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Power BI

Business IntelligenceMicrosoftFree tierCloud

Microsoft's powerful business intelligence platform with strong Excel integration. Free for individual use, enterprise features available. Excellent for Microsoft ecosystem users.

License

Proprietary

Language

DAX/M

90
Trust
Excellent

Why Power BI?

You're already in the Microsoft ecosystem

You want free powerful BI tools

You need strong Excel integration

Signal Breakdown

What drives the Trust Score

N/A (Desktop)
Very Popular
N/A (Proprietary)
N/A
N/A (Proprietary)
N/A
Stack Overflow
38k q's
Community
Large
Weighted Trust Score90 / 100

Download Trend

Last 12 months

Tradeoffs & Caveats

Know before you commit

You prefer non-Microsoft tools

You need advanced visualization customization

You're not using Windows primarily

Pricing

Free tier & paid plans

Free tier

Power BI Desktop free

Paid

$10/user/mo Pro

Premium: $20/user/mo or $4,995/mo capacity

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Learning Resources

Docs, videos, tutorials, and courses

Power BI Docs

docs

GitHub repo

github

Power BI getting started

tutorial

Get Started

Repository and installation options

View on GitHub

github.com/microsoft/powerbi-client-js

npmnpm install powerbi-client
download# Download from powerbi.microsoft.com

Quick Start

Copy and adapt to get going fast

import requests
import os

# Get access token
token_url = f"https://login.microsoftonline.com/{os.environ['TENANT_ID']}/oauth2/v2.0/token"
token_resp = requests.post(token_url, data={
    "grant_type": "client_credentials",
    "client_id": os.environ["CLIENT_ID"],
    "client_secret": os.environ["CLIENT_SECRET"],
    "scope": "https://analysis.windows.net/powerbi/api/.default",
})
access_token = token_resp.json()["access_token"]

headers = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {access_token}"}

# List workspaces
groups = requests.get("https://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/groups", headers=headers).json()
for g in groups["value"]:
    print(g["name"], g["id"])

Code Examples

Common usage patterns

Embed a report in React

Use powerbi-client-react to embed a Power BI report

import { PowerBIEmbed } from 'powerbi-client-react';
import { models } from 'powerbi-client';

export function EmbeddedReport({ embedToken, embedUrl, reportId }) {
  return (
    <PowerBIEmbed
      embedConfig={{
        type: 'report',
        id: reportId,
        embedUrl,
        accessToken: embedToken,
        tokenType: models.TokenType.Embed,
        settings: { navContentPaneEnabled: false },
      }}
      cssClassName="h-[600px] w-full"
    />
  );
}

Generate embed token

Generate a server-side embed token for secure embedding

import requests

group_id = "workspace-id"
report_id = "report-id"

url = f"https://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/groups/{group_id}/reports/{report_id}/GenerateToken"
resp = requests.post(url, headers=headers, json={
    "accessLevel": "View",
    "allowSaveAs": False,
})
embed_token = resp.json()["token"]

Refresh a dataset

Trigger a dataset refresh via REST API

import requests

group_id = "workspace-id"
dataset_id = "dataset-id"

url = f"https://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/groups/{group_id}/datasets/{dataset_id}/refreshes"
resp = requests.post(url, headers=headers)
print("Refresh triggered:", resp.status_code)

Community Notes

Real experiences from developers who've used this tool