BI Pixie Product Family
BI Pixie is available in multiple deployment options. This guide explains the product family, helps you choose the right option, and documents naming changes from previous releases.
Deployment Options
There are two ways to use BI Pixie: as a cloud service or self-hosted in your own environment.
BI Pixie Cloud
The cloud service. This is the default and recommended way to use BI Pixie. Sign up at app.bipixie.com, connect your Power BI workspaces, and start tracking user engagement in minutes. We manage the infrastructure, updates, and scaling. You focus on your reports.
When we say "BI Pixie" without a qualifier in marketing or conversations, we mean BI Pixie Cloud.
- No infrastructure to deploy or maintain.
- Always up to date with new features and improvements.
- Free trial available. No credit card required.
- Standard, Pro, and Enterprise plans. See Pricing for details.
BI Pixie Self-Hosted
For organizations that need to run BI Pixie in their own environment, we offer two self-hosted options. Both are grouped under the name BI Pixie Self-Hosted when discussed collectively.
BI Pixie on Azure
The Azure-deployed edition. You deploy BI Pixie into your own Azure subscription as a managed application from the Azure Marketplace. Your telemetry data stays in your Azure tenant, giving you full control over data residency, networking, and access policies.
- Full data residency in your own Azure subscription.
- All six dashboard dimensions: adoption, engagement, business outcomes, user satisfaction, performance, and security and governance.
- Deployed via the Azure Marketplace.
- See Deploy on Azure for setup instructions.
BI Pixie on Power Platform
The Power Platform-deployed edition. It runs entirely within your Power Platform environment using Power Automate flows and Dataverse. This option is ideal for organizations that prefer to stay within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem without provisioning Azure resources.
- Runs within Power Platform. No Azure subscription required.
- Dashboard dimensions: adoption, engagement, user satisfaction, and data auditing.
- See Deploy on Power Platform for setup instructions.
Comparison
| BI Pixie Cloud | BI Pixie on Azure | BI Pixie on Power Platform | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Infrastructure | Managed by BI Pixie | Your Azure subscription | Your Power Platform environment |
| Setup time | Minutes | 1-2 hours | 30 minutes |
| Data residency | Azure region of your choice | Your Azure tenant | Your Dataverse environment |
| Updates | Automatic | Manual (Marketplace update) | Manual (solution update) |
| Team management | Built-in portal with roles | Azure AD | Power Platform security roles |
| Billing | Stripe or Azure Marketplace | Azure Marketplace | Azure Marketplace |
| Dashboard | Adoption, engagement, user satisfaction, security and governance (partial) | All six dimensions | Adoption, engagement, user satisfaction, data auditing |
BI Pixie Dashboard
The BI Pixie Dashboard is a Power BI template app available on Microsoft AppSource. It connects to your BI Pixie telemetry data and provides pre-built reports covering adoption, engagement, user satisfaction, and more. The exact coverage varies by deployment.
The dashboard comes in three variants:
| Dashboard | Deployment | How to Get It |
|---|---|---|
| BI Pixie Dashboard | BI Pixie Cloud | Install directly from the BI Pixie Portal or from Microsoft AppSource |
| BI Pixie Dashboard (Azure) | BI Pixie on Azure | Microsoft AppSource |
| BI Pixie Dashboard (Power Platform) | BI Pixie on Power Platform | Microsoft AppSource |
Naming Changes
To simplify and align our product naming, we have retired several older names. If you encounter these in older documentation, blog posts, or marketplace listings, here is the mapping:
| Old Name | New Name | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| BI Pixie Managed App | BI Pixie on Azure | "Managed App" is Azure jargon and implies BI Pixie manages it, when the opposite is true. |
| BI Pixie for Azure | BI Pixie on Azure | "for Azure" implies BI Pixie serves Azure. It actually runs on Azure to serve Power BI users. |
| BI Pixie Starter Deployment | BI Pixie on Power Platform | "Starter" sounds inferior. "Deployment" is DevOps jargon. |
| BI Pixie for Power Platform | BI Pixie on Power Platform | Consistency with "on Azure" naming pattern. |
Naming Principles
- The cloud version carries the brand name unmodified in marketing contexts. The "Cloud" qualifier is used only in side-by-side comparisons.
- "BI Pixie on [Platform]" clarifies that BI Pixie runs on the platform, not for it. This pattern scales naturally (e.g., future "BI Pixie on Fabric").
- "Self-Hosted" is the collective term for both customer-deployed options, aligning with industry standard naming (GitLab, PostHog, Grafana).
- Dashboard template apps use "BI Pixie Dashboard" (unqualified) for Cloud and parenthetical qualifiers "(Azure)" / "(Power Platform)" for self-hosted variants.