Power BI
Power BI is Microsoft's business intelligence platform — free Windows authoring in Power BI Desktop, publishing and sharing through the Power BI service at a per-user price, and an on-premises Report Server for organisations that cannot publish to the cloud.
LicenseCommercial
DeploymentSelf-hostedManaged
PricingFreeSubscription
Operational complexityLow
WorkloadInteractive
Use it when
- The organisation is Microsoft-licensed already: authoring is free in Power BI Desktop and Pro seats are $14 a month on a tenant you probably pay for.
- Viewers are many and Fabric is in the picture: at F64 capacity and above, free-licence users can view content, so the per-viewer cost disappears.
- Power Query's reach matters: hundreds of connectors across files, databases, and SaaS, with an on-premises gateway for private networks.
- Governance should live in the semantic model: row-level security as DAX roles, object-level security, and sensitivity labels that travel with exports.
Think twice when
- Authors are not on Windows: Desktop is a Windows application.
- You want to avoid capacity arithmetic: Premium P SKUs are retiring in favour of Fabric F SKUs, and below F64 every viewer still needs Pro or PPU.
- Truly self-hosted BI is the requirement: Report Server is a narrow compliance escape hatch, not the service.
How it runs
Authored in Desktop, published to the managed service on per-user licences or Fabric capacity, with Report Server on-premises for what cannot leave. Per dataset, data imports into the VertiPaq in-memory engine, stays in DirectQuery pushdown, or reads Direct Lake on Fabric.
Details
CompareHow Power BI answers the questions Business Intelligence turns on.
Business Intelligence
| How it works | |
| Authoring model | Power BI Desktop: drag-and-drop canvas, Power Query for prep, DAX for measures |
| Semantic layer | Semantic model: a tabular model with DAX measures and Power Query M |
| Query execution | Import into the VertiPaq in-memory engine, DirectQuery pushdown, or Direct Lake on Fabric |
| Chart library | A large built-in set plus the AppSource marketplace of certified and uncertified custom visuals, an SDK for your own, and R and Python visuals, those last unsupported in app-owns-data embedding |
| Definitions in | Binary .pbix, or the plain-text PBIP project format, TMDL and JSON, still preview |
| Alerts and delivery | Dashboard tile alerts on gauges, KPIs and cards only, to the notification centre and optionally email, private to whoever set them and capped at 250; report alerts go through Fabric Activator, and Power Automate picks up the rest |
| Connections | |
| Connectors | Power Query reaches hundreds of sources, spreadsheets and files, every major database and warehouse, Azure and third-party SaaS, web, OData, ODBC and OLE DB; an on-premises gateway covers private networks |
| Embedding | Two shapes: embed for your customers, where a service principal authenticates and app users need no licence, and embed for your organization, where each user signs in with their own; production needs an A, P/EM or F capacity, and secure embed is the no-code URL option |
| Access | |
| Access control | Enforced in the semantic model, RLS roles are DAX filters that bind only to Viewers, object-level security hides columns and measures, and sensitivity labels travel with exports |
| Cost | |
| Billing unit | Per user for Pro and Premium Per User, or capacity by the SKU, and the line that decides it is F64 and above, where viewers stop needing a Pro licence at all |
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