Post last updated: March 7, 2023

If you hear the question: "What's a Power BI app?" you might think there’s a straightforward answer. However, the term ‘app’ is pretty overloaded term in the world of Power BI.

One time I was presenting a session and talking about Power BI apps vs. workspaces – right in the middle, someone in the audience starts asking me a Power Apps question because they thought I was talking about that (which is a VERY different thing). That was a big reminder to not to assume that we all have the same understanding of terms.

This post is a quick reference to help you decode what someone might be talking about if they mention a “Power BI app.”

Power BI Organizational App (aka “Power BI app”)

Purpose: Distributing content to viewers

A Power BI organizational app is a packaged up set of content in the web-based Power BI service. Related reports and dashboards are published from a workspace into a Power BI app for users to consume. Although you can distribute content to viewers other ways (like per-item sharing or workspace roles), using an app is the nicest experience for read-only users.

If I’m referring to a Power BI app, this method of distributing content is exactly what I mean, so I consider this first one to be the “best” answer.

Also check out my related post: Why Use a Power BI App?

Power BI Template App from AppSource

Purpose: Starter set of content

A Power BI template app is a pre-built Power BI app. You can download template apps from AppSource, which is like a marketplace to search for line-of-business applications for Power BI, Office 365, Dynamics 365, and other products and services. Template apps are most commonly published from third party vendors and from partner companies to help you get started quickly.

Power BI Workspace (Formerly “App Workspace”)

Purpose: Organizing and managing content

A workspace in the Power BI service is where items like reports and datasets are published. Think of the workspace as the container for the original contents for a Power BI app. Each (non-personal) workspace can optionally have one Power BI app (and within the app there can be multiple audiences which is really nice). Since it used to be known as an “app workspace” (though the Power BI team no longer uses that prefix), and it’s so closely associated with a Power BI organizational app, it’s worth a mention.

Power BI Service (app.PowerBI.com)

Purpose: Viewing, managing, and securing content

The Power BI service is a browser-based application for storing, managing, and securing all of your Power BI content. It’s the most common way for viewers to consume content. A lot of people call it “the Power BI app” because its web address is app.PowerBI.com. If you do a web search for “Power BI app”, the Power BI sign in is one of the first results that you’ll find. So, the Power BI service is indeed a web-based application - I prefer calling it the Power BI service rather than the Power BI web app or even Power BI online.

Power BI Mobile Applications

Purpose: Native mobile app / alternative to the browser for viewing content

There are iOS, Android, and Windows mobile apps for consuming Power BI content. The mobile apps can display content that’s been published to the Power BI service or Power BI Report Server. This is another likely candidate for confusion when referring to a “Power BI app” because…well…they are apps. Just not the kind most of us usually mean.

Power BI Desktop Application

Purpose: Developing data models and reports (.pbix)

Power BI Desktop is a client application which is installed on a content creator’s PC. Its purpose is for creating queries, data models, relationships, calculations, and reports that’ll be published to the Power BI service. Since Power BI Desktop is a client application, it’s easily possible this is what someone is referring to (especially IT staff who might not be familiar with specific Power BI functionality). I recommend referring to it as Power BI Desktop rather than the Power BI app to avoid confusion.

Power BI Desktop for Report Server Application

Purpose: Developing data models and reports (.pbix) for Power BI Report Server

There’s also another “flavor” of the desktop client app: Power BI Desktop for Report Server. Its purpose is for creating queries, data models, relationships, calculations, and reports that’ll be published to Power BI Report Server (a simple, on-premises report portal) instead of the Power BI service.

Power BI Report Builder Application

Purpose: Developing paginated reports (.rdl)

Power BI Report Builder is another client application that’s installed on a report creator’s PC. It’s used for creating fully formatted, paginated reports that can be published to the Power BI service.

Power BI App for Microsoft Teams

Purpose: Interact with Power BI service from within Teams

Microsoft Teams has a huge number of Microsoft and third-party apps you can integrate with, including Power BI. When you install (and pin) the Power BI app for Teams, that’ll allow you to interact with the Power BI service from directly in Teams. Think of it like Teams is a ‘wrapper’ for the Power BI service. The goal is to improve productivity for users that spend a lot of time in Teams.

Power BI App in the Office Hub

Purpose: Interact with Power BI service from Office and Outlook

You can install this ‘flavor' of the Power BI app from the Office Store so that access to the Power BI service is easily available from Office and Outlook (client or web version). The Power BI app for Microsoft Teams comes along with this download as well.

Power Apps

Purpose: Creating custom applications

There are a few tools collectively in the Power Platform: Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Pages, and Power Virtual Agents. Power Apps allows you to pretty easily build line-of-business applications with low code or no code. There are lots of possibilities for integration between the Power Platform applications. Terminology-wise, Power Apps are commonly confused with Power BI apps because the names are so similar.

Power BI as a “Connected App”

Purpose: Monitoring the Power BI service

The Power BI service can be set up as a “connected app” in other applications. For example, there’s a data connector from Microsoft Sentinel to import Power BI activity logs (be careful with this though – only a subset of the Power BI auditing data is collected in this way). Power BI can also be a connected app for monitoring tools such as Defender for Cloud Apps.

Power BI App for Hololens 2

Purpose: Native mobile application

There’s also a separate Power BI app for Hololens 2 in the Microsoft Store for mixed reality and 3D viewing. Just like the standard Power BI mobile app, the content needs to be published to the Power BI service to be viewable in this app.

Azure Active Directory Application (Service Principal)

Purpose: Authentication for automated processes

If you intend to create automated (unattended) processes (such as a daily data extraction from the activity log data or other data from the Power BI REST APIs), you'll want to register an AAD app. You can also use an Azure AD app with embedding scenarios. Someone might refer to the “app” (or the “service principal”) for authenticating to Power BI for automated operations.

Whew, that’s quite a list! Hopefully I’ve convinced you to be on the lookout for how different people, with different experience, and different perspectives, might use the same terminology in different ways. I hope you will endeavor to be specific and try to “speak the same language” when you’re communicating with others or writing about Power BI.

Like This Content?

Check out my related blog post: Why Use a Power BI App?

We talk about these sorts of challenges all the time in our Power BI Deployment and Governance online course. We invite you to check it out.