Business intelligence will help you in understanding the entire data analytics which is becoming digitized and very complex today. The analytics world has been rapidly bringing new products and many changes to the modern market. Hence it is very important to choose the proper analytics tools to get the data that is needed in order to make effective decisions. When it comes to Business Intelligence tools, Power BI and Tableau are the most popular tools. Tableau is the well known data visualization tool for effective data analytics. Power BI is the latest Business Intelligence tool which is a competitor for Tableau.
Tableau Vs Power BI: Which one is the best?
Let's have a quick comparison between Tableau and Power BI. Based on this, you can easily choose the data visualization tool that best suits your business needs.
Data Visualization
When it comes to Data Visualization, then Tableau will be the most perfect choice. Tableau is the highly recommended tool when you are looking mainly for Data Visualization whereas Power BI usually focuses on the reporting and predictive modeling.
Tableau will allow you to create around 24 various kinds of visualizations including Heat Map, Text Table (Crosstab), Highlight Table, Filled Map, Horizontal Bar Chart, Symbol Map, Pie Chart, etc. It does not require much coding to develop stunning and very complex visualizations. Tableau will provide capability of live querying while making you ask the ‘what if’ kind of questions.
Power BI provides real-time access to data as well as simple drag and drop features. Power BI will make data uploading much simpler. By making use of various visualization types like Funnel Charts, Bar Charts, Combo Charts, Clustered Column Charts, Area Charts, Doughnut charts, etc. it provides access to visualization of highly powerful data analytics.
Deployment
Tableau is a very flexible deployment option when compared with Power BI. Power BI will be accessible only as the SaaS model whereas Tableau is made available with both the on-premises as well as cloud options. Power BI will not be suitable for your business if your Policy of business will not allow SaaS. Then, Tableau will be the only option even though it is expensive but it has flexible licensing and deployment options.
Bulk data handling capacity
When you are looking for the best data visualization tool to handle the bulk amount of data sets, then Tableau is better when compared with Power BI. Power BI will be a little slow when coming to handle huge data that can be easily fixed by making use of direct connections rather than an import functionality.
Functionality
Tableau will be able to give answers to almost all the queries users have asked on the data that is available when compared with Power BI. Tableau works more efficiently in discovery of data when compared with Power BI.
Integration
Both the Tableau and Power BI can easily integrate with almost all the third party sources. Tableau has a lot of connectors and integrations. It allows you to view all the connections on your dashboard. Tableau’s connections are very closely connected and it requires identifying the data that is to be pulled into the dashboard before doing a connection.
Power BI has good access to most of the APIs as it has the pre-built dashboards for providing instant insights. Power BI connects to major technologies like Salesforce dashboard, Google Analytics, Email platforms, and other Microsoft products. It helps in connecting to data sources in your organization and has much better theme templates which can easily be downloaded in order to create visuals.
Programming tools support
Both the Tableau and Power BI easily connect with the programming languages. Tableau will integrate much more efficiently with R Language when compared with Power BI. Power BI will be connected to the R language by making use of Microsoft revolution analytics which will be available only for the users of enterprise level.
User Interface
Tableau has an efficient and smooth user interface that will enable the users in creating the customized dashboard very easily. Power BI has an intuitive interface which is much easier to learn when compared with tableau. It is mainly because of the ease of use and the simplicity most of the businesses prefer Power BI than Tableau.
Product support
There is not much difference between Tableau and Power BI when it comes to user communities and support. Microsoft Power BI is the latest data visualization tool when compared with Tableau and usually will be well known to a smaller community but it will catch up in the near future.
Cost
Tableau is more expensive when compared with Power BI especially when it comes to large organizations. To utilize Tableau to the fullest, it is required to create a data warehousing that further inflates the cost. To obtain a cost-effective solution then Power BI will be the perfect choice. Professional version of Power BI will usually cost less than 10$ per month per user. When it comes to the Tableau pro version the cost will be more than 35$ per user per month. For a small business or a startup company it is better to opt Power BI and later upgrade to Tableau if necessary.
Read more: How Important is Power BI for the Telecom Industry?
Conclusion
Both the Tableau and Power BI tools work based on the different principles and there is no proper definition to say which one is the better. Businesses or organizations need to choose the best tool depending on their business requirements. Nextbrain Technologies is the reputed web and mobile app development company in Bangalore offering professional Power BI development services to enhance your business efficiency by providing real-time data insights.
Saran
August 31, 2021 Author