Grafana or PowerBI

Hi All

We presently have data on some older SQL servers, and use SSRS for most of our reports. Someone started using PowerBI to create some reports, which management like - however it is limited to just that one user.

Recently we had a requirement to build out dashboards to reflect specific information from some of the data stored - which is why we went down the Grafana path (to save costs, no licensing required, etc)

Now management is looking at the dashboards created and wants to be able to drill down further into the data - which I expect Grafana can handle? (we’ve not investigated and are still new to using it).

The business is going to need more and more reporting, drilling into this data, manipulating the data, etc - and we’re now at a cross roads on which platform to use. I feel that Grafana would fill the requirements, but after some feedback to users of either both systems, or those that have moved from PowerBI to Grafana - of if they both have a place in a business around BI.

I guess the crux of the questions is: can I do the same things in Grafana that could be done in PowerBI?

Thanks!

Welcome @matt2 and great question.

Yes, Grafana can “drill down” if you create links from each dashboard.

As for manipulation, there are a whole slew of ways to do that out of the box (create template variables, etc.) and many 3rd party plugins that allow even more.

My personal opinion is that Grafana is way ahead of PowerBI. I think PowerBI is attractive probably because so many corporate IT departments who have enjoyed Microsoft’s product offerings for decades have a comfort level there.

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I 100% agree with @grant2 having worked with pbi for years, I would say grafana is much better

Thanks for that. I guess by drill down I also mean filtering - which looks to be fine as well. I’m presuming as part of filtering that multiple selections can be selected as part of the filter as well.

Obviously I’m writing this as someone who has only used grafana for basic dashboarding (which I loved). I have a dev that can work the nitty girtty for me (but has limited grafana experience - learning on the fly.

Totally agree with the MS observation - but more from business users rather than IT. I’m happier doing it for the cheapest possible way that achieves the same or close to same outcomes. I feel PowerBI licensing would just get out of control…

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