BI tool comparison

Sigma vs Power BI: which fits a company on Snowflake?

Power BI is cheap per seat and everywhere in Microsoft shops. Sigma queries Snowflake live in a spreadsheet. Here is how licensing, modeling, and write-back compare.

Linus TseGreyfield DataFacts last checked November 3, 2026

Contents 10 sections

The short answer

If you run on Microsoft 365, your team already knows DAX, and your data is in Fabric or SQL Server, Power BI is hard to beat on price and fit. Sigma tends to win for companies on Snowflake or Databricks whose business users want to work in a spreadsheet on live data and type plans or adjustments back into the warehouse. We have run Power BI in production for a client and we sell Sigma.

How Microsoft Power BI and Sigma Computing differ

01
Import models vs live warehouse
Power BI reports usually run on a semantic model you build and refresh. Sigma queries the warehouse directly every time.
02
DAX vs spreadsheet formulas
Power BI calculations are written in DAX. Sigma users write spreadsheet-style formulas most Excel users already know.
03
Write-back where your data lives
Power BI write-back targets Fabric databases, warehouses, and lakehouses. Sigma input tables write to Snowflake, Databricks, and other cloud warehouses.

Pricing at a glance

Microsoft Power BI

Microsoft (now sold and run as the BI workload inside Microsoft Fabric)

Microsoft's BI product: reports and semantic models are built mainly in the Windows-only Power BI Desktop app and shared through the Power BI service, which now sits inside Microsoft Fabric. It suits organizations already standardized on Microsoft 365, Azure and Entra ID.

Pricing model: Per user (Pro / Premium Per User) plus optional capacity-based (Fabric F SKUs, Power BI Embedded)
Published starting price: $14/user/month (Power BI Pro, billed annually); Premium Per User $24/user/month
Free tier: Yes - free account and free Power BI Desktop for personal authoring; sharing requires Pro/PPU, or content on F64+ capacity for free-license viewers
What drives cost: Pro rose from $10 to $14 and PPU from $20 to $24 on April 1, 2025 (first increase in about 10 years). Fabric capacity is billed per F SKU, pay-as-you-go (pausable) or as a 1-3 year reservation (~41% cheaper); Microsoft's Azure page did not render prices, so exact F SKU prices were not confirmed from a Microsoft source (third-party guide cites ~$0.18 per CU-hour and ~$5,000/month for a reserved F64). Key Fabric effect on cost: below F64, every viewer still needs Pro or PPU; at F64 and above, viewers with free licenses can consume content, but creators/publishers still need Pro. Copilot needs F2+ capacity. Embedding for external customers (app owns data) needs capacity (F, A or legacy P SKUs) and no per-viewer licenses. Pro is included in Microsoft 365 E5 / Office 365 E5.

Pricing source, checked November 3, 2026

Sigma Computing

Sigma Computing, Inc. (private, venture-backed; $80M Series E at a $3B valuation, May 2026)

Cloud BI and data-app platform that runs queries live against a cloud warehouse (Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery, Redshift and others) through a spreadsheet-style interface, with write-back input tables, Python/SQL and AI agents. Built for companies that already keep their data in a cloud warehouse and want business users to work on it without extracts.

Pricing model: Annual subscription: platform tier plus per-user licenses (Creator / Explorer / Viewer, per third-party buyer data)
Published starting price: Not published
Free tier: No; 7-day free trial with sample data or your own warehouse
What drives cost: Sigma's pricing page shows no prices and sends buyers to sales. Vendr buyer data (third-party, directional only) lists Essential, Business and Enterprise tiers, Creator licenses at roughly $1,200-$5,000+ per year depending on tier, and a median contract of about $65K per year (range ~$15.6K-$145K). Warehouse compute is billed separately by your warehouse vendor.

Pricing source, checked November 3, 2026

Feature comparison

"Not verified" means we could not confirm it from public docs, not that the feature is missing. Each cell links to the page we checked.

Data and querying

Data and querying: Sigma Computing and Microsoft Power BI
Feature	Sigma Computing	Microsoft Power BI
Queries the warehouse live Reads the cloud warehouse at view time, without an extract or import step.	Yes Workbooks query the connected warehouse directly; no extract engine. source	Partly DirectQuery to Snowflake is supported (with Entra SSO), but Import mode is the default and many features and performance patterns assume imported data. source
Spreadsheet-style editing Business users work in a grid and write formulas instead of a separate modeling language.	Yes Spreadsheet grid with 200+ functions on live warehouse data. source	No No spreadsheet-style formula grid; users build visuals and DAX measures. Analyze in Excel connects Excel to a semantic model as a separate tool. source
SQL editor Write SQL against the warehouse inside the product.	Yes Custom SQL elements in workbooks and data models. source	Not verified Not verified for Power BI reports. Fabric warehouses have their own SQL tools, but that is outside Power BI itself.
Python Run Python inside the product.	Snowflake & Databricks only Only on Snowflake and Databricks connections; output cannot be materialized; only JWT-signed embeds are supported. source	Partly Python visuals and Python scripts in Desktop; in the service, Python visuals limited to 1-minute runtime, 30 MB payload and supported PyPI packages. source
Writeback / input tables Users can enter or edit data that is saved back to the warehouse.	Yes Input tables write to a warehouse write schema. Not available on some sources (MySQL, SQL Server, Azure SQL DB, AlloyDB, Starburst, ClickHouse, MotherDuck). source	Fabric targets only Translytical task flows (GA) let report users add/edit/delete records via Fabric User Data Functions; native targets are Fabric SQL database, warehouse and lakehouse, so Snowflake writeback needs custom function code. source
Governed semantic layer Reusable, governed models and metric definitions.	Yes Data models with reusable metrics, relationships and RLS, also manageable as JSON/YAML via the API. source	Yes Semantic models with DAX measures, relationships, RLS and OLS are reusable across reports. source

Sharing and governance

Sharing and governance: Sigma Computing and Microsoft Power BI
Feature	Sigma Computing	Microsoft Power BI
Embedded analytics Embed reports in your own app or portal for external users.	Yes JWT-signed secure embeds that pass user attributes and teams for RLS. source	Yes Embed for your customers (app owns data) on F, A or P capacity; external users need no Power BI license. source
Scheduled delivery Scheduled email, Slack, or file delivery of reports.	Yes Email, Slack, Teams, SharePoint, Google Sheets/Drive, webhook and cloud storage. source	Yes Email subscriptions (hourly to monthly or after refresh); PDF/PPTX attachments on Premium/PPU workspaces; paginated reports add XLSX/DOCX/CSV. Email only per docs. source
Row-level security Restrict which rows each user can see.	Yes Based on user, team or user attribute; works in embeds via JWT claims. source	Yes DAX-based RLS roles for import and DirectQuery; applies only to workspace Viewers. source
Excel / CSV export Export data to Excel or CSV.	Yes Excel and CSV up to 1M rows; larger exports go to cloud storage. source	Yes Export from visuals to CSV (30k rows) or Excel (150k rows; 16 MB cap with DirectQuery). source
Git version control Content or models can be versioned in git.	Version tags + API Version tags (with protected-tag approvals) and spec APIs; no built-in git sync, so teams build their own pipeline. source	Preview Fabric workspace git integration (Azure DevOps, GitHub, GitHub Enterprise) is GA as a feature, but report and semantic model items are still marked preview; Desktop PBIP files use external git. source

Platform

Platform: Sigma Computing and Microsoft Power BI
Feature	Sigma Computing	Microsoft Power BI
AI assistant Natural-language questions or AI-assisted building, generally available.	Yes Sigma Assistant answers natural-language questions and shows its SQL; requires an AI provider set up for the org. Some AI surfaces, such as homepage chat, are still beta. source	Partly Copilot report pane is GA but needs paid F2+ Fabric (or P1+) capacity, not Pro/PPU alone; standalone Copilot and app agent are preview. source
Open source / self-host An open-source or self-hosted option exists.	No SaaS only, hosted on AWS, Azure or GCP regions. source	Partly Not open source. Power BI Report Server is a self-hosted on-prem option, licensed via SQL Server Enterprise/Standard cores or Fabric F64+ reservations. source
Needs a desktop app to author "Yes" means some authoring requires installing a desktop application.	No Authoring is entirely in the browser. source	Partly Power BI Desktop (Windows-only) is the primary tool for modeling and report design; web editing exists but is not the main path and some modeling features on the web are preview. source

Licensing

Power BI publishes per-user prices, and Pro is included in Microsoft 365 E5. Microsoft raised Pro and Premium Per User prices in April 2025 for the first time in about a decade. Larger deployments run on Fabric capacity, and Microsoft’s pricing page says viewers on qualifying capacities can use free licenses, while report builders still need Pro. Copilot needs a paid Fabric capacity.

Sigma does not publish prices and is sold on annual contracts. For most companies, Power BI will look cheaper per seat. Compare total cost, including the time spent maintaining semantic models and refreshes.

Who builds and maintains reports

Power BI Desktop is Windows-only, and serious modeling happens there in Power Query and DAX. Teams with those skills are productive and easy to hire for.

In Sigma, everything happens in the browser, and finance users can extend a report themselves. That reduces the queue of "can you add a column" requests to the data team.

If you are already on Power BI

The hard part of a move is the DAX: measures whose totals, filters, and blanks behave in specific ways. Define those behaviors before rebuilding. Our DAX measure tests, DAX to Sigma cheat sheet, and Power BI to Sigma migration service cover how we approach it.

Where Microsoft Power BI is better

Lower entry price per user: Pro is $14/user/month and Desktop is free to download, and Pro is bundled in Microsoft 365 E5
At F64+ Fabric capacity (or legacy P1+), report viewers do not need a paid per-user license, which can be cheaper than per-seat pricing for very large viewer counts
Deep Microsoft integration: Entra ID, Teams, Excel (Analyze in Excel), SharePoint, Azure and the wider Fabric platform (lakehouse, warehouse, Data Factory)
Import mode with an in-memory engine can serve fast dashboards without running warehouse compute on every view
Pixel-perfect paginated reports with scheduled delivery as PDF, PPTX, XLSX, DOCX or CSV
On-premises deployment option through Power BI Report Server
Very large community, third-party visuals marketplace and hiring pool

Who should pick which

Pick Microsoft Power BI if

You are standardized on Microsoft 365, Teams, and Fabric.
Your analysts are fluent in DAX and Power Query.
Low published per-seat pricing matters most.
Your data lives in SQL Server, Fabric, or Excel files.

Pick Sigma Computing if

Your data is in Snowflake or Databricks and you want no import refreshes.
Business users want spreadsheet formulas instead of DAX.
Users need to enter plans or adjustments that land in Snowflake.
Some of your team works on Macs and needs to build reports.

Recommendations by team

If you are	Pick	Why
Microsoft-centric enterprise	Microsoft Power BI	Fits licensing, identity, and Teams you already have.
Finance team on Snowflake	Sigma Computing	Live spreadsheet on warehouse data with input tables.
Small team on a tight per-seat budget	Microsoft Power BI	Published low prices, and Pro may already be in your E5.
Mac-based analytics team	Sigma Computing	Browser authoring; Power BI Desktop is Windows-only.

Recent changes to Microsoft Power BI

2024-07 Power BI Premium per-capacity (P SKU) purchases ended for new customers; existing non-EA customers had to move to Fabric F SKUs at renewals after Feb 1, 2025.source
2025-04 First Power BI price increase in about 10 years: Pro to $14 and Premium Per User to $24 per user per month.source
2025 Translytical task flows reached general availability, adding writeback and actions from reports via Fabric User Data Functions (exact GA date not stated on the page).source
2026-02 Copilot input limit raised to 10K characters; Fabric Copilot capacity tenant setting enabled by default from Feb 8, 2026; legacy Excel/CSV import in the service loses entry points May 31, 2026 and stops refreshing July 31, 2026.source
2026-11 Copilot report pane is GA; standalone Power BI agent, app agent and Copilot in web modeling remain in preview (per docs as checked).source

Questions people ask

Does Sigma replace Power BI?

Yes, if your data is in a cloud warehouse Sigma supports and you want business users editing reports in a spreadsheet. No, if your company is built around Microsoft Fabric and DAX expertise, where Power BI fits better and usually costs less per seat.

Is Power BI cheaper than Sigma?

Per seat, usually yes: Power BI publishes low per-user prices and Sigma is quoted by sales. Total cost also depends on capacity, warehouse compute, and the time spent maintaining models.

Can Power BI write back to Snowflake?

Power BI’s generally available write-back targets Fabric databases, warehouses, and lakehouses, not Snowflake directly.

Sources and corrections

We checked these pages on the dates shown. Products change quickly. If you work at Microsoft Power BI and something here is wrong or out of date, email linus@greyfielddata.com and we will fix it.