Tableau Reviews

Name: Tableau
Brand: Salesforce
Rating: 4.2 (303 reviews)

Vendor: Salesforce

4.2 out of 5

303 reviews
89% willing to recommend

13K followers

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What is Tableau?

Tableau is a tool for data visualization and business intelligence that allows businesses to report insights through easy-to-use, customizable visualizations and dashboards. Tableau makes it exceedingly simple for its customers to organize, manage, visualize, and comprehend data. It enables users to dig deep into the data so that they can see patterns and gain meaningful insights.

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Tableau is the #1 ranked solution in top Data Visualization solutions, #1 ranked solution in top Embedded BI Tools, #2 ranked solution in top Business Intelligence Tools, and #2 ranked solution in top Reporting Tools. PeerSpot users give Tableau an average rating of 8.4 out of 10. Tableau is most commonly compared to Microsoft Power BI: Tableau vs Microsoft Power BI. Tableau is popular among the midsize enterprise segment, accounting for 47% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a educational organization, accounting for 43% of all views.

Helped 849,686 peers since 2012

Featured Tableau reviews

Nattawat Choosuwan

Senior Data Consultant at a government with 11-50 employees

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.

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ROMIL SHAH

Deputy General Manger - Information Technology at Nayara Energy

When it comes to visualizations, Tableau has a limitation as compared to Power BI. It has a limited set of visualizations. Power BI has the entire marketplace, so you can connect and import many visualizations and use them, whereas Tableau has only 10 or 15 visualizations. There should be more visualizations, and there should also be data integration with more cloud providers. Tableau has recently launched a paid version for the documentation. So, documentation has become a little bit challenging when it comes to Tableau development because we do not have any tool to export the data out of it. It is a license-based feature that you need to purchase to prepare documentation. So, on the documentation front, for preparing clear documentation for any dashboard, it would help if we get an embedded option, rather than buying a license for each user for the documentation. To document anything, if I have to connect to each workbook and see what has been written as a formula and then document in the Word document, it is pretty time-consuming. We have the Microsoft stack, and we are currently evaluating Power BI because Tableau has a limitation of 50 columns for a drill-down report. If we want more than 50 columns, we have found a hack, but there is no ready-made option for doing it. So, we have to use another tool in case we need a drilled report with more than 50 columns. There are many instances where users need 80 or 90 columns for their analysis, and switching between two technologies becomes a challenge. It is not a cost-effective approach for us. Their support should be improved. We are not happy with their support. Whenever we raised queries, we were pointed to a few blogs, and we didn't get a proper solution from them. Their licensing should also be improved. They want us to purchase a Tableau Creator license for business users, whereas Power BI Desktop is free for business users. They should come up with a basic license with one or two connectors that our business users can use for preparing their visualizations. Tableau also charges us per user for users who want the data only through email.

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ArchanaN

Associate Director at Mresult

I find that customizations in Tableau are not intuitive, and it should be easier to write HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The usual technical support is not up to the mark unless it is elite support. Pricing is also a concern for me as it is expensive compared to TIBCO Spotfire ( /products/tibco-spotfire-reviews ) Enterprise licensing and Microsoft Power Platform.

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Tableau mindshare

Product category:

As of May 2025, the mindshare of Tableau in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category stands at 17.1%, down from 19.4% compared to the previous year, according to calculations based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

PeerResearch reports based on Tableau reviews

Type	Title	Date
Category	BI (Business Intelligence) Tools	Apr 30, 2025	Download
Product	Reviews, tips, and advice from real users	Apr 30, 2025	Download
Comparison	Tableau vs Microsoft Power BI	Apr 30, 2025	Download
Comparison	Tableau vs Amazon QuickSight	Apr 30, 2025	Download
Comparison	Tableau vs SAP Analytics Cloud	Apr 30, 2025	Download

Title	Rating	Mindshare	Recommending
Microsoft Power BI	4.0	21.4%	93%	321 interviews Add to research
Teradata	4.1	0.8%	87%	76 interviews Add to research

Valuable Features

Tableau's most valuable features include its intuitive drag-and-drop interface, which simplifies complex data analysis and visualization. Users appreciate the seamless integration with various data sources, enabling robust data blending from multiple origins. Tableau's ability to produce insightful, interactive dashboards and rich visualizations empowers business users to independently create intricate reports. Its flexible customization options, coupled with excellent geo-spatial and predictive analytics, make it widely favored for rapid and effective data-driven decision-making.

"The drill-down approach and interactivity in Tableau are highly effective."
"The most valuable features of Tableau include building hyper extracts and creating visuals."
"Tableau serves as a stable dashboarding tool for higher management, aiding in quick decision-making."

Room for Improvement

Tableau requires enhancements in formatting controls, licensing costs, and scalability for large datasets. Users face challenges with data cleansing, transformation, and integration with open-source libraries. There's demand for predefined templates, improved performance, and better integration of machine learning and AI. Licensing is costly, and the interface needs simplification for new users. Reports should be exportable as PDFs. Integration and ETL capabilities need advancement, along with overall performance and stability. Language support and scheduling options also require attention.

"There have been issues where suddenly the site will not respond, requiring a restart."
"Tableau's data blending feature could use some improvement. Previously, I used other tools, such as Alteryx, for data blending because Tableau had limitations."
"The look and feel of the tool itself, including the dashboard features and data visualization, could be improved. The graphs in Tableau also have room for improvement."

ROI

Tableau offers substantial returns, with many seeing a quick payback on investment. Users report significant time savings, from automating processes and reducing manual labor, to streamlining decision-making. Increased efficiency in report generation and data management is common. Adoption challenges vary, but when embraced, organizations note enhanced productivity and cost reductions. Seamless integration and rapid insights also contribute to high ROI, although quantifying in exact figures can sometimes be difficult.

Pricing

Tableau's pricing for enterprise buyers is generally perceived as high, with licenses charged per user. The transition to a subscription-based model is well-received, offering flexibility for scaling needs. Monthly costs can reach $70 per user, with core-based and user-based licenses available for large organizations. Discounts are rare, complicating expansion at an enterprise level. Compared to competitors like Power BI, Tableau is often more expensive, impacting its appeal in cost-sensitive environments.

"Tableau is an expensive solution."
"The solution's licensing is based on user-basis. It depends on the business ROI it offers. It's not on the higher side or too cheap; it falls in the medium-cost range. The price is determined by user usage, so the cost will also increase as the number of users increases."
"Tableau is an expensive solution compared to Power BI."

Popular Use Cases

Tableau is utilized primarily for data visualization, enabling users to craft dashboards and reports across a variety of industries. It supports business intelligence efforts by measuring performance, analyzing trends, and facilitating decision-making through interactive and real-time insights. Users leverage Tableau for reporting purposes, analytics, and data integration from diverse sources, enhancing operational efficiency and supporting strategic objectives in domains like healthcare, finance, and sales.

Service and Support

Tableau's customer service is often described as helpful and responsive, with many finding success through its active community and available online resources. Technical support is generally viewed as effective, though response times can vary. It excels in quick resolutions but occasionally receives criticism for delays, especially with complex issues. Community engagement contributes significantly to troubleshooting, often providing faster resolutions than direct support channels.

Deployment

Most users found Tableau's initial setup to be simple and straightforward, often comparing it to a typical software installation. Users appreciated the intuitive process, good documentation, and guidance provided. Customizing setups for complex data security or enterprise-scale implementations posed challenges for some, but overall, the setup allowed for ease of use and rapid deployment, sometimes with external support to optimize initial configurations and integrations.

Scalability

Tableau shows mixed scalability; some users handle large datasets efficiently, while others face challenges with massive data volumes. Performance depends on factors like design and infrastructure. Horizontal and vertical scaling is possible, supporting numerous users. Older versions had issues, but updates improved capabilities. While praised for flexibility, costs and technical complexity can hinder growth. Many find it adaptable for small to medium projects, but certain enterprise users suggest alternate tools for large-scale demands.

Stability

Many users find Tableau stable and reliable, with no major crashes or freezes. However, stability can be affected by large datasets, server issues, and hardware capacity. Earlier versions experienced more issues, but updates have improved stability. Network bandwidth and connectivity can also influence performance. Although certain features may cause issues, multiple browsers and some server updates resolved concerns. Compatibility and user mistakes can affect Tableau's ability to run seamlessly.

These insights are based on the in-depth reviews provided by peers to help you make a better buying decision.

Download our Tableau Buyer's Guide for additional reliable information.

Review data by company size

By reviewers

By visitors reading reviews

Top industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

43%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

University

Government

Healthcare Company

Retailer

Insurance Company

Energy/Utilities Company

Non Profit

Real Estate/Law Firm

Media Company

Construction Company

Comms Service Provider

Legal Firm

Hospitality Company

Wholesaler/Distributor

Transportation Company

Pharma/Biotech Company

Performing Arts

Recreational Facilities/Services Company

Outsourcing Company

Consumer Goods Company

Compare Tableau with alternative products

Learn more about Tableau

Make data-driven decisions with confidence thanks to Tableau’s assistance in providing faster answers to queries, solving harder problems more easily, and offering new insights more frequently. Tableau integrates directly to hundreds of data sources, both in the cloud and on premises, making it simpler to begin research. People of various skill levels can quickly find actionable information using Tableau’s natural language queries, interactive dashboards, and drag-and-drop capabilities. By quickly creating strong calculations, adding trend lines to examine statistical summaries, or clustering data to identify relationships, users can ask more in-depth inquiries.

Tableau has many valuable key features:

Tableau dashboards provide a complete view of your data through visualizations, visual objects, text, and more.
Tableau provides convenient, real-time options to collaborate with other users and instantly share data in the form of visualizations, sheets, and dashboards.
Tableau ensures connectivity to both live data sources and data extraction from external data sources as in-memory data. This gives users the flexibility to use data from more than one source without any restrictions.
Tableau gives many data source option, ranging from spreadsheets, big data, on-premise files, relational databases, non-relational databases, data warehouses, and big data, to on-cloud data.
Tableau has a lot of pre-installed information on maps, such as cities, postal codes, and administrative boundaries.
Tableau has a foolproof security system based on authentication and permission systems for data connections and user access. Tableau also gives you the freedom to integrate with other security protocols.

Tableau stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Some of these include its fast data access, easy creation of visualizations, and its stability. PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features in their reviews:

Romil S., Deputy General Manager of IT at Nayara Energy, notes, "Its visualizations are good, and its features make the development process a little less time-consuming. It has an in-memory extract feature that allows us to extract data and keep it on the server, and then our users can use it quickly.

Ariful M., Consulting Practice Partner of Data, Analytics & AI at FH, writes, “Tableau is very flexible and easy to learn. It has drag-and-drop function analytics, and its design is very good.”

Tableau was previously known as Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online.

Tableau 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.