Comparison
Two ways to take data and AI all the way to production. This page compares graal and Microsoft Fabric criterion by criterion: what each one publishes, in its own words, dated and sourced.
At a glance
graal
With you: your Kubernetes or OpenShift, on-premises or with the hosting provider of your choice. No third-party service is needed to run it.
Microsoft Fabric
A SaaS platform: “Fabric is delivered as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform”. OneLake storage is built on Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2.
graal
Two open source products, under the Apache 2.0 license: graal Data Platform and graal Agentic Platform.
Microsoft Fabric
A platform delivered as SaaS. Its “local” MCP server is described as open source: “an open-source, development-focused MCP server”.
graal
Annual vendor subscription per vCPU, unlimited users and agents, no usage-based billing.
Microsoft Fabric
Capacities bought through Azure, billed per second with no commitment or reserved for a year; collaborating also takes “at least one per-user license”.
graal
An MCP server drives the Data Platform, under a service account scoped to one project and with human approval. The Agentic Platform puts any agent to work on your processes.
Microsoft Fabric
The data agent is generally available. Several MCP servers, remote or local: “Availability and authentication requirements vary by server.”
Criterion by criterion
Every Microsoft Fabric cell links to its source and to the date we accessed it. Quotes stay in their original language.
| Criterion | graal | Microsoft Fabric |
|---|---|---|
| Where the platform runs | Your Kubernetes or OpenShift: on-premises, in a private cloud or with the hosting provider of your choice. Installed with Helm, without cluster administration rights; offline installation is possible. | SaaS, on Azure: “OneLake is built on ADLS (Azure Data Lake Storage) Gen2.” A home region is tied to the tenant: “Your home region is associated with your tenant.” Multi-Geo lets you deploy capacities in other regions, and the region list includes France Central. |
| Who operates the control plane | You do. No SaaS and no telemetry: no third-party service is needed to run it. Operations by graal Services is a separate service that you choose. | Fabric is a Microsoft service, delivered as SaaS: “Fabric is delivered as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform and uses OneLake as a centralized, logical data lake for storing and accessing data across all workloads.” |
| Vendor and headquarters | GRAAL.SYSTEMS SAS, a French-law vendor, Paris. | Microsoft Corporation, a Washington State corporation headquartered in Redmond. |
| Software license | Open source, Apache 2.0 license, for the Data Platform and the Agentic Platform alike. | A platform delivered as SaaS. The “local” MCP server is described as open source: “Fabric MCP Server (local) is an open-source, development-focused MCP server that runs as a subprocess on your machine.” |
| Open formats | Parquet and Apache Iceberg on your S3 storage, standard SQL with Trino; low-code pipelines exported as Pandas or PySpark code. | “OneLake is built on Azure Data Lake Storage and stores tables in Delta Parquet or Iceberg format, two open standards that any tool can read. This approach means your data isn't locked into proprietary formats.” |
| Published pricing model | Annual vendor subscription per vCPU, unlimited users and agents, no usage-based billing. 8-week pilot; graal Services priced separately. | Capacities (F SKUs): “Azure bills you per second with no commitment, with the option of a yearly capacity reservation to save costs.” And: “To collaborate, you need an F or P capacity and at least one per-user license.” |
| Generative AI and agents | MCP server built into the Data Platform, one service account per project, per-agent policies, human approval, revocation, audit. LLM gateway and RAG over your documents. Agentic Platform: workflows of agents and people, any agent, measured guarantees. | “Data agent in Microsoft Fabric is a generally available feature that enables you to build your own conversational Q&A systems by using generative AI.” Fabric publishes a remote MCP server (Fabric Core) and a local one, among others: “Remote servers in this table are hosted by Microsoft. Local servers run in an environment that you manage.” Fabric IQ is announced as a preview: “Fabric IQ (preview)”. |
A cell older than 90 days is re-checked or removed. Has something changed? Write to contact@graal.systems and we will correct it.
When to choose graal
graal installs on your Kubernetes or OpenShift, on-premises or with the hosting provider of your choice. The platform, the data and the traces stay in the infrastructure you picked.
The vendor subscription is computed per vCPU, with unlimited users and agents and no usage-based billing: the bill varies neither with the number of queries nor with the number of people or agents.
Both platforms are open source, under the Apache 2.0 license. Low-code pipelines export as Pandas or PySpark code, and the data stays in Parquet and Iceberg on your storage.
A service account scoped to one project, per-agent policies, human approval for sensitive actions, immediate revocation and an audit log: your agents create, run and schedule without holding the keys to the platform.
When Microsoft Fabric suits you
Fabric integrates with Microsoft 365, “enabling data to be analyzed and consumed in tools such as Excel and shared through collaboration surfaces like Microsoft Teams”.
Fabric is delivered as SaaS: “without manually integrating separate services or managing underlying infrastructure”.
OneLake stores tables in Delta Parquet or Iceberg, “two open standards that any tool can read”.
“Data agent in Microsoft Fabric is a generally available feature”, which answers plain-language questions about the data in OneLake.
Frequently asked questions
graal installs on your Kubernetes or OpenShift, on-premises or with the hosting provider of your choice. It covers connectors, pipelines, an Iceberg lakehouse with Trino SQL, notebooks, ML and generative AI, with permissions, audit and costs per project.
With graal, you choose the infrastructure, in France or elsewhere. graal is deployable on a SecNumCloud-qualified or HDS-certified hosting provider, as in your own datacenter; a hosting provider’s qualification is checked offer by offer.
An annual vendor subscription per vCPU, with unlimited users and agents and no usage-based billing. The amount depends on your vCPU quota and the services you choose: you receive it after a scoping conversation.
Yes, through the Data Platform’s MCP server, under a service account scoped to one project. Sensitive actions wait for a manager’s approval, and every call is visible live and in the audit log.
The 8-week pilot puts graal to the test on your use case, in your infrastructure.