What is Power BI used for?

Power BI is a Microsoft business intelligence platform for building interactive dashboards and reports from many data sources. It is a good fit for building sales and finance dashboards, embedding analytics in a business application, and sharing governed reports across a company.

Yes. Power BI has a free plan, and paid plans start at $14 per seat per month. A free trial is also available.

Is Power BI open source?

No. Power BI is proprietary (closed-source) software. Open-source alternatives to Power BI include DataLens, Metabase and Redash.

Can I self-host Power BI?

Yes. Although Power BI is closed source, it can be self-hosted on your own servers, and the vendor also offers a hosted version.

What are some alternatives to Power BI?

Power BI competes with Tableau, Looker and Qlik. For open-source options, see Enlisted's ranked list of open-source Power BI alternatives.

Power BI: features, pricing and alternatives

About Power BI

Power BI is Microsoft's business intelligence tool for visualizing data and sharing insights. Users connect to data from cloud or on-premises sources, model it, and build interactive reports and dashboards. It integrates with Microsoft 365 apps, which helps put insights in front of people where they already work.

The product family includes Power BI Desktop, Pro, Premium, Embedded and Report Server, and it sits inside the Microsoft Power Platform alongside Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Pages and Copilot Studio. Microsoft highlights integration with Microsoft Fabric, OneLake as a single place for data, and Copilot in Fabric for exploring and explaining data.

Power BI is a proprietary commercial product. Report Server allows an on-premises deployment, while most other editions are cloud-based. Microsoft offers a free start, a buy-now option and a pricing page.

Key features

Interactive dashboards and reports
Connections to cloud and on-premises data
Desktop authoring app
Embedded analytics for applications
Copilot assistance in Microsoft Fabric
Integration with Microsoft 365 apps

Good fit for

→Building sales and finance dashboards
→Embedding analytics in a business application
→Sharing governed reports across a company

Tags: business-intelligence; dashboards; data-visualization; reporting; microsoft; analytics; power-platform

Power BI: questions and answers

What is Power BI used for?: Power BI is a Microsoft business intelligence platform for building interactive dashboards and reports from many data sources. It is a good fit for building sales and finance dashboards, embedding analytics in a business application, and sharing governed reports across a company.
Is Power BI free?: Yes. Power BI has a free plan, and paid plans start at $14 per seat per month. A free trial is also available.
Is Power BI open source?: No. Power BI is proprietary (closed-source) software. Open-source alternatives to Power BI include DataLens, Metabase and Redash.
Can I self-host Power BI?: Yes. Although Power BI is closed source, it can be self-hosted on your own servers, and the vendor also offers a hosted version.
What are some alternatives to Power BI?: Power BI competes with Tableau, Looker and Qlik. For open-source options, see Enlisted's ranked list of open-source Power BI alternatives.