Microsoft Access vs Power BI

Overview

Power BI

Stacks994

Followers946

Votes29

Microsoft Access

Stacks83

Followers87

Votes0

Microsoft Access vs Power BI: What are the differences?

Cost and Licensing: One key difference between Microsoft Access and Power BI is their cost and licensing. Microsoft Access is a part of the Microsoft Office suite and is typically included with the purchase of Office. On the other hand, Power BI is a separate and more advanced analytics platform that requires a separate license. This means that while Access is more cost-effective, Power BI may require an additional investment.
Data Analysis and Visualization: Another significant difference between Microsoft Access and Power BI is their focus on data analysis and visualization. Access primarily serves as a database management system (DBMS) that allows users to store, retrieve, and manipulate data. Power BI, on the other hand, is designed for comprehensive data analysis and visualization, offering powerful tools and features that allow users to create interactive dashboards and reports.
Connectivity and Integration: Microsoft Access is designed to work with Microsoft's relational database engine, allowing users to connect to local databases and manipulate data using SQL queries. Power BI, however, offers broader connectivity options, allowing users to connect to a wide range of data sources, including databases, Excel files, cloud services, and web APIs. It also provides seamless integration with other Microsoft products, such as Excel and Azure.
Collaboration and Sharing: Power BI excels in collaboration and sharing capabilities compared to Microsoft Access. While Access is primarily a desktop application with limited sharing options, Power BI offers cloud-based collaboration features that enable multiple users to work on and share the same reports and dashboards in real-time. This makes it easier for teams to collaborate and make data-driven decisions together.
Advanced Analytics: Power BI offers advanced analytics capabilities that go beyond the scope of Microsoft Access. With Power BI, users can leverage machine learning algorithms, natural language processing, and other advanced analytical techniques to gain insights from their data. Access, on the other hand, does not have built-in advanced analytics features and is more focused on traditional database management.
Scalability and Performance: When it comes to handling large datasets and delivering high-performance analytics, Power BI outshines Microsoft Access. Power BI is built to handle big data and can connect to various data warehouses and cloud-based services for scalable analytics. On the other hand, Access may struggle with large datasets and may not perform as efficiently when it comes to processing complex analytical queries.

In Summary, Microsoft Access is a cost-effective DBMS focused on data storage and retrieval, while Power BI is a more advanced analytics platform with comprehensive data analysis, visualization, and collaboration capabilities.

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Advice on Power BI, Microsoft Access

Vojtech

Head of Data at Mews

Nov 24, 2019

Decided

Power BI is really easy to start with. If you have just several Excel sheets or CSV files, or you build your first automated pipeline, it is actually quite intuitive to build your first reports.

And as we have kept growing, all the additional features and tools were just there within the Azure platform and/or Office 365.

Since we started building Mews, we have already passed several milestones in becoming start up, later also a scale up company and now getting ready to grow even further, and during all these phases Power BI was just the right tool for us.

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Detailed Comparison

Power BI	Microsoft Access
It aims to provide interactive visualizations and business intelligence capabilities with an interface simple enough for end users to create their own reports and dashboards.	It is an easy-to-use tool for creating business applications, from templates or from scratch. With its rich and intuitive design tools, it can help you create appealing and highly functional applications in a minimal amount of time.
Get self-service analytics at enterprise scale; Use smart tools for strong results; Help protect your analytics data	rich and intuitive design tools; highly functional applications in a minimal amount of time
Statistics
Stacks 994	Stacks 83
Followers 946	Followers 87
Votes 29	Votes 0
Pros & Cons
Pros 18 Cross-filtering 4 Database visualisation 2 Powerful Calculation Engine 2 Intuitive and complete internal ETL 2 Access from anywhere	No community feedback yet
Integrations
Microsoft Excel	Microsoft SQL Server Azure SQL Database

What are some alternatives to Power BI, Microsoft Access?

MongoDB

MongoDB stores data in JSON-like documents that can vary in structure, offering a dynamic, flexible schema. MongoDB was also designed for high availability and scalability, with built-in replication and auto-sharding.

MySQL

The MySQL software delivers a very fast, multi-threaded, multi-user, and robust SQL (Structured Query Language) database server. MySQL Server is intended for mission-critical, heavy-load production systems as well as for embedding into mass-deployed software.

PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL is an advanced object-relational database management system that supports an extended subset of the SQL standard, including transactions, foreign keys, subqueries, triggers, user-defined types and functions.

Microsoft SQL Server

Microsoft® SQL Server is a database management and analysis system for e-commerce, line-of-business, and data warehousing solutions.

SQLite

SQLite is an embedded SQL database engine. Unlike most other SQL databases, SQLite does not have a separate server process. SQLite reads and writes directly to ordinary disk files. A complete SQL database with multiple tables, indices, triggers, and views, is contained in a single disk file.

Cassandra

Partitioning means that Cassandra can distribute your data across multiple machines in an application-transparent matter. Cassandra will automatically repartition as machines are added and removed from the cluster. Row store means that like relational databases, Cassandra organizes data by rows and columns. The Cassandra Query Language (CQL) is a close relative of SQL.

Memcached

Memcached is an in-memory key-value store for small chunks of arbitrary data (strings, objects) from results of database calls, API calls, or page rendering.

MariaDB

Started by core members of the original MySQL team, MariaDB actively works with outside developers to deliver the most featureful, stable, and sanely licensed open SQL server in the industry. MariaDB is designed as a drop-in replacement of MySQL(R) with more features, new storage engines, fewer bugs, and better performance.

RethinkDB

RethinkDB is built to store JSON documents, and scale to multiple machines with very little effort. It has a pleasant query language that supports really useful queries like table joins and group by, and is easy to setup and learn.

Metabase

It is an easy way to generate charts and dashboards, ask simple ad hoc queries without using SQL, and see detailed information about rows in your Database. You can set it up in under 5 minutes, and then give yourself and others a place to ask simple questions and understand the data your application is generating.

Related Comparisons

Microsoft Access vs Power BI: What are the differences?

Cost and Licensing: One key difference between Microsoft Access and Power BI is their cost and licensing. Microsoft Access is a part of the Microsoft Office suite and is typically included with the purchase of Office. On the other hand, Power BI is a separate and more advanced analytics platform that requires a separate license. This means that while Access is more cost-effective, Power BI may require an additional investment.
Data Analysis and Visualization: Another significant difference between Microsoft Access and Power BI is their focus on data analysis and visualization. Access primarily serves as a database management system (DBMS) that allows users to store, retrieve, and manipulate data. Power BI, on the other hand, is designed for comprehensive data analysis and visualization, offering powerful tools and features that allow users to create interactive dashboards and reports.
Connectivity and Integration: Microsoft Access is designed to work with Microsoft's relational database engine, allowing users to connect to local databases and manipulate data using SQL queries. Power BI, however, offers broader connectivity options, allowing users to connect to a wide range of data sources, including databases, Excel files, cloud services, and web APIs. It also provides seamless integration with other Microsoft products, such as Excel and Azure.
Collaboration and Sharing: Power BI excels in collaboration and sharing capabilities compared to Microsoft Access. While Access is primarily a desktop application with limited sharing options, Power BI offers cloud-based collaboration features that enable multiple users to work on and share the same reports and dashboards in real-time. This makes it easier for teams to collaborate and make data-driven decisions together.
Advanced Analytics: Power BI offers advanced analytics capabilities that go beyond the scope of Microsoft Access. With Power BI, users can leverage machine learning algorithms, natural language processing, and other advanced analytical techniques to gain insights from their data. Access, on the other hand, does not have built-in advanced analytics features and is more focused on traditional database management.
Scalability and Performance: When it comes to handling large datasets and delivering high-performance analytics, Power BI outshines Microsoft Access. Power BI is built to handle big data and can connect to various data warehouses and cloud-based services for scalable analytics. On the other hand, Access may struggle with large datasets and may not perform as efficiently when it comes to processing complex analytical queries.

Microsoft Access vs Power BI

Overview