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Adaptive Insights vs Tableau comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Adaptive Insights
Ranking in Reporting
10th
Ranking in Data Visualization
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Business Performance Management (8th), Financial Performance and Strategy Management (3rd), ESG Reporting Software (5th)
Tableau
Ranking in Reporting
2nd
Ranking in Data Visualization
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
306
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (2nd), Embedded BI (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Adaptive Insights is 0.5%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tableau is 21.7%, down from 23.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Reporting
 

Featured Reviews

Andrew Rosenberg - PeerSpot reviewer
Adaptive scales well, simple to create new budget versions and models
For the organization I used to work at, it streamlined the process of creating budgets. It's very simple to create a new version and do some more modeling based on your need for planning things like headcount, other expenses, and revenue, everything is configurable within Workday. So that made it easy. Reporting was pretty easy to set up as well. It streamlined the amount of time it took to do the budget as well as kind of making it simple to implement a rolling forecast process. So, it really was more just a productivity increase and time shortening for the budgeting and forecasting process.
Nattawat Choosuwan - PeerSpot reviewer
Real-time data connection enhances workflow and decision-making process
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. They should avoid providing access to older versions on their website.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its dashboard."
"Automated reporting."
"It's very simple to create a new version and do some more modeling based on your need for planning things like headcount, other expenses, and revenue, everything is configurable within Workday."
"We utilize planning on a daily basis, therefore we find it to be the most valuable product for our organization."
"The biggest feature is the source of truth for all of our budget and forecast versions."
"Reports are allowed to be edited for aesthetic purposes, which is lacking in a lot of other dashboard tools."
"It helps develop a more unified work format throughout the company."
"Changes to corporate structure, account codes are updated in all versions including prior years, hence "one-version of truth" as claimed."
"Show Me is a feature to help with knowing which chart is an appropriate one for the selected variables, and it makes helps in creating appropriate visuals."
"It gives us a new dimension to the way that we analyse our data."
"Tableau's most valuable features are user-friendliness and have a connection between multiple source systems. You can publish a report by using Tableau Public and there you can make your data online, not only batches of data, you can use it as an online analytical tool."
"The use of a storyboard helps the flow of the data visualisation."
"There are already connectors to almost every single major database and service that you can possibly think of."
"The solution allows for the possibility for end-users to do their own reporting."
"All features are valuable. It is very user-friendly, and it is mostly drag-and-drop. If we have the dataset available, then we can develop any dashboard very quickly."
"There is a lot of APIs available, which means that Tableau can be customized to a large extent."
 

Cons

"It's a Workday product; they could do a little bit better to integrate a pure-play integration with Workday, which really doesn't do that."
"Discovery (the data visualization module): Needs to catch up with BI leaders, such as MS and Tableau. E.g., sorting by amounts in column charts and page slicers to control all visuals."
"Better user interface (UI)."
"The product's configuration process could be faster."
"Users continue to become more advanced and are looking for more advanced solutions."
"We tried Discovery and OfficeConnect at one point and found them too cumbersome, at the time."
"The upload feature exists, but isn't terribly useful."
"Their customer support team is slow to respond and not extremely confident."
"It is not so great when it comes to data exchange/integration, data mining, etc."
"When I've done presentations in the past, I've had issues with uploading the cartography."
"SAP BusinessObjects has some semantic layer designs that give the flexibility to do ad hoc reporting or dashboard designing. If that can be brought into Tableau, it would be great. We have the data in the database, but we should also be able to bring something between the database and the dashboard and do some semantic layer modeling for ad hoc reporting requirements."
"The pricing is a bit expensive."
"It's not an aesthetic platform at the moment."
"Could have more integrations with different platforms."
"The solution could improve the scalability, it is difficult to make changes."
"There's no mature ETL tool in Tableau, which is quite a negative for them."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Adaptive Insights' pricing is reasonable."
"Adaptive Insights' pricing is relative to its peer competitors. It's certainly competitive compared to a spreadsheet template that you build in Excel. It can be expensive if you need to have 100-500 budget holders giving input and building financial plans. However, in that case, it becomes an extremely good bargain. Compared to its competitors, it offers an excellent value."
"Licensing seems to be worth the cost considering the efficiency Adaptive brings."
"Pricing is in line with other cloud-based EPM tools. It is a subscription-based model based upon the number of users and site type if it's an admin or end-user type thing."
"Everything is negotiable, but this solution is low cost compared to others."
"Prior to purchasing licenses, make sure you understand which users will only need planning and which users will need both planning and OfficeConnect."
"It's affordable."
"Ensure that you have the proper pricing plan in place."
"The price is definitely a point because smaller firms don't use Tableau as it's an expensive tool."
"For data extraction and analysis, Tableau is better than any other tool I have used with the same pricing model."
"Its price is higher than Power BI and QlikView. Tableau costs around $70 per user per month, whereas Power BI is around $8 to $9. QlikView is around $30. Tableau has various prices for various models such as Creator, Designer."
"The price of Tableau could improve. The license is too expensive."
"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 can be costly (but this can be indefinable, such as user experience vs. cheaper etc.)"
"It is reasonable and cheap as compared to other major tools. It has a good price, and people go for it because of its pricing."
"Tableau is free."
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Comparison Review

it_user6330 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 2, 2013
MicroStrategy vs. Tableau
After a recent presentation, several attendees asked me about the applications of Visual Insights and Tableau. Many companies are investing in both tools and are trying to figure out the right tool for specific applications Tableau has found its sweet-spot as an agile discovery tool that analysts…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Real Estate/Law Firm
10%
Legal Firm
6%
Educational Organization
38%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Adaptive Insights?
It's very simple to create a new version and do some more modeling based on your need for planning things like headcount, other expenses, and revenue, everything is configurable within Workday.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Adaptive Insights?
12 years ago, it was very affordable. Workday has definitely increased its price since it acquired Adaptive a few years ago. So, it's affordable. But there are other more affordable solutions that ...
What needs improvement with Adaptive Insights?
The integrations could be simpler. It takes quite a bit of internal and IT know-how to set up. So, there could be room for just improving the integrations, making it easier to integrate outside sys...
Seeking lightweight open source BI software
It depends on the Data architecture and the complexity of your requirement. Some great tools in the market are Qlik Sense, Power BI, OBIEE, Tableau, etc. I have recently started using Cognos Enter...
Tableau vs. Business Objects - Which is a better solution for visualization and analysis?
Both tools have their positives and negatives. First, I should mention that I am relatively new to Tableau. I have been working on and off Tableau for about a year, but getting to work on it consta...
Which would you choose - Tableau or SAP Analytics Cloud?
Tableau is easy to set up and maintain. In about a day it is possible for the entire platform to be deployed for use. This relatively short amount of time can make all the difference for companies ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Workday Adaptive Planning, Adaptive Discovery , Workday Adaptive Planning
Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

1. Cisco Systems 2. Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated 3. Deloitte 4. DocuSign 5. Dropbox 6. Electronic Arts 7. Fender Musical Instruments Corporation 8. Fitbit 9. Fossil Group 10. Groupon 11. Hilton Worldwide 12. HP Inc. 13. Intuit 14. Johnson & Johnson 15. LinkedIn 16. Lyft 17. McAfee 18. Medtronic 19. Netflix 20. Oracle 21. Pandora 22. PayPal 23. Pinterest 24. Red Hat 25. Salesforce 26. ServiceNow 27. Slack Technologies 28. Spotify 29. Symantec 30. Tableau Software 31. Twitter 32. Workday
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.
Find out what your peers are saying about Adaptive Insights vs. Tableau and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,874 professionals have used our research since 2012.