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Tableau vs ThoughtSpot 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.1
Tableau improves decision-making and efficiency, offering quick adoption and high ROI, especially when replacing outdated systems.
Sentiment score
7.2
ThoughtSpot enhances value with time savings, ease of use, and reduced costs, but user adoption affects ROI.
This saves a significant amount of time, particularly for reports that would have needed around fifty people.
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.
Using ThoughtSpot has resulted in significant time savings and improved business sales by allowing us to identify sellers and buyers across regions, facilitating targeted marketing.
ThoughtSpot saves a significant amount of time compared to other tools and is very user-friendly.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
Tableau's customer and sales support is praised for responsiveness, with technical assistance valued but needing improvement in some areas.
Sentiment score
6.8
ThoughtSpot's customer support is praised for responsiveness but critiqued for depth, with mixed ratings on problem resolution.
They provide quick email and phone responses and have Thai-speaking personnel.
The technical support for Tableau is quite good.
I find Tableau's technical support to be good with elite support, but it struggles with usual, general support.
I stopped opening tickets due to insufficient and untimely responses.
ThoughtSpot provides a dedicated customer success person and the ability to submit tickets online, with a response time of no more than a day.
The knowledge base for ThoughtSpot is less robust compared to others.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.7
Tableau's scalability is influenced by server setup, workbook design, and is improved with new releases, despite pricing concerns.
Sentiment score
7.2
ThoughtSpot offers effective scalability and growth, but may require improvements in role management and advanced preparation tools.
Tableau is easy to use across various dimensions, whether on-premises or on the cloud.
The solution is fully scalable and performs well even with large datasets, provided there is proper supporting hardware.
Tableau is easy to scale.
Tableau, Power BI, or Looker have separate tools for preparation, customization, and storytelling.
The platform does not have technical problems with scaling data or connections.
As our data has grown, I have validated huge datasets and complex models without significant issues.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Tableau is generally stable, with improvements in newer versions, but issues may occur with heavy loads or poor infrastructure.
Sentiment score
7.1
ThoughtSpot is stable and fast for large datasets but faces occasional downtime, feature gaps, and integration challenges.
The application hangs after continuous use due to the buildup of cache.
I rate the stability a five or six because Tableau updates very often with new versions or patches.
I use it primarily for large datasets, and it performs faster than regular data visualization tools such as Power BI, which has limits on dataset size.
The upgrades are smooth with no downtime, which is super important.
The responsiveness of accessing live data is exceptional and faster than most other BI tools.
 

Room For Improvement

Tableau needs enhanced data integration, advanced analytics, cost-effective licensing, and improved enterprise features for user experience and performance.
ThoughtSpot lacks visualization flexibility, geospatial options, customization, integration tools, and better organization, lagging behind Power BI and Tableau.
We cannot send the entire Excel file reports via email within Tableau.
The product owner should enhance its benefits or clarify its role.
It sometimes requires extensive investigation to determine why the data does not appear correctly.
Currently, it is not as customizable as the options available on Power BI or Tableau.
Handling governance when there are many models and dashboards is complex.
Enhancing integration capabilities with other tools like DBT would also be beneficial as it would make our lives easier.
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers should consider Tableau's varied licensing, higher costs, and flexible options compared to alternatives like Power BI.
ThoughtSpot offers competitive, flexible pricing between Tableau and Power BI, with options suited to various organizational needs.
Power BI as a much cheaper alternative.
A license for 150 users costs around $17,000 USD per year.
The cost for viewer rights is around $60, but it can vary based on the business and is usually for a year.
HubSpot is expensive.
ThoughtSpot's pricing is reasonable and in line with other BI tools.
 

Valuable Features

Tableau offers a user-friendly interface, dynamic visualizations, and integrates diverse data sources for effective, real-time data analysis.
ThoughtSpot's search-based functionality enables intuitive data exploration, empowering non-technical users to create reports and improve business efficiency.
A significant feature for me is the real-time connection to data sources because it effectively manages large data sets.
Tableau serves as a stable dashboarding tool for higher management, aiding in quick decision-making.
Building hyper extracts and visualization capabilities make Tableau a robust tool for data analysis.
Its compatibility with most databases, including the latest from FlexMovely and Redshift, allows users to create joins and worksheets easily.
This alerting feature is very beneficial for our company at the moment, and we use it extensively.
When I upload a data dump, AI analytics suggest possible data visualizations and insights, which I can pin to dashboards or live boards for modification.
 

Categories and Ranking

Tableau
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
2nd
Ranking in Data Visualization
1st
Ranking in Embedded BI
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
303
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (2nd)
ThoughtSpot
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
18th
Ranking in Data Visualization
14th
Ranking in Embedded BI
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Tableau is 17.1%, down from 19.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ThoughtSpot is 1.4%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Sushma Polavarapu - PeerSpot reviewer
Creates user-friendly analysis environments for large datasets
The tool is user-friendly for the end users. It is primarily a search-based tool. Users do not need a technical background to work directly on the dataset. Its compatibility with most databases, including the latest from FlexMovely and Redshift, allows users to create joins and worksheets easily. ThoughtSpot is fast, even with one to ten terabytes of data.
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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
Educational Organization
43%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ThoughtSpot?
The pricing is on the higher end but reasonable for what ThoughtSpot offers.
What needs improvement with ThoughtSpot?
There are a few areas where ThoughtSpot could improve. A crucial feature we needed is missing, which involves restricting views of certain KPIs when users select conflicting parameters. We had to c...
What is your primary use case for ThoughtSpot?
Currently, our company is using ThoughtSpot ( /products/thoughtspot-reviews ) for marketing reporting. We build reports based on the tables in the cloud, utilizing the outlet views for ThoughtSpot ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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.
Primary Capital Mortgage, Sterling Backcheck, RichRelevance, Rambus, Batteries Plus Bulbs
Find out what your peers are saying about Tableau vs. ThoughtSpot and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.