Power BI Or Tableau: The Better Choice For Your Business

A Comparison Between Tableau and Power BI: The Most Powerful Leaders In The BI Market.

Business Intelligence or BI tools are a precursor of the world-altering digital technology in this modern technology landscape. Analytics plays a key role in determining which Business Intelligence tool is a better choice. This is because the more flexible the analytics platform offered by a specific BI tool is, the more it provides businesses to customize applications that need updates. Let’s take a deeper look at how Power BI is different from Tableau and which technology promises a better future for your business. 

Related Reading: Read on to learn more about Business Intelligence. What it is and how your business can get the best from it. 

Tableau And Power BI

Tableau was the first and foremost to come into the market. Though both Tableau and Power BI are well-known to be able to execute fine enough, Power BI has an advantage of making itself accessible to even the no-techy users, making it possess a higher adoption rate than Tableau.

On the other hand, Power BI is ranked higher on one of the key characteristics in terms of its Data Visualization, according to Gartner’s Magic Quadrant.   

However, Microsoft’s Power BI has the most user-friendly features in terms of ‘completeness of vision’ or ‘Data Visualization’ capability and has been embedded within Office 365. But Tableau offers advanced functionality and it is best considered for power users.

So to choose a BI tool that is the best fit for your business, it is important to first learn about the analysis needs. In the recent decade, Power-BI and Tableau have emerged as the two powerful BI tools.

Let us look at how companies can choose the best for their business from the following key factors:

Cost

Cost of Tableau is on the higher side when it comes to larger enterprises. The primary reason for this premium cost is the need to build data warehousing. Thus, it is advisable for a startup to choose Power BI initially and then consider Tableau when required.

The professional version of Power BI costs you less than 10$ whereas, on the other end, Tableau would cost you more than 35$ per month per user.

Reporting

Power BI supports Predictive Modelling and Reporting when on the other side, Tableau opts for Data Visualization.

With Power BI, we can create visualizations by queries and natural language. Say, for instance, Cortana PDA (Personal Digital Assistant). Power BI is said to place a 3500 limit when it comes to conducting analysis on data sets.

Tableau can be the best choice when it comes to Data Visualization.  With a user-friendly dashboard, Tableau allows an in-depth data analysis.  As compared with Power BI, Tableau offers more visualization flexibility. 

With Tableau, we are able to create 24 different types of basic visualizations. This includes heat maps and line charts.

Functionality

The functionality associated with Tableau with respect to Data Searching is on the higher side than when compared to that of Power BI.

Tableau tends to answer more queries from users as compared to Power BI.

Large Data Handling Capacities

In case of processing large chunks of data, the capacity of Tableau is over and above that of Power BI.

Power Bi handles data via import functionality and hence is slower to process large volumes of data as compared to Tableau that makes use of direct connections for the same purpose.

Data Connectors

Tableau offers, convenience for data connectors. For example, OLAP (OnLine Analytical Processing), cloud and also big data options such as Hadoop and NoSQL. Tableau can automatically determine the relationships of data that users add from various data sources. It also provides for the creation and modification of data links manually as per the company policies.

Power BI, on the other hand, can connect to user’s external sources such as SAP HANA, MySQL and JSON. It helps users connect to third-party databases and online services like Salesforce.

Thus, if connecting to a specific data house is your business requirement, Tableau is the best choice as Power BI is integrated with Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform.

Related Reading: Business Intelligence or Business Analytics. Find what is best for your business. 

Deployment

Power BI is a SAAS model. Tableau, on the other hand, is available both on cloud and on-premises options. The deployment options for Power BI is lower as some business policies do not allow for SAAS deployment. Thus, in case of flexible deployment capacity, Tableau is considered the better option here, even though it is on the higher-end when the cost factor is considered.

User Interface

The user interface of Tableau allows for the creation of a customized dashboard. On the other hand, Power BI has an interface that is easy to use and intuitive. So, if easy to use is your major requisite, Power BI is the choice for your business.  

Programming Tools Support

Though both Power BI and Tableau run smoothly with programming languages, Tableau can be integrated better with the R language rather than Power BI. R language provides a wide range of tools used to capture the right model of your data.

Power BI, on the other hand, also can be connected to the R language, but by using Microsoft Revolution analytics and it is made available only for Enterprise users.

Product and Customer Support

Tableau emerged in an early stage than Power BI and hence has a smaller community when compared to Tableau. The knowledge base of Tableau has three subscription categories, namely Desktop, Online, and Server.

On the other hand, Power BI offers a support functionality that is limited to users with a free account, allowing only it’s premium and pro users for faster support.

Licensing

This ultimately depends on whether you want to pay the full cost up front. If yes, then Tableau should be your first choice.

If we could put it this way, Power BI can be your best choice if you are a common stakeholder because of its intuitive drag and drop features, for which a data analyst’s experience is not crucial. Tableau can win if your choice is speed and if you have the capital to support.

Related Reading: Find how SAP HANA is becoming the game changer. 

In a nutshell, both Power BI and Tableau have different functionalities which depend on the variant business requirements. The best BI tool for your business can be selected only depending on the business requirements. Partnering with a software development company can provide businesses with access to expert IT consultants who can help make informed technology decisions. At Fingent, our team of consultants can guide you in making the right choices for your business. Contact us today to learn more.