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Metabase 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

Metabase
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
26th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Tableau
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
306
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (2nd), Data Visualization (1st), Embedded BI (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Metabase is 1.1%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tableau is 16.4%, down from 19.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Ibrahim Izz El-Deen - PeerSpot reviewer
Modern analytics tool enhances user interactions with neat visualizations for improved decision-making
One area for improvement could be in offering more advanced features even in the open-source edition or making the paid versions more cost-effective. Data scalability, especially if the data grows, requires manual infrastructure management, which could be improved. Increased customization and visualization options in the open-source edition would be beneficial. Additionally, it might be helpful if more complex queries and stored procedures were supported.
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

"I rate the solution’s stability a nine out of ten."
"Metabase's key advantage is its modern approach to business intelligence."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its interface, which is used to query data into Metabase. I think it is very useful and handy for a novice."
"It is easy for a new user to learn the tool."
"Partner support is very good."
"This solution has improved insights into quantitative data."
"The solution makes for very productive and really informative decision making. It can lead the whole business and build a strategy across whole working departments."
"The maps and colors and interface are all fantastic."
"Tableau's ability to manage extensive data, even in an extract format, is noteworthy, as Power BI struggles with that."
"The solution is being delivered to our customer, who appreciates the insights generated from the reports. It is easy for them to drill into the details and use interactive charts."
"The most valuable feature is the drag and drop, then the simplicity to build dashboards which allows us to provide more usable data to our customers."
"While using this solution I have found the valuable features to be ease of use and the visualization. It is a complete solution."
 

Cons

"One area for improvement could be in offering more advanced features even in the open-source edition or making the paid versions more cost-effective."
"I think there is a need to add a few more advanced visuals in the tool. There are a standard set of visuals in the tool which are available."
"The tool must be made more user-friendly."
"The solution could provide more customization."
"To be the best in the market, Tableau has to improve its user interface and also look into developing implementing the best machine learning algorithms."
"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."
"Tableau's data blending feature could use some improvement. Previously, I used other tools, such as Alteryx, for data blending because Tableau had limitations."
"Reports should be downloadable as PDF files."
"Its price is a concern. It is more expensive than Power BI. The other thing that I never liked about Tableau is its ability to handle large sets of data. To present the data in the dashboards, we have to stage it up exactly like it is going to come into the dashboard. We use another tool called Alteryx that does that for us. So, we manipulate the data, get it staged, and then push it into Tableau. Tableau is terrible at handling large data sets, and we knew right away that we couldn't use Tableau to do data manipulation."
"Could have more integrations with different platforms."
"If you wanted to create something without making it an extra column in the data set, you can't just rename it to a more user-friendly short name."
"I would like them to include the Italian language, as I can see there are other foreign language in the product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would not say it is a cheap tool, but it's viable."
"Using the open-source edition of Metabase on AWS EC2 cost us around $29 per month for the EC2 instance, which was affordable."
"The product is open-sourced."
"The price of this solution could definitely be lower. It's quite expensive."
"I like the payment model. For the people who need to create, they buy their licenses. Everyone else can use the free Tableau Viewer. This is much better than some of the competitor products, which require full licences for everything."
"This license is on a yearly basis."
"It's an annual fee with everything included but it's quite expensive."
"Tableau has reasonable pricing."
"Paying for users you never setup or buying expensive desktop licenses for users who can solve their users with web editing on the server are the two biggest expenses."
"It is fairly expensive. I have no idea what they paid. We were on an enterprise license, so whatever it is they licensed at the enterprise level is what we paid."
"Tableau can be costly (but this can be indefinable, such as user experience vs. cheaper etc.)"
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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
23%
Comms Service Provider
16%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
37%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Metabase?
Using the open-source edition of Metabase on AWS EC2 cost us around $29 per month for the EC2 instance, which was affordable.
What needs improvement with Metabase?
One area for improvement could be in offering more advanced features even in the open-source edition or making the paid versions more cost-effective. Data scalability, especially if the data grows,...
What is your primary use case for Metabase?
I used Metabase for business intelligence and analytics in my organization. We connected Metabase to AWS Athena, allowing us to query and visualize data stored in S3 buckets.
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

No data available
Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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 Metabase vs. Tableau and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
857,162 professionals have used our research since 2012.