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SAS Visual Analytics vs Tableau Enterprise comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 9, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.3
Organizations saw varied ROI from SAS Visual Analytics, noting improved efficiency and financial tracking despite initial cost challenges.
Sentiment score
6.9
Tableau Enterprise provides rapid ROI through efficient report generation, cost savings, and streamlined operations with minimal integration challenges.
The enterprise subscription offers more benefits, ensuring valuable outcomes.
Senior Manager: ICT Compliance at DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATION
This saves a significant amount of time, particularly for reports that would have needed around fifty people.
Project Manager, Site at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech
The ROI of using Tableau extends to its seamless integration across various platforms, as it's from Salesforce and thus not limited to any specific cloud provider.
Senior Data Consultant at a government with 11-50 employees
Tableau is saving me time, money, and resources, which I would rate as ten.
Founder at Mindclick Consulting
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.8
SAS Visual Analytics customer service is mixed, with praise for technical support but noted gaps in business needs and regional availability.
Sentiment score
6.1
Tableau Enterprise support is praised for expertise and responsiveness, with premium options and community resources highly rated by users.
They provide callbacks to ensure clarity and resolution of any queries.
Senior Manager: ICT Compliance at DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATION
They provide quick email and phone responses and have Thai-speaking personnel.
Senior Data Consultant at a government with 11-50 employees
There should be consistent standards for all users.
Associate Technical Architect at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The technical support for Tableau is quite good.
Project Manager, Site at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
SAS Visual Analytics effectively scales for large datasets and users, though high resource demands and expenses may concern some.
Sentiment score
6.7
Tableau Enterprise offers strong scalability and improved performance with recent updates, despite potential cost and complexity challenges.
Tableau is easy to use across various dimensions, whether on-premises or on the cloud.
Senior Data Consultant at a government with 11-50 employees
The solution is fully scalable and performs well even with large datasets, provided there is proper supporting hardware.
Practice Head BI at Nous Infosystems
Tableau is easy to scale.
Content Specialist at PeerSpot
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
SAS Visual Analytics is generally reliable but can face performance issues with large data, often due to user practices.
Sentiment score
7.3
Tableau Enterprise is stable and reliable, with minor challenges tied to dataset size, server, or network factors.
SAS Visual Analytics is stable and manages data effectively without crashing.
Senior Manager: ICT Compliance at DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATION
The application hangs after continuous use due to the buildup of cache.
Content Specialist at PeerSpot
I rate the stability a five or six because Tableau updates very often with new versions or patches.
Senior Data Consultant at a government with 11-50 employees
 

Room For Improvement

SAS Visual Analytics is complex and costly, with challenges in integration, performance, user-friendliness, and external language support.
Tableau Enterprise struggles with performance, integration, and features, with users seeking better analytics, data management, and cost efficiency.
In terms of configuration, I would like to see AI capabilities since many applications are now integrating AI.
Senior Manager: ICT Compliance at DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATION
We cannot send the entire Excel file reports via email within Tableau.
Project Manager, Site at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech
The product owner should enhance its benefits or clarify its role.
Senior Data Consultant at a government with 11-50 employees
It sometimes requires extensive investigation to determine why the data does not appear correctly.
Group Finance Head Of Investment Bank Product Control at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

SAS Visual Analytics is costly for small enterprises, but offers strong analytics and simplicity, though consulting and scaling add expenses.
Tableau Enterprise is pricier but valued for functionality, offering flexible licensing and discounts for larger purchases.
Power BI as a much cheaper alternative.
Practice Head BI at Nous Infosystems
A license for 150 users costs around $17,000 USD per year.
Content Specialist at PeerSpot
Looker is known to be quite expensive.
Associate Technical Architect at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Valuable Features

SAS Visual Analytics excels in data visualization, advanced analytics, and user-friendly interface with rapid processing and seamless integration.
Tableau Enterprise simplifies data visualization and integration, enhancing decision-making and collaboration with secure, intuitive tools for organizations.
The ability to query information from our Excel data into SAS to view specific data is invaluable.
Senior Manager: ICT Compliance at DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATION
A significant feature for me is the real-time connection to data sources because it effectively manages large data sets.
Senior Data Consultant at a government with 11-50 employees
Tableau serves as a stable dashboarding tool for higher management, aiding in quick decision-making.
solution architect at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
Building hyper extracts and visualization capabilities make Tableau a robust tool for data analysis.
Practice Head BI at Nous Infosystems
 

Categories and Ranking

SAS Visual Analytics
Ranking in Data Visualization
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Tableau Enterprise
Ranking in Data Visualization
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
309
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (2nd), Reporting (2nd), Embedded BI (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Data Visualization category, the mindshare of SAS Visual Analytics is 2.1%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tableau Enterprise is 11.3%, down from 28.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Visualization Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Tableau Enterprise11.3%
SAS Visual Analytics2.1%
Other86.6%
Data Visualization
 

Q&A Highlights

KN
Research Data Specialist II at California Department of Public Health
Aug 07, 2020
 

Featured Reviews

AN
Senior Manager: ICT Compliance at DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATION
Enables effective data management and reporting with a straightforward setup
SAS Visual Analytics is helpful as it allows us to perform any queries we need. The ability to query information from our Excel data into SAS to view specific data is invaluable. In terms of reporting, it is easy to extract quick reports and provides graphical representations of the data, which is a great feature.
Uzair Faruqi - PeerSpot reviewer
Head Of Analytics at Mjunction Services
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.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Visualization solutions are best for your needs.
879,853 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user6330 - PeerSpot reviewer
Product Manager at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
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…
 

Answers from the Community

KN
Research Data Specialist II at California Department of Public Health
Aug 7, 2020
Aug 7, 2020
There are platforms available that enable bridge between technologies. Tableau/Qlik is great visualization from performance and user interface as compared to SAS - #askginie.ai
2 out of 4 answers
RL
Senior Manager at Indiabulls Financial Services Ltd
Apr 20, 2020
Tableau is a great tool for visual analytics but when it comes to statistical analysis, it has limited features. You can find basic descriptive statistics like mean, median, mode, SD, Skewness, Kurtosis, etc but for advanced statistical analysis, you can have machine learning models too along with advanced forecasting. If your work does not involve advanced statistical analysis then Tableau is a great tool for basic statistical analysis. In case you have further doubts, please feel free to ask.
reviewer1268517 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of BI at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Apr 20, 2020
These products all do more or less the same things but often in a very different way. The differences that I am able to report are mainly: -Look and feel and here Tableau is definitely superior. -Usability, both on the user and developer side and here the products are not very far apart, I would say Tableau a little better. -Managed data volumes and here SAS is unmatched (in Unicredit I have seen an installation that serves about 11000 users).
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise19
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business117
Midsize Enterprise67
Large Enterprise184
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about SAS Visual Analytics?
The most solution's notable aspect, in my view, is the ability to integrate various data sources and harness advanced technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. This helps w...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAS Visual Analytics?
It's about an average of five. It's easy to scale, but it comes with cost.
What needs improvement with SAS Visual Analytics?
In terms of configuration, I would like to see AI capabilities since many applications are now integrating AI. It may be that our current subscription does not include AI-enabled features, but I wo...
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

SAS BI
Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Staples, Ausgrid, Scotiabank, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Oklahoma Gas & Electric, Xcel Energy, and Triad Analytics Solutions.
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 SAS Visual Analytics vs. Tableau Enterprise and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,853 professionals have used our research since 2012.