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QBO vs Tableau Enterprise comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 4, 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

QBO
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
62nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Tableau Enterprise
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
307
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (2nd), Data Visualization (1st), Embedded BI (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of QBO is 0.1%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tableau Enterprise is 15.4%, down from 19.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Mimi Evans - PeerSpot reviewer
Offer great partnership models and relatively simple to use
My only issue with QuickBooks Online is their inventory capabilities. My understanding is that they're rolling out improvements in 2023, but anytime a person asks me about using QuickBooks Online and inventory, then I always recommend the desktop version because otherwise the functionality isn't great. They're trying to become the all-in source that we use for everything. However, the product lakcs a client portal, a feature that would make a huge difference. I'm an accountant and if I can't use it well, I can't train my customers to use it well. There are so many professional service companies that would love to be able to offer a client portal of some sort but they're so industry-specific or they're outrageously expensive because they're meant for enterprise level. I don't like the UI or the functionality of their cash flow planner. I would rather pay for another software than use theirs.
Uzair Faruqi - PeerSpot reviewer
Ease of developing dashboards and receiving strong technical support have enabled efficient data visualization
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. As a developer, I can develop an on-demand report in Python quite easily, but exposing a REST API on the Tableau platform is not a very easy task. AI enablement is an area for improvement for Tableau, and that is something they might have to work upon. I have heard that ThoughtSpot is quite better in this regard, but the cost of ThoughtSpot is much higher. ThoughtSpot has lots of natural language-based report generation features that Tableau lacks.

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 features of QBO are its order processing and sales capabilities, as well as its invoice and batch processing capabilities. It allows for multiple batch processing and integration with other platforms, such as SAP V1, Oracle, and Dynamics BC. This makes the solution versatile and effective for customers, and they are satisfied with its integration with different platforms. The integration of this solution is not fixed, it can be based on the user's requirements."
"QBO has a very good reconciliation tool."
"The most valuable feature of QBO is that it can be reconnected at any time and anywhere. It is not like other software where you have to back up and restore the data."
"The scheduling feature for salaries and taxes is one of the best features of QBO. It's also very user-friendly."
"It's intuitive, electronic, and, as in the old days, eliminates the need for pen and paper. It is the only option. It's the best software."
"The most valuable feature is the collaboration around allowing many people to ask questions and see the dashboards together."
"It gives us a new dimension to the way that we analyse our data."
"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."
"Tableau's performance is really good, and it is adding new features."
"It is very easy to implement and to use."
"It has been the best tool to work with from a self-service point of view."
"Tableau is easy to use. That's the first and most important thing. I not only provide consulting but I also train people to use it, so with its ease-of-use it's not as difficult for me to train executives and management staff, because they don't have the IT background, unlike when I'm using Python."
"Scheduled extract and the multiple connectors are fantastic!"
"One of the most valuable features of Tableau is that it's a visual analytics solution, not just a dashboarding solution. Compared to Power BI, which is a dashboarding solution, there are no limitations with Tableau. For example, when you add a chart or a map to Power BI, it has a 3,000-point limitation. When you try to track your whole vehicle on the map, you only see the first 3,000 rows on the map, and Power BI doesn't tell you which part of the data is shown on the map. But Tableau doesn't have any limitations, which means that you can see five million data points on a map. It starts the project by creating the visuals that directly converts to SQLs. In that way, all the components have no limitations. When we compared Tableau to Power BI, we also found Tableau to be more fancy. Fancy means you can create more visual graphics and more visual dashboards. With Power BI, this isn't so—it's just some tables and some simple charts together. Tableau is more for business users who want to analyze data. Tableau can directly connect the analytics systems, like R or Titan, and get the results in screen, so it's a good solution for analytics scientists. It has some predefined capabilities to understand the data."
 

Cons

"Compared to offline accounting software with many shortcuts and allows you to operate the software using the keyboard, QBO doesn't have the keyboard feature."
"The internet version is less user-friendly than the desktop version. The desktop version is their flagship, whereas the online version is considerably different, requiring all new learning and having several glitches."
"Inventory capabilities are lacking in the cloud version."
"The dashboards can be improved by making them customizable in a more granular manner."
"The Linux Operating System feature is not available. When we access it from the accounting features, it does not transit to installation."
"QBO could be improved by adding more flexibility in its invoice and sales order processing capabilities. Customers have requested the ability to integrate with different retail services and the ability to easily integrate with different payment gateways, such as PayPal, by providing API and credentials, with the system automatically processing the integration."
"What is happening, with so many tools coming up in the market, is that people have to continuously get educated in order to use some of the more advanced features."
"It's not an aesthetic platform at the moment."
"I would like them to include the Italian language, as I can see there are other foreign language in the product."
"The only issue with the solution is with its prices at a regional level."
"Tableau has so many functions, so sometimes it's hard to find the right solution quickly. I have to search multiple menu bars to find the right command."
"When it comes to large datasets, the data should be extracted faster."
"It would be nice if we could export more raw data. Currently, there is a limit as to how much data you can export."
"The interface needs improvement as sometimes it is locked, and it takes some time for the visualization and dashboards to load."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I give the pricing a nine out of ten."
"The solution is expensive."
"In my opinion, QBO is a bit on the pricey side, but you have no choice. It is still better, in the long run, to go with their pricing or their software than the alternatives."
"Its price is a concern. It is more expensive than Power BI. My guess would be that it is $1000 or less per year. We might go for Power BI in the future because of its umbrella with Microsoft licensing. It is much cheaper for us to use Power BI, and some folks will go in that direction because they don't want to pay the higher license."
"It is reasonable based on what it offers."
"This solution is a bit expensive. The pricing options have become more difficult over the years. I think they are bordering on pricing themselves out of the market. They need different pricing options for various-sized businesses. Where my organization is a large organization, we are happy to pay a higher price because we can leverage the products very extensively. For smaller enterprises, different pricing options would be good."
"I'm using Tableau Public, which is free."
"The pricing for Tableau is the same as the other products in the market."
"It is more expensive than other solutions."
"The price is definitely a point because smaller firms don't use Tableau as it's an expensive tool."
"Its licensing cost should be improved."
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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
No data available
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SATS, Celcom, EastWest, DBS, Metrobank, XL-Axiata, Etisalat, UnionBank of the Philippines
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 QBO vs. Tableau Enterprise and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.