Power BI
Business intelligence dashboards and reports.
Cost
Free to start, paid to go further
Power BI Desktop is free to use; sharing and collaboration features require a licence.
Open source
No
The code is private. You depend on the company that makes it.
Your data
Stays on your computer
Nothing is uploaded. This matters for anything confidential.
Use it for this
Turning recurring reporting into something that refreshes itself.
Do not use it for this
One-off analysis. A spreadsheet is faster for that.
A moment where you would reach for it
Replacing a monthly spreadsheet someone rebuilds by hand every month.
How hard is it to pick up?
Takes real effort to learn. Worth it if you need what it does.
Other things that do this job
No tool is best at everything. These solve a similar problem, with different trade-offs.
About this entry
Checked on 1 Sept 2026. Prices and free limits change without warning, and often quietly. Treat everything above as a starting point and confirm on the official site before you rely on it.
Nothing here is sponsored. A tool appears because it solves a real problem, not because someone paid for it to be listed.