Alternatives · BI suites
Power BI is Microsoft's business intelligence product for building semantic models, reports and dashboards. It suits organisations already using Microsoft 365, Teams and Azure that want reporting inside the same estate. If the question on your desk is why a number moved, and your data arrives as exports, there is a lighter way to answer it.
Power BI is Microsoft's business intelligence product for building semantic models, reports and dashboards. Authors typically design reports in the Power BI Desktop application for Windows and publish them to the Power BI service, where colleagues view and share them in the browser, on mobile or in Microsoft Teams. It is also part of Microsoft Fabric, which provides the capacity that its Copilot features run on.
None of these is a fault in Power BI. They are situations where a team needs something narrower, sooner or lighter than what it is built to do.
| The situation | How Covirage approaches it |
|---|---|
| Reliable results, including from Copilot, depend on a semantic model built with Power Query and DAX | The measures for your desk ship with the product; nobody on the team writes DAX |
| Copilot needs Fabric or Premium capacity on top of per-user licences | The assistant is part of every tier |
| Report authoring centres on a Windows desktop application | Covirage runs in the browser and on a phone; there is nothing to author |
| A report shows the variance; the explanation is another report | The explain block splits the change into its causes, and the lines sum to it |
| Power BI | Covirage | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Organisations already using Microsoft 365, Teams and Azure that want reporting inside the same estate; Teams with analysts who can build and maintain a semantic model for others to report from | The person waiting for the answer: one desk, then the next |
| How it gets data | Connects to online services, databases (including SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Snowflake and Redshift), files and big-data engines. Microsoft recommends importing data into the semantic model's in-memory cache by default; DirectQuery leaves data in the source and queries it per visual; live connections reuse an existing published semantic model or Analysis Services model; Direct Lake reads Fabric lakehouse tables. Scheduled refresh of on-premises sources may require an on-premises data gateway. | Files and sheets now; scheduled delivery by API, S3, Azure, SFTP or email on Business; connections built with your team on Enterprise |
| Needs before the first answer | A semantic model (tables, relationships and DAX measures) built by someone comfortable with Power Query and DAX; Power BI Desktop on Windows for most report authoring; An on-premises data gateway where data sits behind the firewall | The exports your systems already produce. No warehouse, no modelling language, no data team |
| Typical setup | Not published | Minutes on a file you already export; set up for you within a week |
| AI | Copilot in Power BI offers chat over a report (the report Copilot pane, generally available), a standalone cross-item Copilot and app-scoped Copilot (both in preview). For business users it summarises reports and answers questions, using the semantic model when the question relates to its data. For authors it can create and edit report pages, add narrative summary visuals, write DAX queries and suggest descriptions for measures; Copilot in web modelling (preview) reviews and edits semantic models. Microsoft advises preparing the semantic model for AI first, as unprepared models can lead to generic or inaccurate answers. | The AI model chooses a measure and writes the explanation; our tools do the arithmetic and check every total |
| Published pricing | Free account for personal report creation (sharing requires a paid licence). Power BI Pro is $14.00 per user per month and Premium Per User is $24.00 per user per month, both paid yearly. Power BI Embedded and Fabric capacity (reserved or pay-as-you-go) are variably priced. Copilot requires paid Fabric capacity (F2 or higher) or Premium (P1 or higher); a Pro or PPU licence alone is not enough. | Three tiers on one sheet, shared in a conversation |
| Getting data out | From a report visual in the service, users can export summarised or underlying data to Excel .xlsx with a live connection (up to 500,000 rows), static .xlsx (up to 150,000 rows) or .csv (up to 30,000 rows); dashboard tiles export to .csv. Reports can also be exported to PowerPoint and PDF, and Analyze in Excel connects Excel to a published semantic model. Designers and admins can restrict or disable export. | Export every table as a workbook or JSON at any time |
Many teams use both: Power BI for what it is built for, and Covirage for the recurring question a desk would otherwise hand to an analyst.
Keep Power BI for the organisation's reporting. Covirage is for the desk whose recurring question, such as what is driving costs, still goes to an analyst each month. It reads the same exports and answers that question directly, set up for you within a week.
Sometimes, and often not. Power BI is built for organisations already using Microsoft 365, Teams and Azure that want reporting inside the same estate. Covirage answers one desk's questions from the files that desk already exports, set up for you in a week. Many teams keep Power BI for what it is built for and use Covirage for the question it would otherwise leave to an analyst.
It starts with the exports those systems already produce: files and sheets now, scheduled delivery by API, S3, Azure, SFTP or email on Business, and connections built with your team on Enterprise. We never hold credentials to your systems.
No. The AI model chooses which measure answers the question and writes the explanation. Our tools do the arithmetic, and every total is checked before it is shown. If a question needs a measure we do not have, the assistant says so.
Bring an export you already produce. The data map opens next, every column mapped once, and the first question is answered in minutes. Free, in your browser, no account. Or talk to us and we will set it up for you.
Facts about other products on this page were checked on 24 September 2026 from the pages below. Product names are trademarks of their owners, used here only to identify them. Covirage is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any of them. If something here is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.