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Tableau Reviews

Vendor: Salesforce
4.2 out of 5
Badge Ranked 1
12K followers
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What is Tableau?

Tableau is a tool for data visualization and business intelligence that allows businesses to report insights through easy-to-use, customizable visualizations and dashboards. Tableau makes it exceedingly simple for its customers to organize, manage, visualize, and comprehend data. It enables users to dig deep into the data so that they can see patterns and gain meaningful insights. 

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Tableau is the #1 ranked solution in top Data Visualization solutions, #1 ranked solution in top Embedded BI Tools, #2 ranked solution in top Business Intelligence Tools, and #2 ranked solution in top Reporting Tools. PeerSpot users give Tableau an average rating of 8.4 out of 10. Tableau is most commonly compared to Microsoft Power BI: Tableau vs Microsoft Power BI. Tableau is popular among the midsize enterprise segment, accounting for 45% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a educational organization, accounting for 40% of all views.
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Tableau
May 2025
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Tableau mindshare

Product category:
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
As of June 2025, the mindshare of Tableau in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category stands at 16.4%, down from 19.1% compared to the previous year, according to calculations based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

PeerResearch reports based on Tableau reviews

TypeTitleDate
CategoryBI (Business Intelligence) ToolsJun 1, 2025Download
ProductReviews, tips, and advice from real usersJun 1, 2025Download
ComparisonTableau vs Microsoft Power BIJun 1, 2025Download
ComparisonTableau vs Amazon QuickSightJun 1, 2025Download
ComparisonTableau vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence PlatformJun 1, 2025Download
Suggested products
TitleRatingMindshareRecommending
Microsoft Power BI4.021.1%93%321 interviewsAdd to research
Informatica PowerCenter4.0N/A91%81 interviewsAdd to research
 
 
Key learnings from peers

Valuable Features

Tableau excels in graphical representation and data visualization, supporting interaction with diverse data sources like SQL, Oracle. Users appreciate its intuitive drag-and-drop interface and the ability to create dashboards, handle large datasets efficiently, and produce visually appealing charts. Tableau offers flexibility in blending data, integrating with tools like R and Alteryx, ensuring ease in generating quick insights, allowing self-service for non-technical users, and supporting real-time data processing and storytelling.
  • "Tableau is quite easy to develop dashboards with, and the range of dashboards is good."
  • "Tableau's ability to manage extensive data, even in an extract format, is noteworthy, as Power BI struggles with that."
  • "Tableau is saving me time, money, and resources, which I would rate as ten."

Room for Improvement

Users find Tableau expensive and desire pricing adjustments. There's a need for enhanced ETL capabilities, metadata solutions, and data blending features. Improvements in enterprise features, server performance, and dashboard functionality are essential. Users seek more visualization options, intuitive design interfaces, and seamless integration with other BI tools. They also request advanced predictive analytics and machine learning capabilities, better connectivity with diverse databases, and improved scalability for handling large datasets.
  • "Introducing custom features, such as NLP-based reports, is not very good in Tableau. My MD has been asking us for a way to write in natural language to request reports that the system should generate, but that isn't very effective with Tableau."
  • "From a customer's point of view, I have noted that after the acquisition by Salesforce, the customer service for Tableau has declined significantly."
  • "The interface needs improvement as sometimes it is locked, and it takes some time for the visualization and dashboards to load."

ROI

Tableau provides significant return on investment with rapid insights, reducing manual workload and enabling quicker decision-making through improved data visibility. Many report immediate or high return, often within a year, due to its ease of use and effective adoption strategies. Cost-effectiveness varies by company size and data needs, with larger enterprises realizing more substantial benefits. Although pricier than some competitors, its capabilities for managing complex datasets and process automation justify the expense for many users.

Pricing

Tableau pricing, particularly for the desktop version, is often viewed as high compared to competitors like Power BI. Pricing models include named user and core licensing, with different prices for roles such as creator, explorer, and viewer. Enterprises find core licensing practical, while smaller organizations may perceive costs as restrictive. Despite the expense, many users believe the functionality and ROI justify the price, with options like free trials and academic discounts adding flexibility.
  • "Tableau is an expensive solution."
  • "The solution's licensing is based on user-basis. It depends on the business ROI it offers. It's not on the higher side or too cheap; it falls in the medium-cost range. The price is determined by user usage, so the cost will also increase as the number of users increases."
  • "Tableau is an expensive solution compared to Power BI."

Popular Use Cases

Tableau is primarily used for data visualization and business intelligence tasks. It assists in creating interactive dashboards for asset performance, financial analytics, operational insights, sales tracking, HR applications, healthcare analytics, and various industry-specific visualizations. Organizations utilize Tableau for reporting, dashboard creation, data visualization, and analytics to enhance decision-making processes and monitor performance metrics effectively.

Service and Support

Tableau's customer service and support receive high praise for responsiveness and professionalism. Their exceptional community forums and extensive online resources are highlighted as significant assets. Users mention timely issue resolution and commend technical support for quick and effective responses. However, some note improvement areas in response times and communication efficiency, especially during busy periods. Premium support is noted to be superior to standard support, showing variability in user experiences.

Deployment

Setting up Tableau is remarkably straightforward for most organizations, requiring minimal technical expertise. Installation for Desktop versions is simple and quick, often involving just a few clicks. Server setups are similarly uncomplicated, though some larger enterprises find complexities due to specific data security integrations. Many note the benefit of following Tableau's comprehensive documentation. While initial setups vary slightly based on organizational needs, the consensus highlights ease and efficiency.

Scalability

Tableau exhibits mixed scalability feedback. It handles medium-scale to large-scale deployments well, especially with cloud integration. However, challenges arise with very large datasets, causing performance slowdowns. Design refinement is needed for optimal efficiency. The cost of scaling can be significant, affecting wider usage. While some experience seamless scaling with proper configuration, others face limitations, particularly with unstructured data. Active involvement of database administrators enhances its capabilities, making it adaptable for various business environments.

Stability

Tableau is considered stable by many users, though some noted occasional performance issues, particularly with large datasets or due to specific server configurations. Past versions showed instability, but recent updates have improved performance. Crashes are rare but can occur when handling complicated data. Network issues and hardware limitations can impact stability. Most users find it reliable, with fewer complaints compared to other tools, though some experienced instability during upgrades.
These insights are based on the in-depth reviews provided by peers to help you make a better buying decision.
Download our Tableau Buyer's Guide for additional reliable information.

Review data by company size

By reviewers
By visitors reading reviews

Top industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
40%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
University
5%
Government
4%
Healthcare Company
3%
Retailer
3%
Insurance Company
2%
Energy/Utilities Company
2%
Non Profit
2%
Real Estate/Law Firm
1%
Legal Firm
1%
Media Company
1%
Comms Service Provider
1%
Construction Company
1%
Hospitality Company
1%
Wholesaler/Distributor
1%
Performing Arts
1%
Transportation Company
1%
Pharma/Biotech Company
1%
Recreational Facilities/Services Company
1%
Outsourcing Company
1%
Consumer Goods Company
1%

Compare Tableau with alternative products

Go!

Learn more about Tableau

Make data-driven decisions with confidence thanks to Tableau’s assistance in providing faster answers to queries, solving harder problems more easily, and offering new insights more frequently. Tableau integrates directly to hundreds of data sources, both in the cloud and on premises, making it simpler to begin research. People of various skill levels can quickly find actionable information using Tableau’s natural language queries, interactive dashboards, and drag-and-drop capabilities. By quickly creating strong calculations, adding trend lines to examine statistical summaries, or clustering data to identify relationships, users can ask more in-depth inquiries.

Tableau has many valuable key features:

  • Tableau dashboards provide a complete view of your data through visualizations, visual objects, text, and more.
  • Tableau provides convenient, real-time options to collaborate with other users and instantly share data in the form of visualizations, sheets, and dashboards. 
  • Tableau ensures connectivity to both live data sources and data extraction from external data sources as in-memory data. This gives users the flexibility to use data from more than one source without any restrictions. 
  • Tableau gives many data source option, ranging from spreadsheets, big data, on-premise files, relational databases, non-relational databases, data warehouses, and big data, to on-cloud data. 
  • Tableau has a lot of pre-installed information on maps, such as cities, postal codes, and administrative boundaries. 
  • Tableau has a foolproof security system based on authentication and permission systems for data connections and user access. Tableau also gives you the freedom to integrate with other security protocols.

Tableau stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Some of these include its fast data access, easy creation of visualizations, and its stability. PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features in their reviews:

Romil S., Deputy General Manager of IT at Nayara Energy, notes, "Its visualizations are good, and its features make the development process a little less time-consuming. It has an in-memory extract feature that allows us to extract data and keep it on the server, and then our users can use it quickly.

Ariful M., Consulting Practice Partner of Data, Analytics & AI at FH, writes, “Tableau is very flexible and easy to learn. It has drag-and-drop function analytics, and its design is very good.”

Tableau was previously known as Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online.

Tableau customers

Accenture, Adobe, Amazon.com, Bank of America, Charles Schwab Corp, Citigroup, Coca-Cola Company, Cornell University, Dell, Deloitte, Duke University, eBay, Exxon Mobil, Fannie Mae, Ferrari, French Red Cross, Goldman Sachs, Google, Government of Canada, HP, Intel, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Macy's, Merck, The New York Times, PayPal, Pfizer, US Army, US Air Force, Skype, and Walmart.

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Product Categories

Product Categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
Reporting
Data Visualization
Embedded BI

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Tableau reviews

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Nattawat Choosuwan - PeerSpot user
Senior Data Consultant at a government with 11-50 employees
Verified user of Tableau
Apr 14, 2025
Real-time data connection enhances workflow and decision-making process

Pros

"The customer service and support for Tableau in Thailand are excellent."

Cons

"An area for improvement in Tableau is the Explorer license type. It is not as useful, and the product owner should enhance its benefits or clarify its role. Additionally, the frequent updates with many versions available for download can be confusing and could affect stability."

What is our primary use case?

In our organization, we use Tableau for several use cases. The first one is the sales dashboard, which includes sales performance reports, leads, and opportunity status dashboards. The second use case involves financial analytics dashboards, such as 'what-if' analytics in financial terms.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features of Tableau include the drag-and-drop functionality and the ease of use of the user interface. A significant feature for me is the real-time connection to data sources because it effectively manages large data sets. Additionally, the real-time data processing eliminates the lack of timely reports or dashboards, allowing for hour-by-hour updates instead of monthly or weekly ones.
*Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
Read full review (706 words)
PeerSpot user
Associate Technical Architect at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Verified user of Tableau
May 19, 2025
Combining advanced data handling with room for improvement in user support

Pros

"Tableau's ability to manage extensive data, even in an extract format, is noteworthy, as Power BI struggles with that."

Cons

"From a customer's point of view, I have noted that after the acquisition by Salesforce, the customer service for Tableau has declined significantly."

What is our primary use case?

My main use cases with Tableau include working on the migration of dashboards from legacy systems to cloud-based solutions, such as migrating from Looker to Tableau Dashboard or Power BI to Tableau Dashboard. Recently, since the acquisition by Salesforce, the demand in the Tableau space has decreased compared to Power BI, as many clients are moving towards Power BI due to its more affordable licensing and the appealing use cases that it offers.

Tableau has recently announced the Tableau Next platform, which is exciting, but there are still uncertainties about how it will pan out compared to other BI tools in the market. Currently, our focus is primarily on dashboard development and migration between platforms, setting up business architectures, recommending tools based on user requirements, and conducting benchmarking to understand market offerings. Tableau is my main tool, and I continuously explore what's happening in the space to determine if Tableau is performing better or what innovations are on the horizon.

What is most valuable?

When comparing Tableau to other BI tools, they are generally on par, but the drag-and-drop feature in Tableau is user-friendly, and it handles large data sets more effectively than Power BI. Tableau's ability to manage extensive data, even in an extract format, is noteworthy, as Power BI struggles with that.

Creating dashboards and performing calculations in Tableau is quite straightforward and provides a better user experience compared to Power BI, which can feel more outdated. Although Tableau comes at a premium, the performance on the cloud platform and the overall ease of use for developers are significant advantages, even though it isn't designed for tabular reporting some users, particularly in finance, desire.

*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Read full review (740 words)
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Find out what your peers are saying about Tableau. Updated May 2025
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Satyavrat Nirala - PeerSpot user
Founder at Mindclick Consulting
Verified user of Tableau
May 19, 2025
Visualization and market research are enhanced with valuable insights

Pros

"Tableau is saving me time, money, and resources, which I would rate as ten."

Cons

"The interface needs improvement as sometimes it is locked, and it takes some time for the visualization and dashboards to load."

What is our primary use case?

I am supporting a product company for market analysis and market research where we are using Tableau.

For retargeting and validating purchasing decisions, we use AI to create visualizations for predicting spending habits for the next six months for different categories.

What is most valuable?

The most effective features of Tableau for data analysis are visualization, comparison, and data analysis, which is much practical in this kind of project.

We are using AI features in Tableau.

For retargeting and validating purchasing decisions, we use AI to create visualizations for predicting spending habits for the next six months for different categories.

*Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Read full review (444 words)
AN
Associate Director at Mresult
Verified user of Tableau
Apr 16, 2025
Efficient content management improves access control and streamlines reporting

Pros

"Overall, Tableau is a very good tool."

Cons

"Pricing is also a concern for me as it is expensive compared to TIBCO Spotfire Enterprise licensing and Microsoft Power Platform."

What is our primary use case?

I use Tableau mostly for reporting and dashboarding purposes. I utilize Power Platform when I require numerous business rules and need a quick prototype. For enterprise reporting, I use TIBCO Spotfire. Although I do not use Tableau directly, my customers' companies do.

What is most valuable?

The most beneficial feature of Tableau for me is its user interface, which offers a quick and easy drag-and-drop facility. Another advantage is the site administration, allowing for efficient content management and security without requiring server admin intervention. This ease of maintaining content and managing access control at the site level distinguishes Tableau from Spotfire, where admin duties are restricted and can cause delays.
*Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Read full review (391 words)
RA
Content Specialist at PeerSpot
Verified user of Tableau
Apr 24, 2025
Drill-down and interactivity provide detailed data analysis for quick decision-making

Pros

"The drill-down approach and interactivity in Tableau are highly effective."

Cons

"There have been issues where suddenly the site will not respond, requiring a restart."

What is our primary use case?

I use Tableau for providing business insights. Instead of depending on Excel files, I provide information to the business users to make quicker decisions.

What is most valuable?

The drill-down approach and interactivity in Tableau are highly effective. Users can filter out specific information they are looking into. The interactive, action-based approach allows for detailed data analysis. For example, if I want to drill down from state information to region-wise information, I can click on a region, and the dashboard filters out to show performance analysis of that specific region.
*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Read full review (526 words)
SB
Project Manager, Site at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech
Verified user of Tableau
Mar 31, 2025
Automating processes reduces manual work allowing more efficient data handling and timely decision-making

Pros

"Tableau reduces manual labor and resources, providing cost-effective solutions for our operations."

Cons

"There are restrictions in scheduling reports. For instance, we cannot send the entire Excel file reports via email within Tableau."

What is our primary use case?

I use Tableau in the banking sector for data visualization and financial analytics. It helps in processing large amounts of data and generating high-level reports.

What is most valuable?

Tableau efficiently handles large amounts of data and automates processes, reducing the need for manual work. This automation provides resources that are highly cost-effective and helps with high-level analysis and decision-making. The platform supports live connections and real-time data processing, which is crucial for our reconciliations that need frequent updates.
*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Read full review (396 words)
PeerSpot user
solution architect at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
Verified user of Tableau
Apr 17, 2025
Handles large data efficiently with secure and quick change management

Pros

"Tableau serves as a stable dashboarding tool for higher management, aiding in quick decision-making."

Cons

"The look and feel of the tool itself, including the dashboard features and data visualization, could be improved. The graphs in Tableau also have room for improvement."

What is our primary use case?

Tableau can process a huge amount of data, which is one of my main criteria. Another significant feature is change management. Enhancements to existing dashboards or reports can be made quickly. The security of Tableau is also pretty good.

What is most valuable?

Tableau's ability to handle integration and the stability of the tool itself are the most valuable features. It can process a huge amount of data. Multiple sources can be connected to Tableau, and meaningful insights can be derived. Tableau serves as a stable dashboarding tool for higher management, aiding in quick decision-making.

*Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Implementer
Read full review (367 words)
PeerSpot user
Group Finance Head Of Investment Bank Product Control at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Verified user of Tableau
Apr 14, 2025
Gain clarity in financial presentations and face challenges with data preparation

Pros

"Tableau is extremely good at dashboard creation, providing clear and concise visual presentations."

Cons

"I find data prepping in Tableau challenging to understand, perhaps because I am new to it. It sometimes requires extensive investigation to determine why the data does not appear correctly."

What is our primary use case?

We mainly use Tableau for financial presentations.

What is most valuable?

Tableau is extremely good at dashboard creation, providing clear and concise visual presentations. The most beneficial feature is its ability to present data cleanly and effectively. However, setting it up and using it with large datasets can be challenging. Tableau excels in visualization, making presentations efficient.
*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Read full review (436 words)