Amazon Quicksight vs Power BI Embedded: What are the differences?

Introduction

Here are the key differences between Amazon Quicksight and Power BI Embedded:

1. Deployment: Amazon Quicksight is a cloud-based business intelligence solution provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS), while Power BI Embedded is a cloud-based analytics solution by Microsoft Azure. Quicksight is fully managed and allows users to quickly deploy and scale their visualizations in the cloud. On the other hand, Power BI Embedded provides developers with a set of APIs to embed Power BI reports and dashboards into their own applications.

2. Pricing Model: Quicksight is designed with a pay-per-usage model, where users pay only for what they consume in terms of data storage, user accesses, and query execution. Power BI Embedded, on the other hand, offers different pricing tiers based on capacity, allowing users to choose a capacity that best fits their needs. This allows for more predictability in costs for Power BI Embedded users.

3. Data Sources: Quicksight provides natively integrated connectors to a variety of data sources, including Amazon Redshift, Amazon RDS, Amazon Aurora, and various file formats like CSV and Excel. Power BI Embedded also offers connectors to multiple data sources, including Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, and SharePoint, among others.

4. Embedding Capabilities: Power BI Embedded offers more flexibility and customization options when embedding reports and dashboards into third-party applications. It provides a set of JavaScript APIs that allow developers to integrate Power BI components seamlessly with their application's user interface. Quicksight, though it supports embedding, does not offer the same level of customization.

5. Supported Platforms: Quicksight is primarily designed and optimized for web and mobile browsers. This means that it can be accessed from any device with a modern browser that supports HTML5. In contrast, Power BI Embedded offers support for a wider range of platforms, including Windows, iOS, and Android devices. This allows for greater accessibility and flexibility in accessing reports and dashboards.

6. Collaboration and Sharing: Quicksight provides a range of collaboration features, such as the ability to share dashboards and reports with other users, set access permissions, and collaborate on data analysis. Power BI Embedded also offers collaboration capabilities, but it is more focused on embedding reports and dashboards into applications rather than sharing them directly with other users.

In summary, Amazon Quicksight and Power BI Embedded differ in terms of deployment options, pricing models, data sources, embedding capabilities, supported platforms, and collaboration features. Quicksight focuses on providing a fully managed cloud-based business intelligence solution, while Power BI Embedded offers APIs to enable developers to embed Power BI reports and dashboards into their own applications.