited Support for Self-Hosting: Self-hosted deployments may face support challenges, as comprehensive support is only available through additional paid contracts.
Unsuitable for Advanced Analytics: Metabase does not support complex statistical modelling, machine learning, or AI functionalities, making it less suitable for data science-focused applications.
Restricted Sharing Options: Shared reports require recipients to have a Metabase account, which can limit easy access and restrict external stakeholders from viewing insights freely.