Forum Discussion
Why is there no proper histogram in Power BI?
Power BI has existed for quite some years now. And there is still no decent way of creating a historgam. These are the possibible ways I know of:
- Get the certified Histogram visual from Microsoft. It completely sucks.
- You can't define bin size.
- The binning is [x] for the first bin and (x] for the others, which is so weird. You do expect [x) for all bins in a histogram.
- Many more stupid things.
- Get any other histogram visual. They're even worse.
- Build your own using some combination of DAX, helper tables/parameters. This works but it's a bad solution. If you build a big complex data model, you don't want to add even more complexity just for the sake of a histogram. Hence a histogram should be a report/visual thing, not a data model thing.
The fact that no one has solved this for so many years is very fascinating I think. A proper histogram is an essential component in a BI solution. How come it hasn't been solved? And how come so few talk about it?
16 Replies
It's been a few years since I used Power BI, and I recently downloaded it in order to practice for some Data Analyst interviews. Fun fact: if you have the free version, you cannot get to the viz marketplace unless you have a school or work account. If you're unemployed and trying to level up your skills using a personal MS account, no such luck.
This is a bit maddening, and the fact that a histogram isn't a default option is a bit insane. Histograms are one of the first steps in any data exploration, and competitor programs have much more customizable options readily available...
I wonder if anyone reading this thread has tried to use a Python visualization solution to the "no histogram" problem? I'm a total newb with Python and haven't tried applying it in Power BI but it seems like there ought to be a solution in mathplotlab or whatever it is called?
Update: I tried it and it worked like a charm. But, note: it's plotting with the limitations of Python's usual visual appearance, and some features seem to be blocked.
- amitchandak
Super User
Anonymous , Please check if there is any idea for it. Or log a new one , you can share same here we can also vote
ideas.powerbi.com/
Another option python visual, But I doubt that can be of much help
asitmHelper III
We recently published a histogram visual and are pretty confident it is better than the current available options. please try it out. This is a paid visual though.
https://appsource.microsoft.com/en-us/product/power-bi-visuals/histogramstd
JasonSuaveAdvocate I
The original histrogram plugin used to be free and what you're pitching here is a paid solution. Oh how we seem to leave out such details. GTFO with this garbabe.
- asitm
That's pretty disrespectful. We straightaway clarified that these are paid visuals so that users who want free items don't even have to click on the link and waste their time.
We would love to give it for free but creating these visuals with zero or minimal bugs, and then maitaining these visuals through every Power BI software update takes a lot of effort and funds. The only reason we created the tool was because we ourselves faced the lack of visuals in Power BI as compared to Excel and Tableau. And then quit our well paying, full time jobs to develop these over two years. Our visuals are free on Desktop and hundreds of users download our visuals daily - some continue to use it for free on their desktop. Everybody has the option open to spend a few months learning D3.js and develop their own visual instead of using ours. Then spend a few weeks every 4 months or so to update the visual so that it works with the latest Power BI releases.
You are not forced to buy it, so you sure don't have to be disrespectful for the efforts we had put and are continuously putting into these visuals. Hundreds and hundreds of users have found these useful at the extremely minimal prices we charge.
Having to pay for such a basic feature is absurd.
Agreed. This would be a simple Implementation for the developers
I came here to say this.
Any update on this in terms of free/Microsoft versions? Seems like a basic ask for data science work, histograms with variable user-specified bin size.
I do wonder why this isn't a thing. This shouldn't be too difficult to create out of the box, even allowing the user to specify bin sizes. Perhaps there's some perverse incentive to push people to the paid offerings? perhaps the data structures under the hood don't allow this easily? They produce this on the power query 'transform data' view, but can't produce a graph of that same data? This is 2025. Didn't imagine that I'd be spending more than a couple minutes on this nowadays.
