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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
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Business Performance Management (7th), Financial Performance and Strategy Management (3rd), ESG Reporting Software (2nd)
Tableau
Ranking in Reporting
2nd
Ranking in Data Visualization
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
306
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (2nd), Embedded BI (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Adaptive Insights is 0.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tableau is 21.6%, down from 23.7% 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

"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."
"It's very stable."
"It helps develop a more unified work format throughout the company."
"The integration with our payroll system to complete staff modeling during our budget and forecast processes."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its dashboard."
"Reports are allowed to be edited for aesthetic purposes, which is lacking in a lot of other dashboard tools."
"We utilize planning on a daily basis, therefore we find it to be the most valuable product for our organization."
"Forecasting changes that instantly flow through all financial statements."
"It's very easy to set everything up."
"Although Tableau isn't the best for us when it comes to processing and working on live data, it is very good at extracting data for analysis."
"The initial setup is quick and easy and you don't need special outside assistance to set everything up."
"It is very easy to create dashboards, charts, and graphs."
"Since Tableau is on the cloud, we haven't faced any challenges around scalability."
"It's very user-friendly. It's not like Power BI, Tableau is very user-friendly. Anybody can use Tableau. It's very easy to adopt things. I can visualize the stats."
"The most valuable feature is the interface, which is user-friendly and intuitive."
"The most valuable features are the visualizations, the way they show the combination charts."
 

Cons

"Better user interface (UI)."
"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."
"Adaptive Insights has a limit of 1,00,000 rows for HTML reports. It should be improved because we will have multiple dimensions that need to be populated to enhance the image."
"Their customer support team is slow to respond and not extremely confident."
"The upload feature exists, but isn't terribly useful."
"We tried Discovery and OfficeConnect at one point and found them too cumbersome, at the time."
"The product's configuration process could be faster."
"Users continue to become more advanced and are looking for more advanced solutions."
"There's no mature ETL tool in Tableau, which is quite a negative for them."
"Licensing and pricing options could be made better so that more users would be able to use it."
"There have been issues where suddenly the site will not respond, requiring a restart."
"It's already using 32 gigabytes of memory, but the performance is not so good. It's very heavy."
"When it comes to large datasets, the data should be extracted faster."
"I would like Tableau to handle geospatial data better in terms of multiple layers and shapefiles."
"A strict security measure is needed. I believe it is weak in terms of security."
"The visualizations should be user-friendly and allow for more custom visualizations."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Everything is negotiable, but this solution is low cost compared to others."
"Licensing seems to be worth the cost considering the efficiency Adaptive brings."
"Adaptive Insights' pricing is reasonable."
"It's affordable."
"Ensure that you have the proper pricing plan in place."
"Prior to purchasing licenses, make sure you understand which users will only need planning and which users will need both planning and OfficeConnect."
"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."
"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."
"There is a license for this solution and we pay on an annual basis."
"The company chose to purchase a creator license for me, which was $70. With that license, you can also be an administrator. We also have 20-25 extra licenses and they cost around $20-$35 each. Those are for normal users who will be viewing the dashboards. Those are monthly charges."
"One of the biggest drawbacks of Tableau is the price, it is expensive. The price should be reduced."
"The value for money is definitely there."
"It is more expensive than other solutions."
"The price of Tableau is high, although there are different types of licenses available."
"The licensing model of Tableau has changed since we initially purchased it three years ago and it is more complicated, and I have found it to be more expensive. They have lost market shares to Microsoft BI. My company will probably change solutions this year because of the increased pricing model."
"It is expensive when you compare it with Power BI. It should be cheaper."
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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%
Real Estate/Law Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Non Profit
6%
Educational Organization
29%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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 ...
 

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.
859,687 professionals have used our research since 2012.