Tableau is one of the most well-liked tools that leads the business intelligence software pack with its well-designed interface and fast reports. Users can leverage Tableau to develop robust and interactive visualization based on an analysis of significant data sources. This tool is available on all screen sizes and most devices, making it a robust and versatile data visualization tool.
Tableau is one of the best in the business intelligence market, with around 120000 users. It offers ways to gain insights from a vast amount of data, often in real-time. Though the types of software vary in capabilities, all are based around data analytics and developing actionable insights. Tableau can be too pricey for many businesses and need savvy users to create visualizations that need complex querying despite these benefits.
Tableau also lags behind some BI trends when performing jobs besides visualizations, such as large-scale reporting. For these motives, Tableau is not suitable for every business. Fortunately, there are loads of business intelligence software alternatives. In this blog, TechNinjaPro is going to list top-rated business intelligence tools that are frequently compared to Tableau.
What is Tableau?
Tableau was developed in 2003 that allows businesses to visualize and comprehend their data. The solution enables enterprises to rapidly connect, visualize and share data from the computer to the iPad, using an innovative strategy. You can create, publish dashboards and share them without programming capabilities with partners, customers or classmates.
Tableau is an analytical tool that enables you to look at data and answer questions quickly. Its server allows you to publish dashboards on any internet browser or mobile device on your Tableau desktop.
Pros of Tableau
1. Data Connectivity
When it comes to BI, your solution of choice has to connect to it to use your information. Tableau excels in integrations with other data sources and databases, with native connectivity to a variety of data sources, whether on-premises or in the cloud. Tableau also refreshes data from web applications and cloud databases and supports live information queries, offering real-time up-to-data connections to data sources.
3. Data visualization Leader
Tableau provides customization, visually appealing graphs, charts, and dashboards. It connects to any number of data sources, blends the information, and converts it into comprehensive results in the form of interactive dashboards.
3. Ease of Use
One of the top-selling points of Tableau is its accessibility to users of all skill levels. Tableau’s drag and drop user interface makes it simple to create data visualizations and obtain insights from them, while its interactivity promotes users to engage in self-service data discovery to get information-driven answers to their queries.
4. Support and Community
Another of Tableau’s benefits lies in its attentive support team and active online community. Tableau users can seek answers through its thriving community forums, where many visitors and experts are ready to help others and share their happy experiences. Users with concerns might be able to find the answer themselves through documentation.
Cons of Tableau
High Pricing
Although Tableau is not the most expensive business intelligence product, especially its counterparts, it is definitely not cheap. Whether users select the server, desktop, or SaaS version of the tool, costs can rack up quickly for per-user subscriptions, maintenance fees, and add-on features. In contrast, Tableau has a free version that lacks functionality, and some users express concern over its data security.
In addition, the tool is so big; pricing plans tend to be flexible and lack the personalization users can expect from smaller organizations. Tableau provides set packages; even if you do not need all of the functionalities provided, you will still get the same packages as someone who would use them all.
Need for Training
Tableau is praised for its simple and intuitive user interface and advanced data visualization functionality. However, users note that there is a sharp learning curve to master its more complicated features, particularly in conditional formatting or developing more complex data visualization than a basic bar and line charts. When it comes to various aspects of business intelligence, such as data querying, reporting, Tableau can be hard for some users to manipulate to their specific needs, requiring SQL knowledge in some cases.
Tableau provides business users a lot of self-service business intelligence freedom. It still needs someone with IT expertise to develop and manage datasets. While there are free sources available online for training, these resources focus on the platform’s more rudimentary functions, and their more robust ones remain inaccessible to many without paid training from vendor partners.
Speed
Another significant weakness that often pops up in user reviews for Tableau is its slow speed, with the solution running into performance difficulties, especially when working with big datasets or complicated visualizations.
Top 5 Alternatives of Tableau
1. Sisense
Sisense is a business intelligence tool that offers market insights and analytic solutions for small and enterprise-level businesses. It enables clients to add, evaluate and capture data, and then they need to create smarter company options and formulate workable strategies and plans. With Sisense, users can uniform all information they need and wish via a drag and drop feature to the visually appealing dashboard.
This tool is one of the leading business intelligence software for many businesses, including ESPN, NASA, NASDAQ, and Comcast. Sisense helps users convert data to high-precious ideas and share them with company associates, friends, and clients through interactive dashboards. You can quickly sign up and find the functionalities without charges and commitment. Sisense also offers free demo on the sites.
Features:
- Unify unrelated data into one centralized place
- Allows to create interactive dashboards with no technical skills
- Query big data at a very high speed
- Possible to access dashboards in the mobile device
- Drag-and-drop user interface
- Appealing visualization
- Allow delivering interactive terabyte-scale analytics
- Exports data to Excel, PDF Images and other formats
- Ad-hoc analysis of high-volume data
- Handles information at scale on a single commodity server
- Identifies important metrics using filtering and calculations
2. Looker
Looker is another alternative to Tableau that allows non-technical users to perform data analysis via pre-built analytics code blocks. These code blocks can also be saved and customized, so advanced users have a jumping-off point and can save time on repeated reports. It also offers visualization and dashboard creation features, but they are not as strong as Tableau’s offering, which allows for the simple development of compelling dashboards. Similarly, it has extensive data analysis integrations but lacks OLAP support, making web-based analytics challenging.
Looker is one of the best options for organizations needing a robust analytics tool with limited visualization features. It provides an intuitive approach to data scanning. Users can quickly generate and share reports for other functional businesses, helping businesses drive business and options in the correct direction. To enhance customer satisfaction and obtain data from its site traffic, over 650 worldwide companies use this tool.
Features:
- Advanced API-focused modeling language.
- Self-service reporting.
- Application usage monitoring in real-time.
- Simple drill-down capabilities.
- Perfect for non-technical users.
- Supports Google Docs, Excel, and PDF conversions.
- Internet browser and mobile compatibility
- Share reports and data through URLs and email
3. Power BI
Power BI is one of the best alternatives to Tableau that is designed with an interactive dashboard that necessitates robust data analysis and customizable reports. It is compatible with desktop and mobile devices. Users are free to import data from SQL servers, Hadoop clusters, on-premise, and Excel spreadsheets and polish, transform, and visualize it in a more organized way.
Tableau and Power Bi are similar when it comes to self-service data visualization software. Power BI can connect big data from different sources and consolidate it. Its data mining process enables you to apply algorithms to the data sets and uncover new data insights.
Features
- Get Data
- Datasets Filtration
- Customizable Dashboards
- Flexible Tiles
- Navigation Pane
- Informative Reports
- Natural Language Q & A Question Box
4. Qlik View
Qlik View is another top alternative to Tableau that enables users to create complex visualization easily. Visualization developed using Qlik View can use data from various sources, making Qlik usable as a data warehouse for businesses that need to build visualizations with data from a wide variety of applications. Users that require powerful analytics features may struggle with Qlik’s limited analytics tool.
Qlik View is perfect for businesses that need to create data visualizations but does not need strong analytics tools. This platform allows users to explore their data easily and discover connections and outliers without modeling those interactions in advance. In addition, Qlik is a competitive option for businesses with technical users as it is easy to develop detailed and complex visualizations.
Features:
- Easy drag and drop user interface to develop flexible and interactive data visualization.
- Use the simple search to navigate complex data
- Respond to changes and interactions instantly.
- Supports multiple files types and data sources.
- Allows easy security for data and content across all devices
- Shares relevant analysis, including stories and applications using a centralized hub.
5. Domo
Domo is another business intelligence tool that helps users create dashboards with the least effort based on pre-built pages that automatically assemble based on the information sources used. The use of pre-built pages enables users to develop easy visualizations without essential training, but custom visualizations may need technical users.
Users also enjoy extraction, transformation, and loading processes, which allows users to query and report on data without SQL knowledge. Organizations that need easy visualization that can be developed quickly can benefit from Domo’s pre-built pages and automated alerts. Businesses can also use Domo to automate alerts based on information changes, enabling analysts to keep the firm abreast of changes in essential data.
Features
- Data collaboration
- Data connection
- Dashboard development
- user-friendly interface
- Data alerts
- helps to integrate data from many sources
- mobilize team on the fly and have them compete at the cloud speed
Conclusion
While finding a tool with the same features as Tableau may be challenging, you will not miss one that suits your business requirements from TechNinjaPro’s list. Tableau is a perfect software for businesses that need to develop interactive data visualizations and have the technical resources to manage them.
For companies seeking a more affordable choice, one with more powerful analytical tools or software that can be used by non-technical employees, one of the top alternatives listed above may be a better option.
Frequently Asked questions
You should considered the following factors before choosing Tableau alternatives
- High-cost
- Bad customer support
- The cost involved in training staff on the platform
- Update and support the policy of the platform vendor
- Company reviews