Tableau is a good Business Intelligence tool for power users who want to explore and visualize data sets. PowerBI is the same type of tool with very similar features. Most business users prefer Tableau over PowerBI but IT tends to prefer PowerBI (which is more I.T. oriented).
Many organizations have been fooled into thinking PowerBI is free but it is not and the infamous "Microsoft Fat Tax" will catch up with you.
These two tools are definitely the leaders in this space but neither of them is a good BI reporting tool. If you are looking for BI reporting solutions then SAP BusinessObjects is the most popular in use today with its Web Intelligence tool.
Director - Metrics & Analytics at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 10
2021-09-14T13:56:19Z
Sep 14, 2021
The selection of a BI tool completely depends on the individual's/Organization's requirement. For most of the BI tool capabilities, Tableau outranks some of the BI tools in the market. There are other competitors in the market with some cool BI tools and capabilities.
Qlik, especially Qlikview, Microsoft Power BI, IBM Cognos are some of the good BI tools available which come with some of the analytical capabilities as well like forecasting, regression analysis, clustering, etc.
Tableau outranks these BI tools in terms of graphical representation capabilities and hence it was regarded as "Most attractive and intuitive visualization tool" by Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platform in 2018.
If the requirement is more around self-service and basic requirements for Leaders then Qlik is the best option. It can link to multiple data sources, has in-memory data storage and comes with 500GB of cloud storage. The pricing is reasonable as well and offers a SaaS cloud product as well. However, this does not support languages like R or Python-based objects, though Qlik promises to provide language support in the coming versions.
If the requirement is for a simple BI tool with good BI capabilities then Power BI is one of the best tools. This has been regarded as "the simplest to use tool among the leading BI vendors" by Gartner's Magic Quadrant. This is an easy-to-use platform enabling users to import data from multiple sources and also supports data integration from various sources like Hadoop, on-premise files, etc. Supports R-based visualizations is compatible with Microsoft Azure (Cloud-first). One of the cost-effective tools. One of the challenges is with the cloud storage which is limited to 10GB and additional charges are applied if you want to expand the data storage capacity and I feel the analytical capabilities such as forecasting clustering etc. are decent although not that advanced.
Tableau and IBM Cognos Analytics are some of the great BI tools and used when the cost is not a problem. The cost for these tools is on the higher side but the tool capabilities are excellent. The inbuilt analytical and graphical representation capabilities that these tools bring to the table are great.
Tableau is great for pixel-perfect reports and Power BI is the leader.
However, we find that ThoughtSpot is a popular choice as it allows users to answer a question after a question without always going back to an analyst. Therefore true self-service analytics.
There is also AI available within ThoughtSpot to suggest reports that are relevant to the user. It is also a good solution if you wanted to externalize analytics to customers in conjunction with an enterprise analytics portal called Digital Hive.
Tableau is a good choice, but I would also look at Power BI. We are using Power BI more because of its integrated data lake back end (dataflows) and its new integration into Power Automate.
I am a Microstrategy specialist. Also, tried Power BI and Data Studio.
If I compare Tableau and Microstrategy, I can say that the self-service part is quite similar.
Microstrategy Dossier is a better thought variant to the Tableau Dashboard. At the same time, Microstrategy has also figured a more complex concept: the Semantic Layer/graph.
With the use of the Schema objects, you can have better data governance and reduced redundancy. Also, in Microstrategy, it is easier to find your way around, the user interface is pretty straightforward.
I would choose Microstrategy over all the rest of the tools and Tableau over the rest of them.
Tableau Enterprise offers powerful features for creating interactive visualizations, dashboards, and maps, including drag-and-drop functionality and easy integration with multiple data sources, promoting real-time collaboration and self-service analysis.Tableau Enterprise stands out with its ability to create user-friendly, interactive visualizations, making it pivotal for business intelligence applications. Users benefit from its seamless connectivity and advanced analytical functions,...
Tableau is a good Business Intelligence tool for power users who want to explore and visualize data sets. PowerBI is the same type of tool with very similar features. Most business users prefer Tableau over PowerBI but IT tends to prefer PowerBI (which is more I.T. oriented).
Many organizations have been fooled into thinking PowerBI is free but it is not and the infamous "Microsoft Fat Tax" will catch up with you.
These two tools are definitely the leaders in this space but neither of them is a good BI reporting tool. If you are looking for BI reporting solutions then SAP BusinessObjects is the most popular in use today with its Web Intelligence tool.
@Paul Grill Thank great info in term of cost .
The selection of a BI tool completely depends on the individual's/Organization's requirement. For most of the BI tool capabilities, Tableau outranks some of the BI tools in the market. There are other competitors in the market with some cool BI tools and capabilities.
Qlik, especially Qlikview, Microsoft Power BI, IBM Cognos are some of the good BI tools available which come with some of the analytical capabilities as well like forecasting, regression analysis, clustering, etc.
Tableau outranks these BI tools in terms of graphical representation capabilities and hence it was regarded as "Most attractive and intuitive visualization tool" by Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platform in 2018.
If the requirement is more around self-service and basic requirements for Leaders then Qlik is the best option. It can link to multiple data sources, has in-memory data storage and comes with 500GB of cloud storage. The pricing is reasonable as well and offers a SaaS cloud product as well. However, this does not support languages like R or Python-based objects, though Qlik promises to provide language support in the coming versions.
If the requirement is for a simple BI tool with good BI capabilities then Power BI is one of the best tools. This has been regarded as "the simplest to use tool among the leading BI vendors" by Gartner's Magic Quadrant. This is an easy-to-use platform enabling users to import data from multiple sources and also supports data integration from various sources like Hadoop, on-premise files, etc. Supports R-based visualizations is compatible with Microsoft Azure (Cloud-first). One of the cost-effective tools. One of the challenges is with the cloud storage which is limited to 10GB and additional charges are applied if you want to expand the data storage capacity and I feel the analytical capabilities such as forecasting clustering etc. are decent although not that advanced.
Tableau and IBM Cognos Analytics are some of the great BI tools and used when the cost is not a problem. The cost for these tools is on the higher side but the tool capabilities are excellent. The inbuilt analytical and graphical representation capabilities that these tools bring to the table are great.
@Susheel A Great insight .
Tableau is great for pixel-perfect reports and Power BI is the leader.
However, we find that ThoughtSpot is a popular choice as it allows users to answer a question after a question without always going back to an analyst. Therefore true self-service analytics.
There is also AI available within ThoughtSpot to suggest reports that are relevant to the user. It is also a good solution if you wanted to externalize analytics to customers in conjunction with an enterprise analytics portal called Digital Hive.
Tableau is a good choice, but I would also look at Power BI. We are using Power BI more because of its integrated data lake back end (dataflows) and its new integration into Power Automate.
@James Myers Thanks
I recently started to work with Tableau.
I am a Microstrategy specialist. Also, tried Power BI and Data Studio.
If I compare Tableau and Microstrategy, I can say that the self-service part is quite similar.
Microstrategy Dossier is a better thought variant to the Tableau Dashboard. At the same time, Microstrategy has also figured a more complex concept: the Semantic Layer/graph.
With the use of the Schema objects, you can have better data governance and reduced redundancy. Also, in Microstrategy, it is easier to find your way around, the user interface is pretty straightforward.
I would choose Microstrategy over all the rest of the tools and Tableau over the rest of them.