Matt Dunn
Operations Director, Focus IT
Compare · SquaredUp vs Power BI
Life's too short for Power BI.
Power BI is built for analysts modeling business data. SquaredUp gives engineers live visibility of Azure, AWS, GitHub, Jira and 100+ more tools. No exports, data models or DAX.
Out-of-the-box dashboards in under 5 minutes • No database to keep in sync
Platform team overview
Azure · AWS · GitHub · Jira · ServiceNow
Azure spend MTD
$48.2k
▲ 18% vs last month
AWS spend MTD
$21.7k
▼ 3% vs last month
Deploys this week
31
GitHub Actions
Open P1/P2
3
ServiceNow
Azure cost by service Last 30 days
AKSSQL Database
Sprint 42 Jira
Done24
In progress9
Blocked2
Built for engineers
Plugins for the tools you already run, with dashboards ready to go.
Nothing to export
No pipelines, no SQL database, no data model to maintain.
Live, not last night
Each tile queries its source when you open the dashboard.
Keeps watch for you
Monitors and notifications to Teams, Slack or email.
Why switch
Why look for a Power BI alternative?
Power BI is very good at what it was built for: turning business data into reports. Ask it for a dashboard of your cloud, DevOps and infrastructure, and it quickly turns into an engineering project you could do without.
Everything goes through a DB first
Data usually has to be exported, piped into a DB, and modeled before Power BI can use it. Even Microsoft's own route for Azure cost data runs through exports and, for bigger estates, a Data Explorer cluster.
You’re spending hours building reports
A useful report means Power Query, a data model and DAX measures. That's fine if reporting is your day job. Most engineers would rather be shipping.
Few connectors for engineering tools
Jira, ServiceNow and most DevOps and monitoring tools need a third-party connector, often paid, or custom work against their APIs.
As fresh as the last refresh
Power BI Pro allows 8 scheduled refreshes a day, Premium Per User 48. Fine for a monthly review, less so for knowing what's happening right now.
A sprawl of broken out-of-date reports
A report sits there until someone opens it. Alerts only work on a few visual types, and getting them into Slack or Teams means building a flow in Power Automate.
What is Power BI?
Microsoft's business intelligence platform. Analysts use it to model data from many sources into reports, mostly for finance, sales and operations. It's part of Microsoft Fabric.
Use cases
Engineering visibility like this should be easy
Your data is right there. All you need to do is surface it.
Cloud cost
Spend by subscription, service and tag for Azure, AWS and Google Cloud, straight from each provider. No cost exports to schedule.
DORA and delivery metrics
Deployment frequency, lead time and change failure rate from GitHub or Azure DevOps, next to the Jira work behind them.
Tickets and SLAs
Live queues and SLA performance from ServiceNow, Jira Service Management, Zendesk or HaloPSA. The numbers match what's in the tool.
Infrastructure health
Status across Azure, AWS, VMware, SCOM and Veeam on one dashboard, current whenever you look, not as of the last refresh.
Team wallboards
A dashboard on the TV in the corner that's always current, with red and amber tiles that show where to look first.
Focus IT's developers built their first dashboards in Power BI, and keeping real-time ticket data flowing took them away from client work.
“It's far easier to use than anything we've tried, and the data is consistently accurate.”
Side by side
SquaredUp vs Power BI
Compared on live visibility of engineering data, rather than on business reporting. Power BI details are from Microsoft's documentation and pricing, as of November 2026.
SquaredUp | Power BI | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Engineers, and the people they report to. | Analysts building business and financial reports. |
| Getting data in | Queries each tool where the data lives. Nothing to export or store. | Imports data into a model. Engineering data often goes through exports, a pipeline and a database first. |
| Engineering tools | 100+ plugins, including Azure, AWS, GitHub, Azure DevOps, Jira, ServiceNow and SCOM, with ready-made dashboards. | Strong for Microsoft business data. Jira, ServiceNow and most DevOps tools need third-party connectors or custom work. |
| Building dashboards | Point and click, or describe it to SmartViz. SQL when you want it. | Power Query and DAX, usually by someone who does it every day. |
| Freshness | Live. Each tile queries its source when the dashboard loads. | Up to 8 scheduled refreshes a day on Pro, 48 on Premium Per User. DirectQuery can go live where the source supports it. |
| Finding the cause | Click from a tile to the resource, pipeline or ticket behind it, with related data from your other tools. | Drill down and drill through within the data model. |
| Alerts | Turn any tile into a monitor. Notifications go to email, Slack, Teams, ServiceNow or a webhook. | Threshold alerts on card, KPI and gauge visuals. Slack and Teams through Power Automate. |
| Health roll-up | RollUp combines status across tools and teams into one view, with drilldown. | Build it yourself. |
| Sharing | Pay once to share a dashboard, no matter how many people look at it. | Every viewer needs a Pro license, unless the content sits on Fabric F64 capacity or above. |
What engineers say
“Having the plugins in SquaredUp makes connecting data sources point-and-click, whereas other tools were forcing us to work with the APIs ourselves.”
Arup
Global design and engineering firm
Arup tried Power BI first. Building useful dashboards needed analyst skills most of their engineers didn't have, and it wouldn't scale across five teams on different stacks.
Connect your tools, not a database
Take Azure cost data. Microsoft's recommended way into Power BI is scheduled Cost Management exports to a storage account. Above a few million a month in spend, it adds FinOps hubs: a Data Factory pipeline into Azure Data Explorer or Fabric, from around $120 a month before you've built a single report.
In SquaredUp, you connect the Azure plugin and open the cost dashboard. The same goes for AWS, GitHub, Jira and the rest.
Azure cost data in Power BI
Cost Management exportStorage accountData FactoryData ExplorerModel and refreshReport
Data as of the last export and refresh
Azure cost data in SquaredUp
AzureDashboard
Live
Azure spend MTD
$48.2k
▲ 18% vs last month
Biggest increases Drilldown
aks-prod-weu+$4.1k
sql-portal-prod+$1.2k
appsvc-checkout+$0.3k
aks-prod-weu Related
Node pool scaled 6 → 14Azure Monitor · 4 days ago
Deploy #412 checkout-apiGitHub · 4 days ago
INC0012 Checkout slowServiceNow · Open
Drill down into the why
A report tells you cost went up 18%. Then someone has to go and find out why. In SquaredUp, you click the tile and see the resources behind the number, and the deploy and incident that line up with it.
Because the data comes straight from each tool, it matches what you'd see if you opened the tool itself.
Dashboards that keep watch
Turn any tile into a monitor in a few clicks. Set a threshold and choose where notifications go: email, Slack, Microsoft Teams, ServiceNow or a webhook. No flows to build.
RollUp turns those monitors into one red, amber or green status per service, for the people who just want to know if things are OK. And when they'd like a summary, scheduled reports drop a snapshot into Teams, Slack or their inbox.
Daily Azure spend Azure Cost
Enable monitoring
Warn above $1,800 a day · Notify Slack #platform-cost
Scheduled report On
Platform team overviewMondays 08:30
Send toTeams · Engineering leads
SmartVizDashboard assistant
Show deploys, lead time and change failure rate for the checkout team from GitHub, with their open Jira bugs.
Created Checkout · Delivery with 5 tiles: deploys per week, lead time, change failure rate, open bugs and bugs by priority.
31
Deploys / week
1.4d
Lead time
4.2%
Change failure rate
Split bugs by component…Send
No DAX required
Most plugins come with dashboards you can use straight away. When you want something of your own, point and click, or describe it and SmartViz, the SquaredUp dashboard assistant, builds it for you. It's included on every tier.
If you'd rather write queries, you can use SQL across your connected sources.
Pricing
Pay for visibility, not data
You pay for the people who build dashboards and for each dashboard you share. No viewer licenses, and nothing to run alongside it.
$0
No pipeline to run
No exports, Data Factory pipelines, Data Explorer clusters or Fabric capacity to pay for and look after.
∞
Unlimited viewers
Pay once to share a dashboard, no matter how many people look at it. Viewers don't need a license.
5 min
To your first dashboard
Connect a data source and get an out-of-the-box dashboard. Start on the free tier.
FAQ about SquaredUp and Power BI
Not for business intelligence. If your analysts model finance, sales or HR data in Power BI, carry on. SquaredUp covers engineering and operations data, live from the tools it lives in.
Partly. DirectQuery and streaming datasets get close where the source supports them, but they take more work to set up and maintain. Imported data is only as fresh as the last scheduled refresh: up to 8 a day on Pro, or 48 on Premium Per User.
E5 includes Power BI Pro licenses. Everyone who views shared reports still needs one, unless the content sits on Fabric F64 capacity or above. And the work of exporting, modeling and refreshing engineering data isn't included either way.
No. SquaredUp reads data from each tool when you need it, rather than copying it into its own store.
Yes. You can query your connected sources with SQL when you want more control.
Yes. SquaredUp Dashboard Server runs in your own environment.
Out-of-the-box dashboards are ready in under 5 minutes.
See your own stack in SquaredUp
Connect Azure, AWS or Jira and get an out-of-the-box dashboard in under 5 minutes. Nothing to export.
Sources
Microsoft Learn, "FinOps toolkit Power BI reports" and "FinOps hubs overview", November 2026.
Microsoft Learn, Power BI data refresh, data alerts and subscriptions documentation, November 2026.
Microsoft, Power BI pricing: Pro $14 and Premium Per User $24 per user per month, billed annually, since 1 April 2025.
Atlassian Marketplace, Power BI connectors for Jira, November 2026.
SquaredUp, "How Arup centralized visibility across 90+ offices and 3 clouds — without a data warehouse".
SquaredUp, "Transforming MSP Operations with SquaredUp & HaloPSA: The Focus IT Story".
Comparison last reviewed November 2026. Power BI, Microsoft Fabric and Microsoft 365 are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies. Spotted something out of date? Email [email protected] and we'll fix it.