What is the difference between the Microsoft Power BI Desktop and Azure Synapse with Power BI?

[Ramachandran]

Hi All,
can someone clarify this?
My understanding of Microsoft Power BI Desktop,
1. It is a developer tool, it can connect different types of data sources and create visuals based on our data.
2. Performance is low when we have a huge number/size of data.
 

Azure Synapse with Power BI
A single tool contains multiple services like Pipeline, Storage, Databricks, Power BI, etc., what is power bi visualization doing here?

1. Azure Synapse can serve as the efficient, meaningful, secure, and trusted data source for each of these diverse artifacts, as well as an integrated web-based development environment.

2. Supports performance optimizations enabling DirectQuery at scale
3. Interactive Power BI reports and enterprise-grade semantic models can be developed within the Azure Synapse studio, the new common web portal for developing and managing various Azure Synapse artifacts.

any other difference between these two... please suggest...

Ram

[ichavarria · Accepted solution]

Hi @Ramachandran,

Yes, your understanding of Microsoft Power BI Desktop is correct. It is a developer tool that allows you to connect to different data sources, create data models, and design interactive visualizations and reports based on your data. However, as you mentioned, the performance may be impacted when dealing with large datasets.

Azure Synapse Analytics is a cloud-based analytics service that provides a unified experience for big data and data warehousing. It includes multiple services like Azure Data Factory, Azure Databricks, Azure Stream Analytics, and Power BI. With Azure Synapse, you can process and analyze large volumes of data and build end-to-end analytics solutions.

Regarding your question about Power BI in Azure Synapse, Power BI is one of the services integrated into Azure Synapse. It allows you to create interactive reports and dashboards using data from Azure Synapse Analytics. You can also develop enterprise-grade semantic models within the Azure Synapse studio, which is a new common web portal for developing and managing various Azure Synapse artifacts.

Some other differences between Microsoft Power BI Desktop and Azure Synapse Analytics with Power BI are:

• Microsoft Power BI Desktop is a standalone desktop application that requires installation, while Azure Synapse Analytics is a cloud-based service that can be accessed through a web browser.
• Power BI Desktop is primarily focused on data visualization and reporting, while Azure Synapse Analytics is designed for big data processing and analytics.
• Azure Synapse Analytics provides a unified analytics experience that includes data integration, data warehousing, big data processing, and machine learning, while Power BI Desktop is mainly focused on data visualization and reporting.

Hope this helps!

Best regards, 

Isaac Chavarria

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