Best Business Intelligence (BI) Software

Do you intend to fuse business intelligence software into your growing business? Considered generally the third wing of Information Technology, the BI tools can be helpful to store and process a tremendous volume of information. Not just that, BI tools aid businesses to transform information into noteworthy insights and settling on data-driven choices progressively. To help enterprises meet these specific business needs, GoodFirms lists the best business intelligence software available in the market. The listed business intelligence tools are accompanied by platform details and verified customer reviews.

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A Complete List of Open Source & Free Business Intelligence (BI) Software tools with Latest Reviews

  • Vizologi

    Inspiring the business models not written yet.
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    Vizologi helps you reduce the uncertainty and risk in choosing your startup's business model. It searches, analyzes, and visualizes the world's collective business model intelligence to help answer your strategic questions to enter or reinvent a new market or category, and it combines the simplicity of business model canvas with the innovation power of mash-up methods. WHY? Vizologi believes in ... read more about Vizologi

    Entry Level Price
    $19 Per Month
    Free Trial
    14 Days
    Category Focus
    100% in Business Intelligence Software
  • TheEye

    TheEye is an IPA Intelligent Process Automation platform
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    TheEye is a Process Automation platform with Artificial Intelligence (RPA+AI) that prioritizes human talent over repetitive tasks and guarantees return of investment in less than 6 months. We develop software robots that mimic our behaviour to co-work with humans. They take care of the expensive tasks that no one likes to do, with no breaks, reducing costs plus error-free. So human talent is then ... read more about TheEye

    Entry Level Price
    $720 Per Year
    Free Trial
    N/A
    Category Focus
    25% in Business Intelligence Software
  • bipp

    The Data Analyst's BI Platform
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    BIPP, inc., is a business intelligence (BI) company that helps organizations use their data to make better and faster decisions. Our enterprise-grade, in-database cloud BI platform was developed to save data and BI analysts’ time and develop insights faster. It leverages SQL and is powered by the bippLang data modeling language, which supports collaboration, git-based version control, and re-usa ... read more about bipp

    Entry Level Price
    Free version
    Free Trial
    Available
    Category Focus
    100% in Business Intelligence Software
  • Airboxr

    10X faster spreadsheets
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    Airboxr is a GSheet add-on that helps you copy, filter, analyze, and enrich data without ever leaving your spreadsheet. No code, no macros, no learning curve. Simply add your raw data and get started. ... read more about Airboxr

    Entry Level Price
    $9 Per Month
    Free Trial
    14 Days
    Category Focus
    100% in Business Intelligence Software
  • Path

    Every company has a story, we help you tell yours
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    • Use Path to connect, collaborate, and grow your business. Path was built from the ground up to integrate seamlessly with QuickBooks Online to give you a detailed, easy-to-understand picture of your company’s data story by transforming your financial data into actionable business intelligence and visual KPI’s. Connect individuals from your team to the data they have a part in. Collaborate w ... read more about Path

    Entry Level Price
    $9 Per Month
    Free Trial
    7 Days
    Category Focus
    100% in Business Intelligence Software
  • Exago BI

    Best Embedded BI for SaaS
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    Embedded Business Intelligence and Analytics for Software Companies Exago BI is a seamlessly embedded, no plugins required, white labeled solution for software companies looking to provide ad hoc reporting, dashboards and analytics to their internal and external customers. Our full-featured BI solution tightly integrates with your web-based SaaS and or on-premise application and allows non-t ... read more about Exago BI

    Entry Level Price
    Contact vendor
    Free Trial
    14 Days
    Category Focus
    100% in Business Intelligence Software
  • Count

    The data notebook your whole team will love
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    Count is a new type of data analytics application, where everything is based around notebooks. Notebooks contain all of your analytics queries, alongside rich text, images, videos, and interactive controls. A notebook can be a simple static document, a fully interactive application, or anything in-between. They are backed up as you write, use state-of-the-art rendering technology to take full a ... read more about Count

    Entry Level Price
    Contact vendor
    Free Trial
    14 Days
    Category Focus
    33% in Business Intelligence Software
  • Loop BI

    Turn data into action for your franchise network
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    Loop is the business performance management tool for franchises that drives KPIs. Our platform enables you to unlock business insights, assign actions and empower your people to proactively improve KPI performance. What separates us from traditional business intelligence tools is that action underpins everything. Loop goes beyond data analytics, and unites business intelligence with action pla ... read more about Loop BI

    Entry Level Price
    $5000 Per Month
    Free Trial
    N/A
    Category Focus
    100% in Business Intelligence Software
  • BiCXO

    Assisted BI Solution
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    Business intelligence solution for SMEs for business analytics, business KPI tracking, and data analysis for critical decision making ... read more about BiCXO

    Entry Level Price
    Contact vendor
    Free Trial
    N/A
    Category Focus
    100% in Business Intelligence Software
  • Olapsoft

    Universal BI/EPM Platform
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    Olapsoft supports the full spectrum of tools to optimize, analyze and visualize data. It offers extended integration features with legacy systems and other BI tools. It provides flexibility in interface customization, data storage structures, and performing calculations. Olapsoft implements customization on the level of scripts and user-defined macroses. ... read more about Olapsoft

    Entry Level Price
    $5000 Per Year
    Free Trial
    7 Days
    Category Focus
    100% in Business Intelligence Software
  • Auctm

    The Most Advanced Analytics Platform For Real Estate Teams
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    Auctm is an analytics platform for brokers, team leaders, managers, and coaches. High-performing broker teams use Auctm’s dashboards and actionable insights to improve conversions, coach and retain agents, drive accountability, and make data-driven decisions to grow their business profitably. Auctm Key Features lets: 1. Team leaders and managers identify good and poor performing agents. ... read more about Auctm

    Entry Level Price
    Contact vendor
    Free Trial
    More than 30 days
    Category Focus
    50% in Business Intelligence Software
  • Zuar Runner

    Zuar Runner automates the flow of data from hundreds of potential sources into a single destination.
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    Utilizing the data that's spread across your organization shouldn't be so difficult! With Zuar Runner you can automate the flow of data from hundreds of potential sources into a single destination. Collect, transform, model, warehouse, report, monitor and distribute: it's all managed by Zuar Runner. Plus, our experts will ensure your deployment is fast and smooth. Contact us for more details and ... read more about Zuar Runner

    Entry Level Price
    Contact vendor
    Free Trial
    14 Days
    Category Focus
    25% in Business Intelligence Software
  • Zuar Portal

    Zuar Portal is the fast, scalable way to create unique analytics hubs.
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    Provide secure, global access to your organization’s analytics. Zuar Portal is the easy way to create unique analytics hubs for executives, employees, partners, vendors, customers, and more. Employ drag and drop simplicity to build your analytics HQ. Interoperates with multiple business intelligence platforms and data sources. We can help you every step of the way. Contact us for more details an ... read more about Zuar Portal

    Entry Level Price
    Contact vendor
    Free Trial
    14 Days
    Category Focus
    25% in Business Intelligence Software
  • DigDash

    YOUR AGILE BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE SOLUTION
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    DigDash is the French Software Vendor that challenges the American giants of dashboards, Dataviz and analytics. With more than 150,000 users in 25 countries, DigDash Enterprise helps customers better manage their business, explore their data and communicate it in an effective way. Whatever your operational vision, our tool adapts tothe specific business needs of medium-sized companies and large ac ... read more about DigDash

    Entry Level Price
    Contact vendor
    Free Trial
    N/A
    Category Focus
    50% in Business Intelligence Software
  • y42

    No-Code Business Intelligence
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    y42 is a no-code data management platform for loading, cleaning, connecting and sharing data. The end-to-end platform runs a BigQuery data warehouse "under the hood" and empowers users to build scalable data pipelines without coding. Integrate and manage hundreds of data sources and automate all your data processes via drag & drop. ... read more about y42

    Entry Level Price
    Contact vendor
    Free Trial
    N/A
    Category Focus
    25% in Business Intelligence Software
  • ZEMA

    Award-Winning Data Management, Analytics, Automation, and Integration Platform
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    ZE is the developer of ZEMA, a market data management platform for data aggregation, validation, modeling, automation, and integration. By providing unrivaled data collection, analytics, curve management, and integration capabilities, ZEMA offers robust data solutions for clients in different industries including commodity and energy markets. ZEMA is available on-premise, as a cloud solution via t ... read more about ZEMA

    Entry Level Price
    Contact vendor
    Free Trial
    N/A
    Category Focus
    20% in Business Intelligence Software
  • Daisee

    Daisee gives you a deeper understanding of your customer interactions.
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    Daisee builds technology to provide access to deep insight into the behavioural and emotional dynamics of your customers with the most accurate AI-powered, fully-automated AQM available for more impactful coaching, improved commercial outcomes and compliance monitoring. Daisee analyzes and automatically scores 100% of customer interactions using a world-first automated, digital quality scorecar ... read more about Daisee

    Entry Level Price
    Contact vendor
    Free Trial
    N/A
    Category Focus
    33% in Business Intelligence Software
  • Keatext

    Your most impactful CX improvements start here
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    Keatext is a CX analytics solution that provides AI-based predictive recommendations to improve customer satisfaction. Get recommendations from your customer responses like reviews, open ended surveys, and contact center tickets to support data-driven decisions and be a more customer-centric organization. - Bring forward decisions with impact - Monitor every stage of the customer journey ... read more about Keatext

    Entry Level Price
    $550 Per Month
    Free Trial
    14 Days
    Category Focus
    33% in Business Intelligence Software
  • DevicePilot

    SERVICE MONITORING FOR CONNECTED DEVICES
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    DevicePilot Service Monitoring for connected devices provides a single pane of glass for Product, Operations and Customer Support teams, driving up customer satisfaction and growth, while reducing operational costs. Service Monitoring for IoT. Optimize your service delivery by turning device data into action Protect revenue Your customers will only go on paying you if you go on delivering a qu ... read more about DevicePilot

    Entry Level Price
    Contact vendor
    Free Trial
    N/A
    Category Focus
    25% in Business Intelligence Software
  • Rayven

    Rayven solves real-world problems with AI + IoT solutions.
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    Rayven is a codeless AI and IoT platform used for creating, operating and optimizing brilliant commercial and industrial real-time monitoring, control and predictive analytics solutions. Quick-to-deploy, simple-to-use and affordable; we use our platform and unrivaled Data Science expertise to solve real-world problems and enable our customers to achieve their business goals – not just their tech ... read more about Rayven

    Entry Level Price
    Contact vendor
    Free Trial
    N/A
    Category Focus
    33% in Business Intelligence Software
  • SensrTrx

    There’s a better way to manage the factory floor…
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    SensrTrx is manufacturing productivity and analytics software that provides real-time visibility on the factory floor that helps reduce downtime, improve on-time delivery, and increase profitability of manufacturing companies. SensrTrx empowers manufacturers to start small, think big, move fast, and easily grow from a single machine at one plant to thousands of machines across the globe with manuf ... read more about SensrTrx

    Entry Level Price
    Contact vendor
    Free Trial
    N/A
    Category Focus
    33% in Business Intelligence Software
  • TranZact

    Digitizing normal SMEs into extraordinary businesses.
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    TranZact is a cloud-based software that digitizes the business process for SMEs from customer inquiry to sales, to dispatch.TranZact is a cloud-based software that digitizes the business process for SMEs from customer inquiry to sales, to dispatch. The software offers users the tools to keep an eye on all their conversions and payment notifications as well as track all their purchases and stock mo ... read more about TranZact

    Entry Level Price
    $0 One-time
    Free Trial
    N/A
    Category Focus
    50% in Business Intelligence Software
  • MachEye

    Data Made Consumable and Actionable
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    MachEye’s augmented analytics platform transforms the way organizations integrate their data, decisions, and operations. While current business intelligence platforms only answer “what” questions on data, MachEye helps users answer “what, why, and how” scenarios for everyone in an organization. Decision-makers at any level can now receive actionable insights and recommendations through a ... read more about MachEye

    Entry Level Price
    $18 Per Month
    Free Trial
    30 Days
    Category Focus
    100% in Business Intelligence Software
  • SmartMarket

    Location Intelligence Tool
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    By intelligently enhancing your existing and new store strategies, SmartMarket provides actionable insights to help scale up your business. We resolve the following issues for you with our SmartMarket: Store Planning Marketing Campaign Planning Sales Forecasting Risk Assessment Supply Chain Network Design Gauging the efficacy of existing footprint/presence/outlets ... read more about SmartMarket

    Entry Level Price
    Contact vendor
    Free Trial
    7 Days
    Category Focus
    100% in Business Intelligence Software
  • NLSQL

    Chat with your database
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    Business Intelligence (BI) with NLSQL is a powerful tool that enables non-technical users to easily access, analyze, and visualize data stored in databases using natural language queries. By using NLSQL, users can query databases in a more intuitive and user-friendly way, without the need for knowledge of SQL. NLSQL can be used to perform a wide range of data analysis tasks, such as data aggrega ... read more about NLSQL

    Entry Level Price
    Contact vendor
    Free Trial
    30 Days
    Category Focus
    40% in Business Intelligence Software
  • Datawiz BI

    Make decisions based on real data
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    With Datawiz BI retailers get structured data that you can start turning into useful insights from the first day of service integration. Datawiz BI is an advanced analytical reporting solution with more than 60 analytical reports for all retail chain processes. The service allows you to create custom dashboards and visualizations based on the received data. The main goal of BI is to simplify t ... read more about Datawiz BI

    Entry Level Price
    Contact vendor
    Free Trial
    14 Days
    Category Focus
    100% in Business Intelligence Software
  • GrowMaxBI

    Business intelligence Platform
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    Business intelligence solutions are a set of tools and techniques that help FMCG/CPG businesses gather, analyze and interpret data to make informed decisions. By using these solutions, businesses can gain valuable insights into customer behavior, market trends, and operational performance. This, in turn, helps them to optimize their processes, improve their products, and increase their sales. With ... read more about GrowMaxBI

    Entry Level Price
    Contact vendor
    Free Trial
    N/A
    Category Focus
    50% in Business Intelligence Software
  • Tabula.io

    Your personal AI data assistant
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    The goal of any data work is to turn siloed data into actionable insights. Tabula is an all-in-one data management solution, that aligns data management between data creators and stakeholders. How reporting process is organized in Tabula? While managers receive real-time reports on their current data and track KPIs and metrics in the projects’ dashboards, data analysts see the same reports bu ... read more about Tabula.io

    Entry Level Price
    Contact vendor
    Free Trial
    N/A
    Category Focus
    50% in Business Intelligence Software
  • InetSoft

    Empower all users with data insight in the cloud computing & SaaS era
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    Since 1996 InetSoft has been delivering easy, agile, and robust business intelligence software that makes it possible for organizations and solution providers of all sizes to deploy or embed full-featured business intelligence solutions. InetSoft's analytics and reporting are designed and optimized for cloud computing and Software-as-a-Service where software and data are increasingly distributed ... read more about InetSoft

    Entry Level Price
    Contact vendor
    Free Trial
    N/A
    Category Focus
    50% in Business Intelligence Software

Buyer’s Guide

Introduction to Buyer’s Guide for Business Intelligence Software

The digital revolution has fuelled enormous opportunities for businesses to grow at an unprecedented rate.  The organizations that are marching on this growth path have become data-driven and are investing heavily in technologies to enhance their performances. They are harnessing data technology like business intelligence software to help them in engaging customers, optimizing operations, reducing business costs, improving product quality, and making better decisions. Not just large enterprises, but small and mid-size companies are showing the same anticipation for the data-intelligence software to solve their complex issues.

With AI, cloud computing, and big data, data intelligence software has become more powerful and accurate.  The organizations are now bracing up to take advantage of these new features and make them a part of their culture.  However, before they get their hands on new features, they must get familiarized with the business intelligence software selection and the need for advanced BI tools.

This buyer guide is intended to help business owners, executives, managers, data analysts, data scientists, and other data technology enthusiasts on the important aspects of BI software and parameters to consider while buying the software.  It envelops everything that business owners need to know about BI tools.

What Is Business Intelligence?

Business intelligence is a technology-driven approach for analyzing business data and presenting actionable insights to help business executives, managers, and stakeholders to make informed business decisions. The BI technology includes tools, strategies, and processes to refine raw business data into meaningful data and present them in a most comprehensive format.

Why Is Business Intelligence Critical?

A business that consists of various departments like Accounting, HR, Sales, Marketing, etc., produces a large amount of data while performing daily activities. But these data are disorganized (stored at various places and in various formats) and unstructured and may not be of use until it is consolidated and streamlined. This is where business intelligence can be helpful.  Business intelligence uses technologies like data warehouses, data discovery tools, dashboards, ad hoc reporting, etc., to consolidate and derive valuable information from the data reciting across various business processes.     

In the data-driven world, data technology like business intelligence is very crucial in identifying new business opportunities and taking competitive market advantage. It gives organizations the power to access, analyze, understand, collaborate, and act on information.  With better insights about the working, trends, and analytics of the business process, organizations can identify risk elements that set them back and allow them to focus on the area for improvements. But to collect more in-depth and business specifics analytics, the enterprises have to resource end-to-end business intelligence software.

What Is Business Intelligence Software?

Business Intelligence Software is a tool that converts the raw business data (structured and unstructured) into valuable data insights for business owners or stakeholders to make an informed decision. The business intelligence tool extracts current and historical data related to business from various sources. They slice and dice these data to get a full 360-degree view of the business and generate the reports to analyze the business performance or any other metrics.

BI software is generally used by:

  • Managers and executives
  • Data Analysts
  • Front line worker
  • IT developers
  • Information workers
  • Suppliers, customers, and regulators

Business intelligence Software benefits are immense, and organizations can enhance their business efficiency by incorporating them into their infrastructure.

What Is the Difference Between Business Intelligence and Business Analytics?

Business Intelligence: Business intelligence is focused on descriptive analytics. It uses historical and present data to determine what has happened and what is happening.

Business Analytics: Business Analytics is a superset of Business Intelligence, and is focused on predictive analytics. It uses predictive models and machine learning algorithms to determine what will happen.

Why Does Business Intelligence Software Matter for Your Company?

  • Better decision: In a data-driven world, businesses can reap more benefits with BI software.  It helps to dig deeper into the business process and derive valuable insights from it. They can use these insights for making crucial business decisions.
  • Compare data with competitors:  Organizations, big or small,  can use a BI tool for conducting customer surveys and collecting data about how customers feel about the competitor’s product or what are their expectations from the product.  These insights can be used in the future to get a competitive advantage.   
  • Track performance:  BI software with a detailed report on business activities can help the organization track its business performance.  
  • Executive Scorecards and Dashboards: The top business intelligence tools provide business executives with detailed scorecards and dashboards to track business performance and capture essential business events. 
  • OLAP analysis: The best bi tools with OLAP help businesses to perform data analysis efficiently. It is due to OLAP structure and nature the business analyst can derive quick information from the database. OLAP helps in fast query execution, which means the data are available in a short time for making a rapid decision.
  • Ad hoc reporting: Ad-Hoc reporting is the process of creating reports on the fly.  The best business intelligence companies provide this feature in their tool, and it allows businesses to fetch reports on any particular activity and speed up the decision-making process. Unlike a structured report, ad hoc reporting does not require experts and thus reduces the IT workload.
  • Operational reporting: Operational reporting is a rapidly developing area of business intelligence.  Operational reporting software can either be used as a stand-alone or can be used in combination with BI solutions.  The operational reporting allows businesses to view data of their daily activities in real-time and in multiple ways.
  • Forecasting market trends: Data mining is an integral part of top business intelligence software, and it allows industries to predict the market trend. 
  • Customer relationship: With detailed insights about business activities, the business owner can study customer behavior and purchasing habits. Based on those insights, users can design their customer retention strategy and build better customer relationships.
  • Identify the bottlenecks: The best business intelligence companies could help in identifying the bottlenecks in the business process.  The BI dashboard displays intuitive reports about the business in detail, which makes it easy for business executives to study the obstacles in the system.  He can also determine how frequent and how long the problem persists within the business process.

What Are the Key Categories of Business Intelligence Software?

There are varieties of tools that fall under the BI software category.  

  • Dashboards: Dashboard is an integral component of BI software and is widely used to display important business metrics, track KPIs, and critical data points relevant to an organization. Dashboards enable organizations to make complex data easily understandable and approachable for non-technical users. It is restricted to one –page. Dashboards are elaborate and mostly focused on more narrow aspects of an organization. It can be updated in real-time.
  • Visualizations: Data visualization software enables users to put data in visual form and communicate information efficiently.
  • Reports: Reports are static documents that include data in text and table form, and sometimes it may involve graphs and charts.  It features data that is already cleaned and sorted. Unlike dashboards, the reports are sprawled to multiple pages.
  • Data mining: Data mining is the process of sorting and analyzing a large set of data that helps companies to solve problems and mitigate risks.
  • ETL: The process of ETL (Extract, Transform, and Load) plays a significant role in data integration strategies.  It also helps in migrating data between various sources, destinations, and analyzing tools; therefore, it is very important from the point of business intelligence.
  • OLAP: OLAP stands for Online Analytical Processing.  It is software that performs multidimensional analysis at high speeds on large volumes of data.
  • Data warehouse: A data warehouse is an analytical database that sits on top of transactional databases for analytic purposes.  The data warehouse selects, organizes, and gathers data for efficient comparison and analysis.
  • Business activities monitoring: Business activity monitoring (BAM) software allows managers and executives to monitor business processes in real-time. The BAM system compiles all the business-related information in one place so that the data can be consulted anytime, anywhere.

What Are the Benefits of Business Intelligence Software?

There are numerous benefits of a business intelligence system, but it largely depends on how organizations want to use it.

  • Faster, relevant, and accurate reporting: BI software pulls in data from various sources into a data warehouse, and then analyzes the data based on user queries, reports, and dashboards. The BI software facilitates real-time reporting and populates accurate data on various business events.
  • Visual analytics: BI tools present data in visual forms that are comprehensive and understandable.
  • Data-driven business decisions:  Business intelligence tools enable users to gather data from various sources and clean up data for better visualization. With quality business data in hand, it becomes easier for the business owner to make a smart decision.
  • Understand customer expectations: The top business intelligence software can help understand customer expectations and deliver better service.  The business owner can anticipate customer needs by analyzing the purchasing pattern and customer behavior.
  • Identifying marketing trends:  With the help of quality data, businesses can establish a new strategy that complements the market trend. For instance, the marketing team and sales team can build their future strategy based on the reports populated by the BI tool.
  • Streamline Operations: By having exact information or data, the organization can identify the error within the business operations and can take steps that can streamline the processes.
  • Reduce financial loss: Business often incurs financial loss due to wrong decisions, but with BI software, the business owner can have better insight into the data, which allows them to make the right decision and take calculated risks.
  • Increased organizational efficiency: The BI tools collect data from all relevant sources, which helps the organization to unlock the treasure in the business data.  It also saves time for business owners and managers on accumulating data with the traditional method.
  • Real-time updates: Some BI software provides a customized alerts option.  The users can set automated alerts to send emails to management or departments related to it. 

While the above-mentioned benefits of the business intelligence system may convince organizations to buy business intelligence tools, there are a few things to consider before boarding it. Follow the below section for the same.

Things to Consider Before Buying a Business Intelligence Software

  • Evaluate Software Need: Evaluate the software capacity before finalizing the BI software. The user must see whether the software fulfills the business requirement and find out whether the software can help to solve the problem.   
  • Support multiple data sources:  The top business intelligence software should support multiple data sources; since the modern business operates on a wide scale, the data may be scattered on multiple platforms and databases. It should be able to fetch data from anywhere and in any format.
  • BI Software Costs: Analyze the BI software costs from all angles like setup cost, technical support, and training, hiring experts, hidden charges, and software upgrades.
  • Integration: While performing business intelligence tools comparison, the business owner must verify the integration capabilities of the business intelligence tools.
  • Usability: Some business intelligence software requires an instruction or training program for its successful transition into companies’ infrastructure.  If the software does not gel well with the current working system or requires additional training, then it needs to get configured.
  • Support Collaboration Tools: The BI software must support collaboration features like the ability to share insights, share reports, comments, and collect feedback.
  • Customization: Customization is an important factor for BI software, and it should allow business owners to configure the software as per their needs. The best BI vendors generally provide customization options to their software users.
  • Role-based access: The BI software could be valuable assets for decision-makers, and there are many people in the organization that may need access to the BI software.  The BI software should have features to control the software access.
  • Real-time BI: Most of the business executives and stakeholders are keen on real-time information. Real-time BI software enables users to stay abreast of the competitor’s activities and market trends.
  • Responsive and user-friendly interface: If the user interface is complex, the money invested after BI software could be a complete waste.  The user interface of the BI software should be easy to comprehend and must support all devices. 
  • Deployment options:  The BI software should allow users to choose the deployment option. The users with dedicated IT teams may prefer on-premise software deployment, but with rising cloud technology trends, the user can switch to cloud infrastructure.   
  • Scalability: The BI software should be scalable, and it should easily adjust itself to the growing needs of the business.  It is always recommended that when a business executive or manager is scrutinizing the business intelligence software list, they should always consider scalability.
  • Technical support: Not all business intelligence software requires technical support, but if the BI software deployment is done for a large enterprise, then it may need technical support. Technical glitch is quite common in large enterprises dealing with a huge amount of data, so the best bi companies must deliver robust technical support.
  • Powerful reporting capabilities: The goal of BI software is to produce sensible reports that give a clear understanding of business activities.  The BI software lacking in powerful reporting features may fail to communicate the business insights to decision-makers. 

These factors can help business executives to select the top business intelligence tools; however, they can also shortlist the tool by comparing the features, deployment options, costs, and other factors.

Time-Saving Features of Business Intelligence Software

  • Ad-Hoc reports
  • Advanced security
  • Executive dashboard
  • Mobile access
  • Ranking report (Pivot tables)
  • Built-in ETL
  • White labeling
  • Intelligent alerts
  • Multi-tenant security
  • Geospatial mapping
  • What-if analysis
  • Seamless data and application importing
  • Collaboration tools
  • Predictive models

Emerging Trends in Business Intelligence Software

  • Voice-activated assistants:  Voice-enabled business intelligence makes it easier to collect insights, reports, and dashboards.  It has created a curiosity among BI experts about transcribing voice assistant data into an intelligent report. It can reinvent the data-analysis process by eliminating the traditional approach and reducing the time to generate business insights.    
  • Data discovery:  With data discovery, it is easy to find specific patterns and trends in a data-sets. With the advanced data visualization tools interlaced with features like heatmaps, geographical maps, and pivot tables, the data discovery becomes even more informative.  There is an evolving trend in data discovery referred to as “smart discovery” or “Augmented intelligence.”  It facilitates the AI capabilities to find the trend and relation in data, which helps to speed up the decision-making process. 
  • AI and NLP: It is fascinating that computers/ voice assistants have started decoding human language and responding to queries with high accuracy.  It is because of AI and NLP.  NLP is one of the most intriguing aspects of artificial intelligence, and it has a wide scope in Business Intelligence.  The NLP technology enables even a non-techie executive to analyze data without any support from any IT experts.
  • Data governance: Data governance defines the process of maintaining regulatory compliances and policies for managing data assets across the organization. In the coming years, data governance would become the top priority for all types of organizations. The data governance will ensure that data is acquired from the approved sources, processed for the defined purpose, shared among authorized personnel, and discarded as per the norm.   
  • Collaborative business intelligence: Collaborative BI is about bringing subject matter experts and stakeholders together to make better decisions.  By merging BI software with collaboration tools, including web 2.0 and social media, the business team can share their view or responses online. By documenting those communications, it would be easier for an organization to make a faster decision. In the future, the collaborative business intelligence tool will envelop more users and communication platforms.
  • Self-service BI interfaces: Self-service BI interface is rapidly getting its hold in business intelligence solutions. Today, the best business intelligence companies have introduced the self-service version, and in the future, there will be more efforts to make BI software completely self-reliant.    
  • Predictive analytics: Most of the BI software uses historical and real-time data to identify trends and answer questions related to what has happened and does not tell why something happened. With predictive analytics, BI tools can predict future outcomes. Generally, the BI tools do not always provide predictive analytics functionality, but in the coming days, they would be capable of predicting well in advance.
  • Better, faster, and cheaper: The amalgamation of cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and big data with the top business intelligence tools is going to become better, faster, and cheaper.  By implementing cloud computing, users can reduce infrastructure costs as well as improve data storage efficiency. On the other hand, artificial intelligence and the neural network will ensure the data fetching process, and data visualization process gets quicker and easier.

In a few years, several related advanced technologies would allow users to truly discover the benefits of a business intelligence system.

How to Implement BI Software Successfully?

Step 1) Identify Requirements: The best BI software vendors today have the flexibility to customize their offerings to the users. But, still,  prospective buyers should figure out the existing business requirements and match their requirements with the business intelligence tools list.   

Step 2) Make Raw Data Available: Make sure all the raw data are available, and define the strategy on how to import raw data into the BI software.

Step 3) Shortlist BI Vendors: Once the organization has completed all the basic BI software implementation processes, they can shortlist the business intelligence tools and hire the best BI solution provider. The software buyer should compare the business intelligence software list on parameters like customer support, secure integration, database support, training programs, etc.

Step 4) Implement software and team member's training: The next step is to implement top business intelligence tools into the business infrastructure and see whether the team members require any training for it.

Step 5) Monitor the software performance:  The business executives or managers should monitor the performance of the software. They need to see whether the software behaves as expected and if not, then does it allow them to make some changes to measure particular performance metrics.

What Is the Average Cost of Business Intelligence Software?

The business intelligence software list is very broad and versatile in its offerings. The price may vary based on the software capabilities and features. The price of the software could be as low as $3/month or may raise to $1000/month or even more. 

Business Intelligence Tools For Start-ups or Beginners:  The startups or budding entrepreneurs working with minimum risks and budget can opt for low-cost software. Few options for such business intelligence solutions are Lumenore which comes with a starting price of $2.49/month, BusinessQ with a starting price of €2.0/month. Both tools offer a free trial.

Business Intelligence Tools for Mid-Size and Large Enterprises: For organizations that want to churn out in-depth information from the most unstructured data source, then mid-size and large enterprise business intelligence tools are highly recommended.  Mid-range tools like Zoho Analytics with a starting price of $23/month and Redash with $49/month are good alternatives. Both the business intelligence solution providers offer a free trial, and users can upgrade their plans as they grow with their business and data volumes.  Some best BI tools that fall in the same category include DataHero, flex.bi, and DyntellBi.  In case the business owners are more inclined towards advanced features like inspecting customers' behavior or discovering data patterns with a machine learning algorithm, a tool like Kubit with a basic price of $999/month is a perfect solution. The price range may exceed $7999/month as per the user’s requirements  The other premium range business intelligence solution providers include Trevor.io with a starting price of $270/month, whose price may exceed depending on the types of database (Snowflake, Redshift, MySQL) and data rows to export. The tool also provides a free trial version. The best BI tools that offer similar services include SharePoint Vitals, Planhat, and illuminis. The business intelligence tools list can go endless, and it all boils down to business priorities.

There are business owners that see plenty of opportunity in business intelligence tools and put their efforts into developing new features through free and open source business intelligence software. Here is the list of some best free and open source business intelligence software that can further enhance the organization's efficiency with its exceptional features.

Why Refer to Goodfirms' List of Best Business Intelligence Software?

GoodFirms is a prominent review and rating platform for IT solutions. It has been listing various software products from different sectors to help consumers choose the right software for their organization and fine-tune the business processes.  With more than 60000 services and software companies listed on the platform, it makes it easy for consumers to compare software on various parameters and select the software that fits into their budget and requirements.

Conclusion

The companies realizing the role of data in accelerating business growth are actively adopting data intelligence technology and software in their infrastructure.  It helps them to tackle complex problems by making smart decisions. Since there are tons of business intelligence software available in the market, it is challenging to pick the best Business Intelligence Software. GoodFirms is here to help you with this task. Do not miss to check the list of best business intelligence software to empower your business with the most insightful data.

Comparison of Business Intelligence (BI) Software: Microsoft Power BI, Tableau, Looker, Qlik Sense and Zoho Analytics

FeatureMicrosoft Power BITableauLookerQlik SenseZoho Analytics
Company BackgroundDeveloped by Microsoft, offering a suite of business productivity tools, including Office 365, Azure, Dynamics 365, and Power Platform.Developed by Tableau Software, acquired by Salesforce, known for its data visualization and analytics software solutions.Developed by Looker Data Sciences, acquired by Google Cloud, providing a cloud-native BI and analytics platform.Developed by Qlik, known for its data discovery and visualization software, offering a range of analytics solutions.Developed by Zoho Corporation, offering a suite of cloud-based business software solutions, including Zoho Analytics for BI and analytics.
Target AudienceBusinesses of all sizes, particularly Microsoft usersBusinesses of all sizesMid-sized and large enterprisesBusinesses of all sizesSmall and medium businesses
PricingFreemium, paid plans start at $9.99/month per userPaid plans start at $10/month per userCustom quote, typically high costPaid plans start at €30/month per userFreemium, paid plans start at $29/month
Ease of UseUser-friendly for Microsoft users, learning curve for othersModerately complex learning curve for beginnersComplex requires technical expertiseUser-friendly, intuitive interfaceUser-friendly, drag-and-drop interface
FeaturesData visualization, self-service analytics, mobile access, strong integration with Microsoft productsPowerful data visualization, advanced analytics, and storytelling featuresData exploration, data modeling, embedded analytics, governed self-serviceAssociative engine, in-memory analytics, real-time data explorationBasic to advanced reporting, dashboards, self-service analytics, mobile access
StrengthsAffordable, strong Microsoft integration, user-friendly for existing usersRenowned for powerful visualization and storytelling, flexible deployment optionsScalable, secure, governed self-service analytics, advanced capabilitiesUser-friendly, in-memory analytics, real-time data explorationAffordable, good for basic reporting and self-service analytics
WeaknessesLimited data source connectivity compared to some optionsIt can be complex for beginners, with higher cost for advanced featuresHigh cost, complex, requires significant technical expertiseLimited customization compared to some optionsFeatures not as comprehensive as enterprise-grade BI tools
Best forBusinesses using Microsoft products seeking an affordable and user-friendly optionBusinesses prioritizing data visualization and storytelling with diverse data sourcesLarge enterprises requiring advanced analytics, data governance, and scalabilityBusinesses seeking a user-friendly and in-memory analytics platformSmall and medium businesses needing basic reporting and self-service analytics
Deployment OptionsOffers cloud-based deployment through Microsoft Azure, with desktop and mobile apps for accessing reports and dashboards, as well as on-premises deployment options for businesses requiring data sovereignty and control.Offers cloud-based deployment through Tableau Server or Tableau Online, with desktop and mobile apps for accessing dashboards and reports and on-premises deployment options for businesses with specific requirements.It offers cloud-based deployment through the Google Cloud Platform, with web-based access to reports and dashboards and on-premises deployment options for businesses with data privacy and compliance needs.Offers cloud-based deployment through Qlik Cloud Services or Qlik Sense Enterprise, with web and mobile apps for accessing analytics and on-premises deployment options for businesses with specific requirements.Offers cloud-based deployment through Zoho Cloud, with web-based access to reports and dashboards and on-premises deployment options for businesses requiring data control and compliance.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Business Intelligence Platform?

A business intelligence platform is a software application broadly used by businesses to assemble, sort, and analyze actionable data and convert them into meaningful insights to make intelligent business decisions.

Who is the best-rated business intelligence software on GoodFirms?

We have listed 345+ best business intelligence tools on our platform based on reviews & ratings. Here are the top business intelligence tools, including:

Who are the free business intelligence (bi) tools on GoodFirms?

The free business intelligence (BI) tools on GoodFirms, based on verified client reviews and ratings, include:

Who are the open source BI tools on GoodFirms?

The open-source BI tools on GoodFirms, based on verified client reviews and ratings, include:

Who are the cloud-based BI tools on GoodFirms?

The cloud-based BI tools on GoodFirms, based on verified client reviews and ratings, include:

Who is the best dashboard business intelligence software on GoodFirms?

The best dashboard business intelligence software on GoodFirms, based on verified client reviews and ratings, includes:

Who are the best bi tools for data visualization on GoodFirms?

The best BI tools for data visualization on GoodFirms, based on verified client reviews and ratings, include:

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