Your choice of BI tool should be based on the current and future needs of your business.
There are several tools out there for business intelligence so before settling on any, you should ask yourself questions like:
This blog is part of a series that aims to help you find the answers to these questions (and more) by comparing two widely adopted BI tools—DOMO and Power BI—that may be what your business needs.
Vidi Corp is a consultancy firm that has practical experience working with both tools so feel free to reach out to us if you use or plan to use Power BI or DOMO for your business and need consultation or support.
We have already established that DOMO is a BI tool. What’s more?
DOMO was founded in 2010 as the first cloud-native business intelligence tool.
It is a modern cloud-based platform used for analytics, visualization, and the creation of intelligent apps.
Businesses of all sizes use DOMO to convert their raw data into insights that can be used for decision-making. And DOMO makes this possible through its data integration, data management, dashboard building, report sharing, and AI functionalities.
Power BI was launched by Microsoft in 2011.
It is a suite of software services, apps, and connectors that work hand in hand to turn your disparate sources of data into coherent, visually immersive, and interactive insights.
Businesses primarily use Power BI to create and share interactive and automated reports and dashboards packed with actionable insights within the organization. Power BI provides features such as data connection, data transformation, visualization, AI, and sharing to facilitate this.
Before choosing your BI tool, the first thing you should consider is how easily the tool can pull data from your different data sources i.e. Excel, databases, cloud storage, and so on.
In both DOMO and Power BI, you can either import (upload) your data into the platform or connect to your data sources directly.
There are 3 different ways you can connect to your data sources in both Power BI and DOMO:
Using a pre-built connector is the simplest way to pull data from your data sources into both BI tools.
DOMO provides over 1000 built-in connectors while Power BI provides about 250. The trade-off here is that while Power BI has fewer built-in connectors, it provides a more intuitive and straightforward process for connecting data than DOMO.
Power BI integrates smoothly with Microsoft products such as Microsoft Excel, Azure SQL Database, etc. which many companies already use to store their data.
DOMO on the other hand may require additional installations to connect to some data sources i.e. downloading DOMO workbench to connect data stored in Ms Excel, CSV files, SAP etc.
Also, DOMO separates the data connection from the data uploading process which is more flexible but makes the data connection process generally less straight forward.
If your data is generated from niche places like social media (X, Instagram), Zoom, etc then DOMO will outdo Power BI here because it will save you from needing to create custom connectors for your data.
Data security and data transformation i.e. ETL are available in both DOMO and Power BI.
They also both support third-party connectors and custom connectors for data pulling.
Custom connectors are handy when you need to connect to a data source not covered by existing pre-built or third-party connectors or when you need to bypass the limitations of the available connectors.
You can create your custom connector in DOMO using their connector IDE and in Power BI using their Power Query SDK.
Creating a custom connector, however, requires a lot of technical expertise and if done wrongly can result in loss of data integrity.
Feel free to contact Vidi Corp to build custom connectors tailored to your business’s unique needs.
Learn more about the 50+ custom connectors Vidi Corp previously built.
DOMO and Power BI provide a wide range of visualization charts and graphs that you can use to create stunning dashboards like the one above.
All the most common and useful dashboard elements such as text boxes, filters, cards, images, and charts (bar chart, line chart, pie chart, donut chart, table chart, maps, and so on) are available in both tools.
DOMO gives you access to 130 readily available charts while Power BI gives you access to over 40.
The two platforms allow you to run Python script visuals. Power BI lets you display R script visuals but DOMO doesn’t have a direct feature for that.
DOMO has an AI chat functionality that lets you draw insights from your data using natural language. Power BI has an equivalent QA feature plus other AI-driven visuals such as the Key Influencers chart which gives you a cause-and-effect analysis of your data.
Besides the readily available few, Power BI also gives you access to other visuals that may require additional downloading i.e. from AppSource.
Both Power BI and DOMO allow you to add your own custom visuals to your dashboard.
Another major difference between Power BI and DOMO is the method of creating dashboards.
Both platforms provide pre-made dashboard templates that you can easily customize and use on your data. But if you’re creating a dashboard or report from scratch:
In Power BI, after connecting to your data source, you’ll be presented with a canvas where you can drag and drop visuals, add data to the visuals from the side pane, and customize the visuals to your taste.
You’ll keep repeating these steps until your report/ dashboard is ready.
In DOMO, you’ll create and customize all the visuals/ cards you want to add to your dashboard separately one after the other. Once you’ve created all the cards, you can then add them all to the dashboard one by one.
Now, it’s up to you to decide which method is easier and more intuitive for you.
In terms of Dashboard or report UX, Power BI outdoes DOMO because it provides some functionalities that are currently not available in DOMO. For example, bookmarks, page navigation buttons, and drill-through pages.
Both tools provide tooltip functionality but unlike Power BI, DOMO doesn’t make provision for tooltip pages.
And lastly, both tools provide mobile applications for dashboards and alert mechanisms which are important for making BI and insights more accessible in your organization.
As a business or consumer of anything, you want to make sure you’re getting the maximum value for your money.
This brings us to the final criteria for this blog—cost, or in other words pricing.
Before we go headfirst into the BI tools’ respective pricing models, it is worth mentioning that both tools offer a free trial that allows you experience the best of their services at no cost so you can have the confidence to choose right BI tool for your business.
Now, over to the pricing models of the BI tools.
Domo offers credit-based pricing so you can start with what you need and scale as your business needs grow and change in the future.
Domo’s exact cost value varies from enterprise to enterprise because you only pay for what you use. But you can expect to pay somewhere around $900 per user per year for the standard plan.
To use Domo after your free trial, you will have to contact their sales team to get your own unique quote.
On the other hand, Power BI provides a ‘free forever’ plan and 3 other paid plans.
Power BI’s free plan allows you to create reports and gives you data security features. If you need more data storage and want to share your reports within your organization, then you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Depending on the Power BI features your business needs, you may opt for the
Power BI, as of recently, is now part of a bigger data ecosystem called Fabric, also from Microsoft. So, you can gain access to Power BI through a Microsoft Fabric plan.
This is a high-level overview of the comparison between DOMO and Power BI.
| DOMO | Power BI | |
| Pricing | Custom Credit-based pricing, approximately $900/user/year | Free plan available; Pro plan: $10/user/month; Premium: $20/user/month |
| Free Trial | Yes | Yes |
| Data Connectors | Over 1000 pre-built connectors | About 250 pre-built connectors |
| Visualization Options | 130+ built-in chart types | 40+ built-in chart types + additional visuals available via AppSource |
| AI Features | AI chat functionality for insights | AI visuals like Q&A and Key Influencers chart |
We ‘ve analysed Power BI vs Domo. Both are robust BI tools with unique strengths. Your choice should align with your business’s specific needs, budget, and existing technical infrastructure. For personalized consultation or support with either tool, consider reaching out to Vidi Corp.
