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Tableau Enterprise vs XLCubed 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

Tableau Enterprise
Ranking in Reporting
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
307
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (2nd), Data Visualization (1st), Embedded BI (1st)
XLCubed
Ranking in Reporting
35th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Tableau Enterprise is 20.6%, down from 24.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of XLCubed is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Reporting Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Tableau Enterprise20.6%
XLCubed0.4%
Other79.0%
Reporting
 

Featured Reviews

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.
it_user1391316 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cost effective with great capability, performance, flexibility and visuals
In general, we're happy with the solution but we're always looking to see what else is out there. The thing we've struggled with is our partnership with Tagetik UK, the consultants, and the issue we had gaining access to consultants to develop the solution on our behalf. Thankfully we connected directly with XLCubed and now have a pretty close and good relationship with them so the earlier problem we had of actually getting resources to help us develop has now been solved. One of the things that we've been asking for and would like as an additional feature is a sort of benchmarking functionality. The ability to be able to benchmark, directly against the company digital corporate numbers. That said, there seems to be improved functionality within the latest release that could help us develop that further.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Tableau's performance is really good, and it is adding new features."
"We frequently utilize visualizations using maps and different objects, all with rich coloring options. And tooltips are absolutely essential for us. Tooltips, like the pop-up descriptions when you hover over some object or graph. Those tooltips in Tableau are great features."
"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 product’s performance is better than other tools."
"Tableau is very flexible and easy to learn. It has drag-and-drop function analytics, and its design is very good. It is a very good tool, and it basically brings life into data with good design. We have been creating a lot of interactive visualizations and dashboards. It has a public version. There are public communities from where you can get a lot of examples for practice."
"It is so easy to do a lot of things. There is a lot of flexibility and creativity in this product. In other products, you don't have this flexibility."
"Tableau's most valuable feature is its ability to connect with various data sources and display real-time data on three different dashboards."
"The most valuable features are the visualizations, the way they show the combination charts."
"Great capability, performance, flexibility, visuals, and the solution is also very cost effective."
"I am looking forward to testing their full graphics that are available, as they looked very interesting in the demo."
 

Cons

"I am a BI consultant. I have worked on different reporting tools, such as Power BI and MicroStrategy. As compared to other tools, Tableau lags behind in handling huge enterprise-level data in terms of robust security and the single integrated metadata concept. When we connect to large or very big databases, then performance-wise, I sometimes found Tableau a little bit slow. It can have the single metadata concept like other tools for the reusability of the objects in multiple reports."
"There should be more GIS features, such as location analysis, which is quite limited. There are very few location-based functionalities."
"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."
"The development part should be better. We are putting a lot of effort in during development, so if we face any struggles, we have to find workaround solutions on the internet."
"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."
"There are not enough language options. It needs to be offered in more than just English."
"When we put more information on a single screen, it gets compressed and superimposed in many places while scrolling."
"The extraction, transformation and loading of data in Tableau takes a lot of time and we do not have confidence that Tableau is showing all the data we need."
"Would like the ability to be able to benchmark."
"There should be a better or an easier way to establish that connection to external sources."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If they want to be competitive in the market, the price must be improved."
"We are on an annual license which costs us $1,400 which is very expensive. Microsft BI is less expensive."
"Tableau can be costly (but this can be indefinable, such as user experience vs. cheaper etc.)"
"For the use and the capability of the software, it's $70 per month, and that is quite inexpensive."
"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."
"The licensing model of Tableau has changed since we initially purchased it three years ago and it is more complicated, and I have found it to be more expensive. They have lost market shares to Microsoft BI. My company will probably change solutions this year because of the increased pricing model."
"The price of this solution could definitely be lower. It's quite expensive."
"The initial cost that is set according to CPU cores is expensive."
"14,000 Pounds per year for licensing."
"I am still using the two-week trial, but at first sight, the price is reasonable."
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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
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
University
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business117
Midsize Enterprise66
Large Enterprise182
No data available
 

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 ...
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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.
Marshalls Ltd, BP Exploration and Production, Thorntons, Ted Baker, Bristol-Myers, Rank Group, ING Bank Genve, Cargill Value Investment, Chloride Power, Auchan, Erste, UEFA, Novartis, Porsche Informatik, Raiffeisen Bank International
Find out what your peers are saying about Tableau Enterprise vs. XLCubed and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.