Data Platform

FluxConnect vs Microsoft Fabric

Microsoft Fabric is a unified data platform for building analytics solutions. FluxConnect is a ready-to-use platform for sharing supplier insights, without engineering.

Microsoft Fabric represents Microsoft’s vision for unified analytics, a comprehensive platform that brings together data engineering, data science, real-time analytics, and business intelligence under one roof. It’s an impressive platform for organizations with the engineering resources to leverage it.

But for retailers who need to share insights with suppliers, Fabric presents a fundamental question: do you want to build a supplier data sharing solution, or do you want to use one? Fabric gives you the building blocks: lakehouses, pipelines, Power BI integration, security primitives. What it doesn’t give you is a ready-made solution for multi-tenant supplier access, per-supplier data isolation, or frictionless external onboarding.

The build vs. buy calculation

Building a supplier portal on Fabric means months of data engineering work: designing multi-tenant architecture, configuring data pipelines, building custom reports, developing an external authentication system, and creating an administration layer for commercial teams. Then there’s ongoing maintenance, scaling considerations, and the opportunity cost of your data engineering team working on supplier sharing instead of other initiatives.

FluxConnect delivers the same outcome (secure, governed, supplier-specific insights) as a managed SaaS that goes live in days. The one-time setup involves uploading your data via JSONL. From there, purchasing teams build reports, set report access, and onboard suppliers without touching code or filing IT tickets.

Private Deployment

Already on Microsoft Fabric? FluxConnect Private Deployment can build on it

There are two ways to run FluxConnect. FluxConnect SaaS is the fully managed option: we host everything and ingest your data via JSONL upload. FluxConnect Private Deployment is for retailers who already run Fabric and would rather build on it than copy data and rebuild reports.

With Private Deployment, FluxConnect runs in your own environment and works with the Fabric stack you already have. It can reuse OneLake as the data layer and embed the Power BI reports your teams already trust. FluxConnect adds what Fabric does not provide out of the box: the multi-tenant supplier portal, per-supplier data isolation, email-OTP onboarding, and per-report access control. You keep Fabric as the internal platform and add the supplier-facing layer on top.

Retailer cloud tenant

Azure / AWS / GCP

Data stays inside

Existing infrastructure

Microsoft Fabric / OneLake

Reused assets

Existing Power BI reports

Your governance

Security, data model, access rules

Reuse

FluxConnect

Supplier portal layer

Per-supplier isolation OTP onboarding Per-report access

Serve

Suppliers

Supplier A

Own reports only

Supplier B

Own reports only

Supplier C

Own reports only

Existing data platform and reports stay in place. FluxConnect adds the external supplier access layer.

Feature comparison

FluxConnect comes in two editions. Where a row applies to both, the cell spans them; where they differ, you see each edition side by side.

	FluxConnect SaaS	FluxConnect Private Deployment	Microsoft Fabric
Primary use case	External supplier data sharing		Unified data & analytics platform
Time to value	Days	Tailored rollout	Months of development
Requires data engineering	No		Yes, significant
Supplier onboarding	Email OTP - seconds		Custom development needed
Managed by	Purchasing / Commercial		Data engineering team
Data isolation	Built-in tenant separation		Must be architected
Pricing	Volume-based from €500/month	Custom pricing	Capacity Units (CU) - complex
Maintenance	Fully managed SaaS	Managed, in your tenant	Ongoing engineering required

Why choose FluxConnect

Ready to use, not build

Microsoft Fabric gives you tools to build a supplier portal. FluxConnect gives you the portal itself: pre-built, tested, and ready for supplier onboarding in days.

No data engineering required

Fabric requires data engineers to build pipelines, configure lakehouses, and develop reports. FluxConnect needs a one-time JSONL data upload. Purchasing handles the rest.

Predictable, simple pricing

Fabric's Capacity Unit pricing is complex and can spike unpredictably. FluxConnect SaaS pricing is straightforward: published rates by order-line volume, with a €500/month minimum.

Purpose-built supplier isolation

Building multi-tenant data isolation on Fabric requires careful architecture. FluxConnect provides tenant-level supplier separation out of the box. It's a core design principle, not an afterthought.

When to use what

Choose FluxConnect when…

Sharing retail insights with suppliers without a development team
Monetizing supplier data as a revenue stream quickly
Retailers without dedicated data engineering resources
Fast time-to-value for supplier data sharing
Predictable monthly costs without capacity planning

Consider Microsoft Fabric when…

Building a comprehensive internal data lakehouse
Organizations with dedicated data engineering teams
Complex ETL pipelines across multiple data sources
Real-time analytics on large-scale internal data
Custom analytics applications with full control over architecture

Frequently asked questions

Can I build a supplier portal on Microsoft Fabric?

Yes, but it requires significant data engineering effort. You'd need to architect multi-tenant data isolation, build custom reports, develop an authentication system for external users, and maintain the solution ongoing. FluxConnect provides all of this out of the box.

Is FluxConnect built on Microsoft Fabric?

FluxConnect is a standalone SaaS platform with its own architecture optimized for supplier data sharing. It doesn't depend on Microsoft Fabric, though it can ingest data from any source including Fabric lakehouses.

How does pricing compare between FluxConnect and Microsoft Fabric?

Fabric uses Capacity Units (CU) priced from hundreds to thousands per month, plus engineering time to build and maintain solutions. FluxConnect SaaS offers predictable pricing: €20 per 1,000,000 lines up to 100,000,000 lines, €10 per 1,000,000 lines up to 1,000,000,000 lines, and €5 per 1,000,000 lines above that, with a €500/month minimum.

Do I need a data engineer to use FluxConnect?

No. IT performs a one-time data upload (Supplier, Product, and Order data via JSONL), then purchasing and commercial teams manage everything: building reports, setting per-report access, and onboarding suppliers. No data engineering skills required.

Can FluxConnect and Microsoft Fabric work together?

Yes. Retailers using Fabric as their internal data platform can export data to FluxConnect for supplier-facing insights. FluxConnect handles the external sharing layer while Fabric powers internal analytics.

Can FluxConnect run on top of our existing Fabric data and Power BI reports?

Yes, with FluxConnect Private Deployment. We deploy in your environment and can reuse OneLake as the data layer and embed your existing Power BI reports, instead of ingesting copies via JSONL upload. FluxConnect SaaS is the alternative: a fully managed, turnkey option for retailers who would rather not manage any infrastructure.

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FluxConnect vs Microsoft Fabric