Business intelligence and big data represent two different technologies within decision support systems. The present paper concerns the two concepts within the context of e-government. Thus, the purpose of the paper is to present the preliminary findings regarding publication patterns and topic coverage within the two technologies by conducting a comparative literature review. A total of 281 papers published in the years 2005–2014 were included in the analysis. A rapid increase of papers regarding big data were identified, the majority being journal papers. As regards business intelligence, researchers publish in conference proceedings to a greater extent. Further, big data journal papers are published within a broader range of journal topics compared to business intelligence journal papers. The paper concludes by pointing to further analyses that will be carried out within the 281 selected papers.