Power BI is the most talked about analytics tool in the technology space right now. There are dozens of Power BI custom visuals that can be used in Power BI to visualize your data. It allows users to create their own visuals using the same development language and tooling as the Power BI team. This is a list of the top 5 Power BI custom visuals that you can use to make your dashboards look great and communicate your data better.
Top 5 Free Power BI Custom Visuals in Microsoft AppSource
- Deneb
- HTML Content
- Word Cloud
- Tachometer
- Power KPI
Why These Are Our Top 5 Power BI Custom Visuals
Not every custom visual is suitable for every reporting scenario. The visuals featured in this article were selected based on five important factors:
- Ease of implementation
- Business value across multiple industries
- Dashboard usability
- Customization capabilities
- Popularity within the Power BI community
Whether you’re creating executive dashboards, displaying dynamic content, analyzing customer feedback, or tracking KPIs, these visuals provide practical solutions that extend Power BI beyond its built-in capabilities.
1. Deneb
Deneb is one of the most powerful free visuals available in Microsoft AppSource. Built on Vega and Vega-Lite, it allows developers and analysts to create highly customized charts without developing a Power BI custom visual from scratch.
Unlike standard visuals, Deneb provides complete control over layout, styling, interactions, and data presentation. It also integrates seamlessly with native Power BI features such as tooltips, cross-filtering, report themes, and highlighting.
Why Deneb Made Our Top 5
Organizations often require visualizations that cannot be achieved using built-in charts. Deneb enables report designers to build professional visuals tailored to specific business requirements while remaining fully integrated with Power BI.
Key Benefits
- Build advanced visualizations using Vega and Vega-Lite
- Support interactive filtering and highlighting
- Customize layouts, colors, and formatting
- Reduce development effort compared to building a custom visual
- Create highly engaging dashboards
Best Use Cases
- Executive dashboards
- Financial reporting
- Operational analytics
- Research and data exploration
2. HTML Content
The HTML Content visual allows you to display formatted HTML directly inside Power BI reports. Instead of relying only on charts and tables, you can enhance dashboards with styled text, hyperlinks, images, icons, and dynamic content generated through DAX.
This visual is particularly useful when reports need additional context or branded content that standard Power BI visuals cannot provide.
Why HTML Content Made Our Top 5
Many organizations want dashboards that combine analytics with rich information. HTML Content makes reports more informative and visually appealing while maintaining a clean user experience.
Key Benefits
- Display formatted HTML content
- Add hyperlinks, icons, and images
- Create dynamic report narratives
- Improve dashboard presentation
- Support branded report designs
Best Use Cases
- Executive summaries
- Dynamic report narratives
- Internal portals
- Product catalogs
- Interactive documentation
3. Word Cloud
Word frequency and value are displayed visually in word clouds. Utilize it to gain quick insight into the key terms in your data. The dynamic Word Cloud feature in Power BI eliminates the need to laboriously sift through voluminous amounts of text to identify the terms that are widespread or noteworthy. Simply see them as a Word Cloud to get the overall picture right away.
Then, use Power BI’s interactivity to slice and dice the data further to identify the underlying trends. You have the option of word-breaking the text to find frequent words or leaving word-breaking off to project a measure as a text value.
Pros
- Additionally, stop words can be enabled to exclude cliches from the word cloud and reduce clutter.
- You can use this graphic in a variety of inventive ways by enabling rotation and experimenting with the permitted angles.
- This app created a visually appealing graphic for a report on qualitative research.
4. Tachometer
The Tachometer custom visual displays key performance indicators using a gauge-style interface that compares current values against predefined targets. Instead of interpreting detailed charts, decision-makers can quickly determine whether performance is on track.
Its intuitive design makes it particularly useful for executive and operational dashboards.
Why Tachometer Made Our Top 5
Performance dashboards should communicate information instantly. Tachometer provides a simple yet effective way to visualize KPIs and highlight areas requiring attention.
Key Benefits
- Compare actual values with targets
- Display performance using intuitive gauges
- Improve dashboard readability
- Support faster decision-making
- Easy to configure and customize
Best Use Cases
- Sales performance
- Budget tracking
- Manufacturing efficiency
- Project monitoring
5. Power KPI
Power KPI enables organizations to display KPI values, trend indicators, target comparisons, and performance status in a single visual. Rather than reviewing multiple reports, decision-makers can quickly understand business performance from one dashboard.
Its clean design makes it ideal for organizations that rely on data-driven decision-making.
Why Power KPI Made Our Top 5
Power KPI combines multiple performance indicators into one visual, making executive dashboards easier to understand and more actionable.
Key Benefits
- Display multiple KPIs together
- Show trends and target comparisons
- Improve executive reporting
- Support interactive dashboards
- Enable data-driven decisions
Best Use Cases
- Executive scorecards
- Financial reporting
- Sales dashboards
- Customer service analytics
- Business performance monitoring
Quick Comparison of the Top 5 Visuals
| Custom Visual | Best For | Ideal Users |
|---|---|---|
| Deneb | Advanced custom visualizations | Developers & Analysts |
| HTML Content | Rich formatted content | Report Designers |
| Word Cloud | Text and sentiment analysis | Analysts & Researchers |
| Tachometer | KPI monitoring | Business Users & Managers |
| Power KPI | Executive dashboards | Decision Makers |
Two Free Visuals We Built Ourselves
The five visuals above come from other publishers on AppSource. We've built a couple of free, certified ones too.
If you're dealing with stacked bar charts that get cluttered once you add more than two or three segments, Nested Total Bar Chart shows the total and the breakdown in one bar instead of forcing you to compare two separate charts. And if you present dashboards to a room rather than just leaving them in an inbox, Data Play adds play/pause/scrub controls so you can walk through a trend instead of dropping a static screenshot into a deck.
Both are free on AppSource, same as the visuals above.
Conclusion
Power BI custom visuals can significantly improve the way organizations present and analyze data. While built-in visuals meet many reporting needs, custom visuals such as Deneb, HTML Content, Word Cloud, Tachometer, and Power KPI provide additional flexibility, interactivity, and business value.
The right visual depends on your reporting objectives. Whether you need advanced analytics, richer report content, text analysis, or KPI monitoring, these five visuals offer reliable solutions for building professional dashboards. If you're looking to extend Power BI with custom visual development or enterprise dashboard solutions, Datellers can help you build scalable, user-friendly analytics experiences.
Need a visual Power BI doesn't have?
If none of these fits, we build custom visuals from scratch with D3.js and TypeScript, through our PBI Custom Visual Framework. Tell us what your report needs to show.
FAQ
1. What are Power BI custom visuals?
Power BI custom visuals are additional visualizations developed by Microsoft or third-party publishers that extend the capabilities of Power BI beyond its built-in charts and graphs.
2. Are these Power BI custom visuals free?
Yes. Deneb, HTML Content, Word Cloud, Tachometer, and Power KPI all have free versions available through Microsoft AppSource, although some publishers may also offer premium features.
3. Which visual is best for advanced custom charts?
Deneb is the best option for creating advanced and highly customized visualizations using Vega and Vega-Lite.
4. Which visual should I use for customer feedback analysis?
Word Cloud is ideal for analyzing survey responses, customer reviews, and other text-based datasets by highlighting frequently occurring words and phrases.
5. Which visual is best for KPI dashboards?
Tachometer and Power KPI are excellent choices for monitoring business performance, comparing targets, and presenting executive metrics.
