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Tableau vs XLCubed comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 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
Ranking in Reporting
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
303
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (2nd), Data Visualization (1st), Embedded BI (1st)
XLCubed
Ranking in Reporting
29th
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 May 2025, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Tableau is 22.2%, down from 23.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of XLCubed is 0.3%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Reporting
 

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.
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

"The solution is easy to use, flexible, our clients enjoy seeing the data on maps, and you do not need to be an expert in SQL to use it."
"The most valuable feature is the drag and drop, then the simplicity to build dashboards which allows us to provide more usable data to our customers."
"The most valuable features are data discovery and fine visualizations."
"Tableau is easy to use compared to some other solutions, such as Excel."
"Tableau serves as a stable dashboarding tool for higher management, aiding in quick decision-making."
"Tableau has many good features. It is user-friendly, has a simple-to-use interface, and has a customizable dashboard."
"I have found many of the self-service features valuable."
"The maps and colors and interface are all fantastic."
"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

"There's no mature ETL tool in Tableau, which is quite a negative for them."
"I would like Tableau to handle geospatial data better in terms of multiple layers and shapefiles."
"Tableau is an end-to-end analytics platform, and it is doing a pretty good job in terms of connecting to the data and analyzing it. It can, however, do better in terms of data management and the ETL features, which are not on the advanced analytics or machine learning side. Tableau Prep is where users would want to see more advancements. They can improve Tableau Prep, which is an analytic platform tool for data cleansing. People who work with data spend most of their time curating the data. Cleaning up the data and getting it ready for analysis is what takes the most time. If Tableau can invest more time in improving the Tableau Prep platform, it would be great. Previously, Tableau didn't have the functionality for writing to a database. So, you couldn't really alter the database tables and write to your database, but they fixed that in one of the very recent releases. However, it isn't really advanced and should be improved."
"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."
"A strict security measure is needed. I believe it is weak in terms of security."
"We would like a report model, because currently there is no schema that we can create in the tool."
"The integration with other program languages, like Python, needs to be better."
"The interface can be improved, in part because there is no indication that something is running or that it's processing."
"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

"The pricing for Tableau is the same as the other products in the market."
"The cost of the solution should be improved."
"Deployment of dashboards to viewers and unit supervisors can be prohibitively expensive."
"Pricing could be better. I believe they should offer better pricing for deployment in small to mid-sized companies."
"I believe it has a lifelong license, and once you purchase it, you don't have to renew it, but I'm not sure."
"The initial cost that is set according to CPU cores is expensive."
"We are on an annual license which costs us $1,400 which is very expensive. Microsft BI is less expensive."
"Tableau is an expensive solution compared to Power BI."
"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
Educational Organization
43%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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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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.
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 vs. XLCubed and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.