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21,598 views|18,152 comparisons
Tableau Logo
18,795 views|15,865 comparisons
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Jul 30, 2023

We compared Microsoft BI and Tableau based on our users reviews in six parameters. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:

  • Ease of Deployment

    Users generally find the initial setup for Microsoft BI to be simple and effortless, requiring minimal time and effort. In comparison, Tableau's setup process can range from uncomplicated to more intricate, depending on specific circumstances and requirements.

  • Features

    Microsoft BI is highly regarded for its impressive capabilities and adaptability, as well as its capacity to retrieve data from diverse origins and create personalized visuals. On the other hand, Tableau is commended for its ease of use, intuitive design, and proficiency in managing substantial volumes of data.

  • Room for Improvement

    Both Microsoft BI and Tableau have areas where they can improve. Microsoft BI could enhance its user-friendliness, support, graphical and analytical features, cost, performance, integration, metadata management, visualization capabilities, stability, security, compatibility, data management process, support for product management and customer services, and documentation. On the other hand, Tableau could focus on improving its compatibility, performance, memory data concept, architecture, charting and calculations, modeling techniques, visualization options, integration, customization process, report creation, forecast instrument, GIS features, support for business insights and trend analysis, interface, licensing options, automation, write-back capabilities, drill-down functionality, security measures, workflow, and data modules.

  • Pricing

    Microsoft BI has a potentially high setup cost, particularly for enterprise-level usage. While some users find the pricing reasonable for desktop use, it becomes costly for larger-scale implementations. In contrast, Tableau's pricing is diverse, with opinions ranging from expensive to cheap. Some users perceive Tableau as expensive, especially for smaller firms, while other tools like Power BI are seen as more affordable. Generally, there is a consensus that Tableau's pricing could be enhanced to maintain competitiveness.

  • ROI

    Microsoft BI has been highly praised for its return on investment, with users giving it a perfect rating. It is projected to generate substantial revenue growth and achieve breakeven in a relatively short period of 2-3 years. In contrast, Tableau's specific ROI is uncertain, but it is presumed to be impressive based on existing data. Customers have observed a return on investment within a quicker timeframe of 5-6 months.

  • Service and Support

    The opinions on customer service for Microsoft BI are divided, with some users finding it satisfactory while others believe it needs improvement. On the other hand, Tableau's customer service has had a range of experiences, with some customers having positive ratings and others encountering limitations and difficulties in contacting the right people.

Comparison Results

Microsoft BI is praised for its ease of setup and powerful features, but users find it difficult to learn and use, with weaker graphical and analytical features compared to Tableau. The cost is considered high, and users desire better support, a more user-friendly interface, and improved performance. On the other hand, Tableau's setup can range from simple to complex, but it is highly valued for its user-friendliness and customization options. However, Tableau lacks compatibility with certain tools, has performance issues with large data, and needs improvement in visualization options and integration capabilities. Pricing is also a mixed opinion, with some finding it expensive. Customer support for both products has mixed reviews.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft BI vs. Tableau Report (Updated: September 2023).
735,226 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Q&A Highlights
Question: Business users moving from Tableau to MS Report builder
Answer: Rich- What is it that current leadership perceives as lacking in the current reporting tool set? Why change if the only benefit is features or a products capabilities? Can the products features and capabilities be exploited? By who and when? How does that make money for the company? Increased profit? Cost reduction? Increased resource utilization? Fewer days for order to cash? Reduced collections? Better on time shipping? Faster production? Increased gross margin? Reduced inventory? You get the picture. It's the people that make the difference. Not the tool! What is it that we need to know to grow our business constantly and continuously? Every tool mentioned can do really great "stuff". But what "stuff" does your company need? I wish you the best.
Featured Review
Anonymous User
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"It gives us, the ability to do a lot of analysis quickly, similar to ad hoc analysis.""What I like about Power BI is how fast you are able to create dashboards and how fast you are able to fetch the data. You can connect to the database or data source, and then you can design your dashboards very easily.""I like having the ability to connect Excel files as data inputs.""It is more user-friendly compared to SSRS.""We find the solution offers good stability.""Microsoft B's beneficial features are that it is a Microsoft product and it is well known by the staff here in the company. It suited the available skills.""It's the analytic engine in terms of the interface on the Power BI environment, as opposed to pivot tables, and it's a mobile solution.""Management reporting solution that's very stable and scalable."

More Microsoft BI Pros →

"Its performance is pretty good, and the development time is very low.""I consider Tableau to be the best analytical tool available. It's really handy to use and can be used by non-technical people.""Tableau is easy to use.""Data handling, visualizations, and aesthetics of it are the most valuable features.""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.""Tableau's support could improve.""From my perspective, it enables clients to better understand our data and make better decisions based on that information.""Business insights are shared across various departments."

More Tableau Pros →

Cons
"We haven't used it that long and I haven't come across anything that's stood out as needing to be fixed.""We found out that you can't share a report with others unless you have an additional package. That caught us off guard. It came as a program that somebody could go in, build a report, and show it, but you can't share it without having additional licenses.""I believe the price should be degressive, and we should have a lower, or better unit price if we have more users.""These licenses are in US dollars. With a long-term license, the client is unaffected when the exchange rate goes up. However, if the exchange rate goes down, you don't get refunded from the excess money you've paid. I guess that is a risk you take in business.""We would like it if they added more Python libraries in the Power BI service. For Power BI service right now, you can use Python, but it is limited to a few libraries or a few packages from Python.""Right now, their premium pricing is keeping us out of the premium market. The premium price per user just doesn't make sense for us, but we haven't reached the limit of 500 users to justify the premium.""The integration in Microsoft BI could improve for other solutions, such as Oracle DB and PostgresSQL. Additionally, the reporting from the databases to Microsoft BI should be in real-time and the overall performance could be better.""I believe there is room for improvement in terms of authentication and certain functionalities in Power BI. For instance, adjusting the width of columns is not easily done, as there is only an option to enable or disable automatic adjustment. This can be a significant drawback for clients who desire more flexibility."

More Microsoft BI Cons →

"If you mainly need a tool for BI reporting, it's not the best option. Tableau needs better abilities to generate simple reports, integrate, create databases, and work with data lakes.""The product needs to allow for better ways to drill down more effectively on the information at hand.""It would be nice to include more features on each dashboard.""When you're working on a dashboard, you can't select multiple components at a time and align them, so you have to go one by one. This is very cumbersome.""I would like Tableau Prep to be integrated with Tableau Desktop. I would also like more customizations for tables.""I take a long time to process the hundreds of thousands or millions of records that must be processed every day.""They need a write-back; that is what is missing. If they get the write back to the database, they will be fully automated, but for the time being, they are not.""In the cloud sometimes the performance is a little bit slow."

More Tableau Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The solution is affordable."
  • "There are a few options available for purchasing a license. Typically the number of users you have will determine the price of the license. The more users you have the more you will pay."
  • "Power BI's price is reasonable, especially if you can put it in some bigger package and use it with other products. The value of a solution doesn't just come from its features as a standalone product. The price should also reflect how easy it's to set up, clean data, and integrate with other solutions."
  • "The premium capacity is very costly in respect of the market in Egypt, amounting to $5,000 monthly."
  • "Compared to others, I think it is reasonable."
  • "If it has to be applied on the cloud, then it costs around $10 per month per user. For a pro license and for a premium license it's around $20 per month per user. If it has to be applied on-premises then, depending on the course of your server, you have to buy a software assurance version of the database."
  • "Its price is very low. It is like $10 per user, per month. The clients pay for their own licenses. It is not on us. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees. That's the beauty. With other systems, you need to spend a couple of thousand dollars just to get started, and then you need to spend $500 per year for the license, which becomes much more costly. You have a system here where for $120 to $140 a year, you can start with two people and start developing and deploying. You can see why the cost difference is huge, especially when you are on a low scale, like us, and you're not building something very huge."
  • "You don't need a license for development, but if you want to publish to external users, you need a license. The licensing is very costly, but I think that since the advantages and benefits of Power BI are so high, people are willing to pay. I can't blame them."
  • More Microsoft BI Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "I downloaded the solution online for free."
  • "Tableau's prices are relatively high for our market. I am from Serbia, so many companies in this market don't have the ability to pay for expensive software. My clients are quite satisfied with a lot of Tableau's qualities except for the prices."
  • "In Indian Rupees, Tableau costs about 30,000 to 40,000 per year."
  • "The price is definitely a point because smaller firms don't use Tableau as it's an expensive tool."
  • "The license is very expensive."
  • "It is more expensive than other solutions."
  • "For data extraction and analysis, Tableau is better than any other tool I have used with the same pricing model."
  • "Basically, we prefer a permanent license. A one-time charge is much better."
  • More Tableau Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Comparison Review
    Guillermo (Bill) Cabiro
    I do use both Tableau and QlikView. Although very different, I really like both solutions. They belong to the new BI generation known as Interactive Visual Analytics. In my opinion, QlikView has a more intuitive interface for regular users or executives that are not technical experts but the development side is a little more complex. Up to version 12 QlikView did not provide drag & drop features. If a user wanted to see something not included in the application the new object had to be created by a power user or developer because Qlikview's scripting has somewhat of a learning curve. On the positive side, QlikView's scripting is a great asset as it functions as an ETL allowing the integration of hundreds of different data sources into the same visual app. Another feature that’s extremely useful is Qlik’s proprietary Associative Model that allows the users to visualize data relationships that exist as well as those that do not. Tableau on the other hand is a lot easier to use for developers, analysts or power users who need to connect, manipulate and visualize data rather quickly. While this makes Tableau a better fit for the more analytical crowd, it may not be as appealing or intuitive to the regular or casual business users as QlikView is. Tableau has full pivot, drag & drop and drill down capabilities that are great for developers or power users. They can rotate measures and dimensions and graph them instantly using visualization best practices as suggested by… Read more →
    Answers from the Community
    Anonymous User
    it_user89082 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user89082 (Manager of Data Analytics with 1,001-5,000 employees)
    Vendor

    Sorry to hear you have to move to Report Builder. Tableau is superior by a long shot! Find another gig. Don't go backwards. Move forward with Tableau !

    it_user5394 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user5394 (Consultant with 51-200 employees)
    Vendor

    Tableau is more suitable for somebody that is not developer and it's very easy to use and to create great visual presentation. For developers Report Builder would be more domestic.

    it_user82776 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user82776 (Chief Executive Officer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees)
    Consultant

    It is really the outcome and target goals that are achieved with the right set of BI solutions,people using it to add more efficiency and productivity at all fronts is the kind of result you want to see. Tools include human and technology bonded together to produce results, After all it is the function of both parties to work together, collaborate and share resources together. In the human perspective we look at the training and how best we can create solutions . With the BI solution it is the way we distinguish between the existing solutions that will to the best of its capability serve our business interests and requirements.

    it_user79746 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user79746 (Consultant at a energy/utilities company)
    Vendor

    Current business leadership include the VP of Finance, so determining a business case was and is a problem for him and those directly under him.  So is a no my problem.
     
    Thanks,
    Rich

    it_user77358 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user77358 (Director of IT at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees)
    Vendor

    Rich- What is it that current leadership perceives as lacking in the current reporting tool set?
    Why change if the only benefit is features or a products capabilities?
    Can the products features and capabilities be exploited?
    By who and when?
    How does that make money for the company?
    Increased profit?
    Cost reduction?
    Increased resource utilization?
    Fewer days for order to cash?
    Reduced collections?
    Better on time shipping?
    Faster production?
    Increased gross margin?
    Reduced inventory?

    You get the picture. It's the people that make the difference. Not the tool!
    What is it that we need to know to grow our business constantly and continuously?

    Every tool mentioned can do really great "stuff".
    But what "stuff" does your company need?

    To answer the initial question: Every change is difficult without buy-in from the stakeholders.
    People love change. What they don't like is change without benefit. Perceived or real.
    I hope this helps you a little to better meet the challenges you're facing.

    I wish you the best.

    it_user83559 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user83559 (Database Expert at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees)
    Real User

    Reading through the responses from all you knowledgeable persons out there is so very enlightening. It's like sitting in a room and getting your experiences on these tools first hand. Thanks a lot for your inputs, which will help in putting pros and cons for the company to make a trade off and choose over the two.

    it_user77358 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user77358 (Director of IT at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees)
    Vendor

    Rich- What is it that current leadership perceives as lacking in the current reporting tool set?
    Why change if the only benefit is features or a products capabilities?
    Can the products features and capabilities be exploited?
    By who and when?
    How does that make money for the company?
    Increased profit?
    Cost reduction?
    Increased resource utilization?
    Fewer days for order to cash?
    Reduced collections?
    Better on time shipping?
    Faster production?
    Increased gross margin?
    Reduced inventory?

    You get the picture. It's the people that make the difference. Not the tool!
    What is it that we need to know to grow our business constantly and continuously?

    Every tool mentioned can do really great "stuff".
    But what "stuff" does your company need?

    To answer the initial question: Every change is difficult without buy-in from the stakeholders.
    People love change. What they don't like is change without benefit. Perceived or real.
    I hope this helps you a little to better meet the challenges you're facing.

    I wish you the best.

    it_user79746 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user79746 (Consultant at a energy/utilities company)
    Vendor

    I wouldn't feel too sorry, it is a very good group to work with.  After a lot of years working in IT both in the US and Europe one of the things I find interesting is that Americans in business, especially with regard to software,  feel they must have the latest, greatest and most feature rich everything when very often being a little behind the bleeding edge gets the job done and costs less.  The real issue is to look at the problem being solved and find good enough while keeping an eye on where you are going. 

    Having said that took a brief look at the link you indicated and I like the fact that it runs on Linux.  Thumbs up on that aspect.

     
    Thanks,
    Rich

    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I would recommend as follows:  1) If you have legacies of SAP, Oracle  - look for SAP… more »
    Top Answer:Power BI is an advanced visualization tool oriented to big data with a very complete set of widgets to visualize information, control users accessing information, the configuration of governance… more »
    Top Answer:Oracle OBIEE is great in allowing design and creativity per the individual needs of the organization. Dashboards are fully customizable and very user-friendly. This solution is very stable. Oracle… more »
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Ranking
    1st
    out of 50 in Reporting
    Views
    21,598
    Comparisons
    18,152
    Reviews
    104
    Average Words per Review
    517
    Rating
    8.0
    2nd
    out of 50 in Reporting
    Views
    18,795
    Comparisons
    15,865
    Reviews
    60
    Average Words per Review
    552
    Rating
    8.2
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Power BI, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI
    Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online
    Learn More
    Overview

    Microsoft BI is a business intelligence solution that connects to all your data sources and turns your data into insightful and useful business information that is relevant to all levels of the business, ensuring data accuracy, consistency, and security.

    Microsoft BI combines familiar Microsoft tools - Office, SharePoint, and SQL server - with extra features for end-users, such as Power View and Power Pivot. This powerful product gives businesses a competitive advantage by allowing end users to better analyze their data, collaborate, and better present their data.

    The BI platform empowers members of your organization to make data-driven decisions that drive strategic actions quickly by allowing them to work together easily on the same data, share insights, and collaborate on reports using other Microsoft Office applications.

    Microsoft BI Benefits

    Some of the benefits of using Microsoft BI include: 

    • Scalability: Easily scale the Microsoft BI platform to help reduce costs and minimize the security risks and complexities that arise as a result of maintaining multiple systems.
    • Secure analytics: Protect your data with sophisticated data security features, including sensitivity labeling, end-to-end encryption, and real-time access monitoring. View and share meaningful AI-based insights enriched by data visualizations.
    • Regular user-driven innovative updates: Get weekly and monthly updates that improve the capabilities of Power BI based on thousands of ideas submitted each year from a community of over 500,000 members worldwide.
    • Seamless integration with Microsoft products: Microsoft BI connects with Microsoft 365, allowing you to create Excel queries, data models, and reports for the Power BI dashboards. These integrations make it easy to collect, analyze, publish, and share Excel business data.
    • Access Microsoft BI from any location: BI can be accessed at any time from anywhere using its mobile app, allowing ease of access to distributed teams or businesses across many locations. The business intelligence platform also enables teams to work on any file at the same time.
    • User-friendly dashboard: View and manage your data in a user-friendly and intuitive customized dashboard. The Microsoft BI platform enables teams to work independently while exchanging analytics between different departments and users. With Microsoft BI, you can easily create personalized dashboards that combine on-premises and cloud data into a single view, allowing you to monitor enterprise data from multiple business applications.
    • Easy installation: Install the platform in minutes just by creating an API key and inputting it into the software.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Microsoft BI stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its integration options and its data analytics capabilities.

    Tariq R., an operations & BI analyst at American Hospital Dubai, writes, “Power BI is a complete ecosystem. It has an integrated ETL tool and good connectivity with applications such as Office 365 and SQL. Power BI supports the DAX and Power Query M languages. These languages are making Power BI very strong in data analytics, and you can do many types of analysis. ”

    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. 

    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 Features

    Tableau has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Tableau dashboard: Tableau dashboards provide a complete view of your data through visualizations, visual objects, text, and more. 
    • Sharing and collaboration: Tableau provides convenient, real-time options to collaborate with other users and instantly share data in the form of visualizations, sheets, and dashboards. 
    • In-memory and live data: 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. 
    • Multiple data sources: 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. 
    • Advanced charts and visualizations: One of the key features of Tableau is its wide range of visualizations.
    • Maps: Tableau has a lot of pre-installed information on maps, such as cities, postal codes, and administrative boundaries. 
    • Robust security: 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 Benefits

    There are many benefits to implementing Tableau. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

    • Data visualization
    • Create interactive visualizations quickly
    • Easy to implement
    • Ability to handle large amounts of data
    • Use varying scripting languages 
    • Responsive dashboard and mobile support 

    Reviews from Real Users

    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.

    Offer
    Learn more about Microsoft BI
    Learn more about Tableau
    Sample Customers
    Konica Minolta, Klout, Mahindra Satyam, The Weather Channel, Argus, Credit Suisse, NCR, and Sysmex.
    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.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm14%
    Manufacturing Company13%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Energy/Utilities Company10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization34%
    Computer Software Company8%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Government6%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Healthcare Company7%
    University7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization33%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Manufacturing Company5%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business39%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise45%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business14%
    Midsize Enterprise40%
    Large Enterprise46%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business31%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise51%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business13%
    Midsize Enterprise38%
    Large Enterprise48%
    Buyer's Guide
    Microsoft BI vs. Tableau
    September 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft BI vs. Tableau and other solutions. Updated: September 2023.
    735,226 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Microsoft BI is ranked 1st in Reporting with 101 reviews while Tableau is ranked 2nd in Reporting with 55 reviews. Microsoft BI is rated 8.0, while Tableau is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Microsoft BI writes "User friendly, easy to set up and great for analyzing data". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Tableau writes "Provides fast data access with in-memory extracts, makes it easy to create visualizations, and saves time". Microsoft BI is most compared with Amazon QuickSight, KNIME, Domo, Oracle OBIEE and MicroStrategy, whereas Tableau is most compared with Amazon QuickSight, Domo, SAS Visual Analytics, SAP Analytics Cloud and Qlik Sense. See our Microsoft BI vs. Tableau report.

    See our list of best Reporting vendors and best BI (Business Intelligence) Tools vendors.

    We monitor all Reporting reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.