Microsoft Power BI
Ranked 2 of 4 business intelligence tools by recommenders
Microsoft's dashboard tool, which people say is free and does much more than rivals like Tableau. Critics often call it slow and bloated.
Microsoft's dashboard tool, which people say is free and does much more than rivals like Tableau. Critics often call it slow and bloated.
19 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 9
- criticize it
- 10
- approval share
- 47%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 9 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.9 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Often called terrible or a joke
“The Low Carbon Contracts Company has a terrible Power BI which attempts to turn this data into charts”
Comment from 14 Oct 2026 in “The United Kingdom generates less electricity per person than in the 1970s” “I'm sometimes impressed by the novel ways it finds to suck”
Comment from 20 Jun 2026 in “Windows 11 New Media Player Uses 3.5x More RAM, Charges for Popular Video Codecs” “Azure? Teams? PowerBI? It's a total joke”
Comment from 4 Jan 2026 in “Lessons from 14 Years at Google” - Comment from 11 Oct 2026 in “Mxc: Microsoft Execution Containers version 1.0.0”
Heavy low-code tooling
“I think this is something PowerBI can do. But that feels like a heavier layer of tooling.”
Comment from 17 Jan 2026 in “Do people still need websites, or just a public page?” “I don't personally like using low code solutions”
Comment from 22 Sep 2026 in “Microsoft killed FoxPro in 2007. Anyway, here's FoxPro revived”
Other business intelligence tools people recommend
The three most recommended other business intelligence tools, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 4 business intelligence tools, rankedWhat people said
18 of the 20 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“The Low Carbon Contracts Company has a terrible Power BI which attempts to turn this data into charts”
“Then for months Power BI was wrong.”
“Don't even get me started on PowerBI...”
“Typically these types of analytics (PowerBI, Tableau) require an iFrame so that's not manageable via git.”
“I don't personally like using low code solutions”
“I need to use like 400mb of ram to view an illegible chart”
“I'm sometimes impressed by the novel ways it finds to suck”
“powerbi+cloud just works out of the box”
“Back then I just couldn't use Power BI. But fast forward a few years, I think it got a lot better since maybe 2020.”
“PowerBI/Tableau are free and do much more.”
“If I didn't need to use Power BI or connect to various data sources in Excel I would have requested a MacBook at work years ago.”
“I think this is something PowerBI can do. But that feels like a heavier layer of tooling.”
“not allowing interaction in Microsoft applications like Power BI (especially with no ability to copy and paste)”
“Azure? Teams? PowerBI? It's a total joke”
“expensive subscriptions (Tableau/PowerBI costing $70+/mo)”
“Microsoft's Power BI and Power Apps do. Both provide a lot of "this is just Excel" feelings to business users”
“you can use Power Query/BI to essentially run a relational database and metrics/dashboards on it”
“The code editor is barebone and overall the software is bloat and slow.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.