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

  • Dataddo

    Connect any data with your dashboards or data warehouse
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    Dataddo is cloud-based data integration, automation and transformation platform designed to work with almost any online data service such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Google Analytics, Facebook or Instagram. Dataddo can transform and wire the data to a wide range of databases, DWHs, cloud storages, dashboarding and BI applications, allowing smooth interoperability with existing IT and BI stacks. Datadd ... read more about Dataddo

    Entry Level Price
    $20 Per Month
    Free Trial
    14 Days
    Category Focus
    100% in Business Intelligence Software
  • cx

    SPEED, SCALABILITY AND STABILITY FOR BIG DATA ANALYTICS
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    A Business Intelligence platform natively running with massively parallel databases for data visualization, operational analytics, tracking and reporting. MPP BI paves information superhighway to your business data. MPP BI is flexible, robust, scalable, and easy to manage. MPP BI natively integrates with MPP databases using a high-speed two-way FDW connector that allows to display tables, physical ... read more about cx

    Entry Level Price
    $10 Per Month
    Free Trial
    N/A
    Category Focus
    50% in Business Intelligence Software
  • Wonderware Intelligence

    We provide Industrial IT solutions for the connected world.
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    We provide Industrial IT solutions for the connected world. As the UK and Ireland distributor of AVEVA and Wonderware software, and working with other top technology providers our goal is to help our customers improve their industrial operations through the provision of the optimum solution set of hardware, software and managed services to suit their operational goals and requirements. We work wit ... read more about Wonderware Intelligence

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

    Harness the power of your data
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    Integrate your data within the Yaguara platform. Here, it's normalized using industry best practices so that you can get the full picture, define your own metrics, and gain cross-functional insight. Data without context leads to confusion. Yaguara helps your team tie unified data directly to your goals and projects so that you have real-time understanding into overall performance. Reduce the time ... read more about Yaguara

    Entry Level Price
    $500 Per Month
    Free Trial
    Available
    Category Focus
    100% in Business Intelligence Software
  • Clickbase BI

    Empower your decisions . Be confident, be agile.
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    With ClickBase you can easily analyze your month to month or even day to day sales comparisons to any level of detail and between any elements of your business. You can know exactly where expenses are being spent, by whom and when for accurate allocations across monthly departmental reports. You can track current inventory levels, orders pending and sales trends by individual sales rep or by speci ... read more about Clickbase BI

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

    Tap into the value and power of your own data with beautiful BI that is easier, faster and better.
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    Cyberquery is a fast, easy-to-use, Business Intelligence solution which includes dashboards, reporting, analysis and data exploration for power users, occasional users and IT professionals. Cyberquery provides you with the fastest and most productive way to explore, analyze and understand the data that drives your business. Cyberquery is one of the fastest, easiest and highest‐quality Business ... read more about Cyberquery

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

    Universal BI/EPM Platform
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    Optimacros 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. Optimacros implements customization on the level of scripts and user-defined macroses. With Optimacros, we help you process an ... read more about Optimacros

    Entry Level Price
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    Free Trial
    N/A
    Category Focus
    100% in Business Intelligence Software
  • Power BI Documenter

    Document, review and improve Power BI reports
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    Whether you're creating reports, or using them to make key business decisions, Data Vizioner instantly lets you see how they are built and gives you confidence that you can trust the data you are seeing. Dashboards and reports are often poorly documented, making them difficult to work with, handover and review - wasting the time of already strained employees and significantly increasing budget, pr ... read more about Power BI Documenter

    Entry Level Price
    $9.99 Per Month
    Free Trial
    14 Days
    Category Focus
    100% in Business Intelligence Software
  • Foresight Intelligence Center

    Intelligence at your fingertips
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    The Foresight Intelligence Center automates the collection of all your business data into a highly-interactive dashboard, delivered in real-time. Make smarter and faster decisions to keep your business moving in the best strategic direction. Gain real-time visibility into your organization’s performance by always having access to the most up-to-date information. No more waiting for static report ... read more about Foresight Intelligence Center

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

    We combine industry know-how, state-of-the-art technologies and global reach
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    iMAL is the industry-leading digital Islamic core banking platform from Path Solutions, and the first and only AAOIFI-certified suite, confirming its compliance with AAOIFI's Sharia and financial accounting standards. It has been architected out of years of experience and offers several powerful and differentiating features making it one of the most comprehensive, flexible, and scalable Islamic so ... read more about iMAL

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

    Great people drive great businesses
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    Recruit, develop and retain high performing teams with PageUp: software that puts people at the heart of your business. PageUp provides you with a full suite of tools to help you deliver measurable results. With world-class support to guide you through implementation and beyond, we work closely with you to get the most out of your system. Enhance your workflows and increase efficiency with hundred ... read more about PageUp

    Entry Level Price
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    Free Trial
    N/A
    Category Focus
    100% in Business Intelligence Software
  • Toolpack365

    We help with budget efficiency, reporting, BI and optimal utilization of Microsoft technologies
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    Toolpack365 is an innovative solution for the financial department of the future. The tool combines a centralized and structured database with the best budget-, analysis- and presentation technology while being fully integrated with your ERP system. Enabling you to utilize your time and data to the maximum. ... read more about Toolpack365

    Entry Level Price
    $67.62 Per Month
    Free Trial
    N/A
    Category Focus
    100% in Business Intelligence Software
  • Affinio

    Understanding data on a deeper, richer level than before.
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    Affinio’s Embedded Analytics and Matchmaker platform are both available inside the Snowflake platform. As a Snowflake customer you have access to this two-in-one solution. Run Affinio’s graph analytics on your own internal first-party PII data inside Snowflake. Anyone with or without a technical background can use Affinio to query their data, and their answer comes back in seconds, not days. D ... read more about Affinio

    Entry Level Price
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    Free Trial
    N/A
    Category Focus
    100% in Business Intelligence Software
  • Intelliquip Configurator

    Precision sales software as engineered as your equipment.
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    Quickly and accurately assemble a complex product or package based upon literally thousands of rules, options and relationships. Develop error-free datasheets, price sheets and drawings in seconds. Make it available throughout your global sales channels, easily adapting to different languages, cultures and time zones.Adds detailed construction datasheets, general arrangement drawings and final pro ... read more about Intelliquip Configurator

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

    Fast and friendly MR reporting software
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    Ammras is an innovative MR Reporting tool which makes your team focus on what really matters.It equips life science companies with the decision support tool which analyzes real-time market data, channel activity and HCP (Healthcare professionals) with preference to provide life science companies with insights, clarity, and guidance to deliver the right information at the right time. It makes use o ... read more about AMMRAS

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

    We help you improve your ROI by unlocking your competitors' marketing strategies.
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    Anstrex offers a suite of products specifically created for online advertisers and performance marketers. We provide you with data on your competitors' online advertising and marketing campaigns. We have over 15 million ads from 50k+ advertisers spread in 92 countries. Our data analytics tools are second to none. In addition, we have a product for e-commerce and dropship store owners that facilita ... read more about Anstrex

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

    Drive your company to the next level with the power of data and our technology
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    The complete Business Intelligence solution that allows you to view and manage your company's indicators so that you can make the best decisions and achieve your goals. ... read more about Artus

    Entry Level Price
    $195 One-time
    Free Trial
    N/A
    Category Focus
    100% in Business Intelligence Software
  • Genialcloud

    Visualize data, discover trends, forecast results
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    In an increasingly global and data-driven economy, businesses need flexible and scalable management and collaboration tools with predictable costs in order to conquer new markets and maximize revenue. For companies to expand and grow, employees must have access to tools that are secure and accessible on any device and from any location. This is the reason we created Genialcloud. From SMBs to globa ... read more about Genialcloud

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

    Automate Financial Data Integration to SAP and Oracle
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    Insiet is Financial Consolidation and Reporting Software on Cloud. If you are running multiple system across your business, we help to streamline data and enable organisation with powerful financial reporting tool Move away from traditional system where you always relied on developer to build analytics reports. Our software gives you the ability to build interactive reports and dashboard with easy ... read more about Insiet

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

    Enabling the Business of Engineering
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    Jellyfish is the leading Engineering Management Platform, providing complete visibility into engineering organizations, the work they do, and how they operate. By analyzing engineering signals and contextual business data, Jellyfish enables Engineering leaders to align engineering decisions with strategic business objectives and deliver the right software, efficiently, on time. ... read more about Jellyfish

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

    Unified analytics platform for ALL your data
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    Knowi is the only full stack analytics platform that natively integrates to all the popular NoSQL data stores, as well as relational and Cloud APIs sources. Our data layer eliminates the need for ETL to move, flatten and transform data for analytics. Our natural language BI capabilities get analytics into the hands of the other 80% by enabling your non-technical users with the power to ask questio ... read more about Knowi

    Entry Level Price
    Contact vendor
    Free Trial
    Available
    Category Focus
    25% in Business Intelligence Software
  • Marketing Town

    Attract leads. Convert customers. Grow sales.
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    We blend state-of-the-art performance marketing technology, a full range of marketing and sales solutions, and a hands-on team of industry experts to help businesses streamline their operations and entire customer journey. ... read more about Marketing Town

    Entry Level Price
    Free version
    Free Trial
    Available
    Category Focus
    100% in Business Intelligence Software
  • Planning BI & Analytics

    Anamind helps companies build better planning and forecasting capability
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    Planning Analytics automates and thereby improves the planning reporting and analysis process. With the power of the state of the art business intelligence platform, it helps the business users with self-service analytics that can give actionable insights with ability to answer intuitive questions on every click. Anamind helps you implement state of the art Business Intelligence and Analytics plat ... read more about Planning BI & Analytics

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

    Sherlock is the next logical step for the optimal use of your digitization.
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    In the course of digitization and the increasingly complex products and services, the requirements for product and service communication are changing. Good for those who can offer their customers precise use of the data relevant to them at any time and any place. Make your product information easy to find in one central location. Thanks to the dynamic full-text search, your users do not need any k ... read more about Sherlock

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

    Self Service Business Intelligence
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    A Self-Service business intelligence software allows you to Discover Trends, Track KPIs and Visualize data. Connect to multiple data sources, create and schedule reports, set alerts and run predictive analytics with our drag and drop GUI. As a Self-Service BI Software, StarBI empowers business users by turning data into actionable insights and enable organizations to improve on decision making. St ... read more about StarBI

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

    PUT YOUR DATA TO WORK
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    TrackResults is the ONLY Business Intelligence software designed NOT to burden your company with additional costs or staffing requirements. With same-day training and no “per-user” fees, TrackResults gets your team up and running without consultants or egregious setup fees. Schedule a demo today and let us show you how simple it can be to have all of your data at your fingertips. Over ten year ... read more about TrackResults

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

    One Portal to Access Court Records & Legal Data
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    UniCourt is a trusted partner providing the core infrastructure that AmLaw 50 firms and Fortune 500 companies rely on for our Legal Data API, case research, and case tracking. The team at UniCourt found that having to search multiple court sites, track cases and manage cases in multiple pieces of disconnected software was cumbersome, expensive and inefficient. The UniCourt platform is our solution ... read more about UniCourt

    Entry Level Price
    $49 Per Year
    Free Trial
    N/A
    Category Focus
    100% in Business Intelligence Software
  • Xapsys Live

    A new journey into your data
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    Xapsys Live gives you the whole picture so you can make the right decisions, with confidence. With Xapsys Live, you can: - monitor business processes as they happen - have the live information you need at your fingertips, wherever you happen to be - zoom in from clear graphic overviews to see the underlying data - compare "what is" with "what's expected - easily adapt Xapsys Live over time for eve ... read more about Xapsys Live

    Entry Level Price
    $87.72 Per Year
    Free Trial
    14 Days
    Category Focus
    100% in Business Intelligence Software
  • ZOINED® Analytics

    Act on Facts - Actionable insights & foresights easily and visually.
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    Zoined Retail & Hospitality Analytics product provides out-of-the-box KPIs via email and portal reports and dashboards. AI based actionable insights, forecasts and recommendations are available for different verticals within retail & hospitality industries based on their special business needs. Zoined Insights & Foresights modules are available for several retail & hospitality verticals with speci ... read more about ZOINED® Analytics

    Entry Level Price
    Contact vendor
    Free Trial
    N/A
    Category Focus
    100% 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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