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1. Power BI vs Tableau | Key
features and Comparison 2022
Introduction
Businesses of all sizes are finding it increasingly difficult to keep track of all
of their business processes due to the ever-increasing volume of data that
is being generated. Ultimately, organizations and businesses require
assistance in making profitable and sustainable decisions. By utilizing
modern and professional business intelligence tools (BI tools), any
business user can quickly address any challenge pertaining to data and
analysis without requiring extensive IT involvement. BI tools are software
used to collect, process, analyze, and visualize large volumes of historical,
present, and future data to generate actionable business insights, generate
interactive reports, and streamline the decision-making processes.
Power BI and Tableau are two essential Business Intelligence (BI) tools for
the collection, analysis, integration, and presentation of business data.
Upon first glance, their features and functions may appear to be very
similar to each other. So, how do you know which option is best for your
company? Moreover, when trying to decide which tool to learn or use in
their work, learners, practitioners, and researchers often find themselves in
a tough spot. Let’s get started by understanding what Power BI and
Tableau tools are and the key differences between them.
What is Power BI?
Power BI is a data visualization and business intelligence (BI) tool that
collates and analyses data from a wide range of sources such as SQL
databases, Excel workbooks, websites, and cloud services and converts it
into coherent, visually immersive insights and displays it in user-friendly,
interactive BI dashboards. This enables users to create and share
actionable snapshots of what’s going on in their company.
Power BI is made up of several components that work together to enable
you to create and share business insights. There are a few different Power

2. BI versions to choose from, depending on your budget, needs, and how
you want to use it. These versions range from basic to advanced, from free
to premium, allowing users to choose the one that best suits their needs.
For instance:
Power BI Desktop: A Windows application intended for small to midsize
businesses. Power BI Desktop is a powerful data analysis and report
creation tool that can be downloaded for free and installed on your
Windows desktop. It allows you to connect, clean, and transform data into
boardroom-quality reports.
Power BI Service: Power BI service is an online SaaS (Software as a
Service) service that lets users view dashboards, reports, data models, and
Power BI apps using a web browser or via mobile apps for Windows,
Android, and iOS. Power BI Service may be licensed in two ways: Power BI
Pro and Power BI Premium.
Power BI Pro: This is the full paid version of Power BI. It is a self-service
analytics tool that runs on the cloud. It enables the creation of dashboards
and reports that can be embedded into applications, shared with users, and
integrated with other Microsoft products.
Power BI Premium: This edition is best suited for enterprises with a large
number of users. Consider it a significant enhancement to Power BI Pro. In
addition to the features and functionality of Power BI Pro, you also obtain
improved data storage capabilities, maximum performance, and access to
a single API surface, among other benefits.
Power BI Mobile Apps: Access reports and dashboards on the Power BI
Service Report Server while on the move with the Power BI mobile app for
Android, iOS, and Windows phones.
Power BI Report Server: An on-premises report server that lets you
create, store, and manage Power BI reports, mobile reports, paginated
reports, and KPIs and distribute them through the email, web, or mobile
device that you created with Power BI Desktop or Pro.

3. Power BI Embedded: Power BI Embedded allows ISVs (Independent
software vendor) and developers to embed Power BI into their own apps on
a pay-as-you-go, “white-label” basis. So instead of designing their own
reporting features, they can add Power BI to their products, and it will
handle all the reporting and data analysis. End users of the app won’t
realize that it’s powered by Power BI; it will look like part of the app.
Features of Power BI
Visualizations: Power BI provides numerous detailed and appealing
visuals. Depending on your data set, you can build reports and dashboards
that are simple or detailed as per your requirements. Additionally, a library
for custom visualizations is accessible.
Data Source: Power BI enables users to choose from a variety of data
sources. You can pull in data from different sources such as on-premises,
cloud-based, excel spreadsheets, SQL databases, and unstructured to
structured data. Furthermore, Power BI can automatically pull data from
your different cloud services like Salesforce, Google Analytics, Microsoft
Dynamics, Zendesk, Facebook, and more.
Customizable Dashboards : Data can be viewed in a variety of
meaningful ways through the use of dashboards. Dashboards are a
compilation of data visualizations that offer significant information or
insights. Power BI dashboards often consist of numerous visualizations
shown as tiles. These dashboards are visual representations of individual
pages from the reports. These dashboards can be printed out and shared
with others at the same time.
Interactive Power BI Desktop : With the Power BI desktop tool, you can
easily create reports using the data you have at your disposal. This
sophisticated tool doesn’t require advanced abilities to make a report; it’s
quick and easy to master. In addition, this tool is a free download that
enables you to make reports without any technical experience.

4. Build Stunning Data Maps: Power BI enables the creation of interactive
and illuminating mapping data visualizations. It includes standard maps,
filled maps (choropleth), and ArcGIS Maps as standard features.
Generate Real-time Analytics: Power BI can provide you with access to
real-time analytics, allowing you to stay aware of your organization’s
activities and make prompt decisions, regardless of whether the data
comes from factory sensors on the ground or social media conversations
conducted online.
Optimized AI Model: By merging AI and Power BI, you can connect
directly to real-time and streaming data sources, regardless of their
location, on-premises or in the cloud. Both organized and unstructured
data, including text and images, can provide insights for forecasting.
Build Interactive Reports: Power BI can be used by anybody in your
business to create dynamic reports that can be shared with others. Your
reports can be viewed in a variety of ways on both desktop and mobile
devices. The report’s theme and color scheme can also be tailored to your
clients’ preferences. Adding custom Q&A buttons to your reports can help
ensure that your audience doesn’t miss out on any of your content. These
can be made available to the public, and you can keep tabs on their usage
from any computer or mobile device.
DAX Function: The DAX function in Power BI is a set of preset coding
expressions that can be used to conduct analytical tasks on data. The
Power BI function library now has around 200 functions, and designers are
constantly adding more.
Import Excel Data: Power BI has launched a new feature that lets users
import data from Excel spreadsheets. Excel power users will be able to do
more with Power BI thanks to this new capability.
Integration with Microsoft Azure Stream Analytics: The integration of
Power BI with Azure Machine Learning and Azure Stream Analytics offers
users access to real-time data. Stream Analytics provides structure and

5. combines several data types. This potent mix allows for predictive
intelligence, enabling business users to take preemptive measures.
Now with this information, let us quickly check the other business
intelligence tool Tableau.
What is Tableau?
Tableau is a business intelligence, data infrastructure, and data analytics
platform, that transforms the way we use data to solve problems and
creates interactive visual analytics in the form of dashboards—empowering
people and organizations to make the most of their data. Tableau has a
number of useful tools that aid in the development of graphs, charts, maps,
dashboards, and other visual representations of complex data.
Tableau consists of various items, each of which fulfills a distinct purpose.
On the basis of Tableau’s applications, there are different products such as
Tableau Server, Tableau Desktop, Tableau Reader, and so on.
Tableau Desktop
Tableau Desktop includes a wide range of features, including the ability to
create and modify reports. It comes in two editions, depending on how you
connect to your data sources and how you publish.
Tableau Desktop Personal
The development features of Tableau Desktop Personal resemble those of
Tableau Desktop. It is primarily used in private mode. The personal edition
restricts access to the workbook and keeps it private, and the workbooks
cannot be published publicly.
Tableau Desktop Professional
Offers the same set of features as Tableau Desktop Personal. Whereas,
workbooks created in Tableau Desktop Professional can be published
online or in Tableau Server. Furthermore, Tableau Desktop Professional
offers full access to any and all data types.
Tableau Public

6. As the name implies, Tableau Public is accessible to all users and is
primarily intended for those who opt for the free version. The created
workbooks and sheets cannot be saved locally and must be saved to the
Tableau Server public cloud. Thus, it is accessible to all users. There is no
specific privacy setting, and the files can be downloaded by anyone who
desires to do so. Tableau Public is for those who want to learn about
Tableau or share their data with the public.
Tableau Server
Tableau Server serves as a platform for sharing data visualizations,
workbooks, and sheets created in Tableau Desktop. However, one must
first publish their work on Tableau Desktop before sharing it on Tableau
Server. It will be accessible to restricted licensed users once it has been
uploaded to the server. Once uploaded, login credentials are needed by
licensed users in order to access the reports. Tableau Server offers robust
privacy settings and can be used to effectively disseminate data across an
organization.
Tableau Online
Tableau Online is a web-based data visualization and collaboration
platform. It has similar functionality to Tableau Server, but the data is
stored on Tableau-managed cloud servers. Available for both Mac and
Windows, Tableau Online has no limit on the amount of data that can be
published. It connects directly to many cloud-hosted data sources,
including MySQL, Hive, Amazon Aurora, Spark SQL, and many more.
Tableau Reader
Tableau Reader is a free tool for viewing workbooks and visualizations
created with Tableau Desktop or Tableau Public. Although the data can be
filtered, editing and modifications are limited. Tableau Reader has a
security level of zero, which means that anyone who obtains the workbook
can view it using Tableau Reader.
Tableau has a variety of features that have contributed to its popularity.
The following are some of Tableau’s key features:

7. Embed Dashboards
Tableau Dashboards give you a comprehensive view of your data through
visualizations, visual objects, text, and more. Dashboards can provide data
in the form of stories, allow the addition of various views and objects,
provide a range of layouts and formats, and allow users to deploy
appropriate filters. Dashboards are very informative. A dashboard can even
be copied from one workbook to another with a few clicks.
Supports Multiple Data Sources
Tableau enables users to connect to and retrieve data from numerous data
sources including local files, relational and non-relational databases,
spreadsheets, data warehouses, big data, and cloud-based data. Any of
Tableau’s data sources can be easily integrated and mixed with data from
other sources to provide a combinatorial perspective on data visualization.
Tableau supports numerous data interfaces, including Google Analytics,
Google Sheets, Presto, MemSQL, Cloudera, Hadoop, Amazon SQL
Server, Athena, Salesforce, and Dropbox.
Live and In-memory Data Connectivity
Tableau provides in-memory connectivity to live and external data sources.
This permits the user to freely integrate data from multiple data sources. By
establishing live data connections, you can consume data directly from the
data source or store data in memory by periodically extracting data from a
data source. Tableau provides additional data connectivity features, such
as automated extract refreshes, notification for failed live connections, etc.
Quick Collaboration & Sharing
Through visualizations, sheets, dashboards, and other tools, Tableau
makes it easy for users to connect to each other and share data in real-
time. It lets you send and receive data from on-premise, cloud, hybrid, and
other data sources in a secure way. Cooperation and sharing of data can
happen quickly and easily. This makes it possible to get immediate

8. feedback or assessments on the data, which leads to a more complete
study.
Ask Data Tool
Tableau’s Ask data tool simplifies data manipulation by enabling basic
Google searches. Simply entering a question about your data in natural
language will yield the most relevant results from Tableau. The responses
are not only presented as text but also as images. If the information you
seek already exists in a bar graph, for instance, the Ask Data option will
search for it and immediately open it for you. These capabilities allow users
to easily delve into data and uncover new insights and patterns.
Role-Based Permissions
Tableau’s role-based permissions allow you to control who has access to
what data down to the row, as well as who can make changes to any data
source or workbook. You have complete control over your data thanks to
Tableau’s role-based permissions, which protect it from unauthorized
access and changes. To get the most out of Tableau software’s moderated
access, it’s important to consider both security and the data literacy of your
employees when creating roles.
Predictive Analysis
Tableau’s utilization of time series and forecasting is an additional feature
that is incredibly useful. Due to Tableau’s robust backend and dynamic
front end, it is possible to create trend lines and forecasts with relative
ease. You can easily obtain data predictions, such as a forecast or trend
line, by selecting a few options and performing drag-and-drop operations
on the relevant fields.
Automatic updates
Tableau enables us to pause or reset the automatic updates while
constructing a large view until we are finished organizing data.
Server REST API

9. Using the Tableau Server REST API, we gain programmatic access to the
functionalities underlying all Tableau Server projects, data sources,
workbooks, sites, and site users.
Key differences between Power BI and
Tableau
Features Power BI
User Interface
Power BI interface is much simple
Machine Learning
Power BI leverages Microsoft’s bu
which include SQL Server-based A
Machine Learning, real-time data
Azure databases. It aids in determi
trends and patterns.
Cost
Power BI is affordable, with a pre
month for each user.
User-Friendly
Power BI is typically regarded as s
and those who are not data analyst
Programming Language
Power BI supports the DAX and M
data modelling and manipulation.
Analytics connects to R for enterp
Data preparation Power BI offers easy data prepara
Subscription Power BI offers an account-based
Report Power BI makes embedding repor

10. Organization
Suitable for Organizations of All S
Large)
Advantages of Power BI
Affordability
An important benefit of utilizing Power BI for data analysis and visualization
is its affordability and relative low cost. The desktop edition of Power BI is
free. You may download and use it on your PC to generate reports and
dashboards. If you wish to use more Power BI services and publish your
reports on the cloud, you may get Power BI Cloud for $9.99 per user each
month. Thus, Power BI is reasonably priced relative to other BI solutions.
Custom Visualizations
Microsoft’s marketplace offers a wide variety of custom visualizations for
Power BI. You can create custom dashboards and reports using Power BI
custom visuals in addition to the standard set of visualizations.
Learning Curve
Power BI is simple to use. It is essentially Excel pivot tables with Excel’s
data visualization capabilities elevated to the next level. Once data is
loaded into a Power BI dataset, creating charts, graphs, and tables that
make sense of the data is not particularly difficult. It can be figured out by
anyone with average Excel skills. Using slicers, Power BI reports can be
restricted to data from a certain time period or data that meets specified
criteria.
Excel Integration
Power BI allows you to upload and view your data in Excel. Data from a
Power BI report or dashboard can be exported to Excel after being
selected, filtered, or sliced. Then, you can launch Excel and view the same
data in a tabular format in an Excel spreadsheet. In other words, Power
BI’s capability for Excel connectivity allows users to access and manipulate
the raw data behind a Power BI visualization.
Prompt Updates and Innovations

11. Microsoft releases monthly Power BI updates. Most significantly, Microsoft
listens to the user community. It is simple to submit enhancement
suggestions. People can also rank the suggestions, increasing the
likelihood that popular proposals will be included in the next edition.
Similarly, updating is straightforward. When you launch Power BI, you will
be notified of any pending updates. Simply click the link to download and
install the most up-to-date version.
Personal Gateway
A Personal Gateway is a tool that may be used in conjunction with Power
BI to authenticate data sources that are located on-premise but outside of
the network’s firewall. The gateway handles all connection requests and
grants access based on the user’s authentication and specifications. Once
this tool authenticates and verifies an on-premises data source, a cloud-
hosted Power BI can utilize data from that data source to generate reports,
dashboards, and do data analysis.
Data Accessibility
Power BI facilitates easy access to data sources and the data sets you
generate while developing reports. All the data you import from data
sources and manipulate is kept in a central location. This information is
available at any time, from any location, on any device, and as often as you
like.
Disadvantages of Power BI
Rigid Formulas
Power BI is not without its flaws. There are restrictions on how formulas
can be used to create new data. Additionally, there is a concatenated
statement that combines only two items. Nesting the concatenate
statements is required if many items are to be combined. Once reports go
beyond simple visualizations, Power BI becomes more challenging to use.
The DAX programming language is not the most flexible, but it does allow

12. for a variety of specialized calculations. However, the results of these
analyses cannot always be effectively conveyed graphically.
Data Handling Capacity
Another disadvantage is the capacity to manage massive amounts of data.
Power BI can only use a certain amount of data. After reaching the data
limit, you must upgrade to the premium edition of Power BI. Additionally,
digesting millions of rows of data takes considerable time. This is not
technically a Power BI issue, but it might be difficult if you are creating
datasets containing massive quantities of information. The free version will
also export sample data in huge quantities.
Table Relationships
Power BI excels at dealing with simple data model relationships. However,
Power BI may not handle complex relationships between data, i.e. multiple
links between tables, well. When dealing with increasingly complex
interactions, you’ll have to build your data model carefully and include
additional unique fields.
Visuals Configurability
Native and custom visuals are not configurable to a large extent. There’s a
desire to optimize the visual elements of a website, but there are limitations
on what can be actually done.
Compatibility with IOS
Mac users do not have a compatible option in Power BI Desktop.
Advantages of Tableau
Data Visualization
Tableau is primarily a data visualization application. Consequently, its
technology supports complicated computations, data blending, and
dashboarding with the goal of creating stunning visualizations that provide
insights that cannot be easily gleaned simply by staring at a spreadsheet. It
has risen to the top of the data visualization heap because of its
commitment to this objective.

13. Ease of Implementation
Tableau provides a variety of visualization options that enhance the user
experience and facilitate implementation. In addition, Tableau is easier to
learn than Python, Business Objects, and Domo; someone without coding
experience may simply learn Tableau.
Interactive Visualizations
The greatest benefit of Tableau is that it requires minimal effort to generate
attractive dashboards. With the aid of simple drag-and-drop functions, the
user can generate numerous interactive reports in a matter of minutes. It
can efficiently manage multiple variables and provides numerous types of
dashboards.
Support Multiple Scripting Languages
Users can integrate Python or R with Tableau to overcome performance
limitations and execute sophisticated table calculations. Using Python
scripts to do data purification activities with packages helps alleviate the
burden on the program. Tableau, on the other hand, does not support
Python as a native language. However, Python’s visual packages can be
imported.
Handle Large Amounts of Data
Tableau can effectively manage millions of rows of data. Large amounts of
data can be visualized in a variety of ways without affecting the
performance of dashboards. Additionally, there is an option in Tableau that
allows users to establish “live” connections to other data sources, such as
SQL, etc.
Extensive Customer Resources
The Tableau community is enthusiastic and active. It provides a wide range
of online resources, including tutorials, guides, training, and forums.
Mobile-Friendliness
Last on our list of key Tableau perks is the availability of an efficient mobile
app for iOS and Android. It provides Tableau customers with mobility and

14. the ability to keep statistics at their fingertips, as well as supports the full
capabilities of the desktop and online versions.
Disadvantages of Tableau
Scheduling or Notification of Reports
In Tableau, there is no option to automatically refresh the reports with the
help of a scheduled refresh. Tableau does not provide a way to plan ahead.
Because of this, there is always some human work needed when users
need to change back-end data.
No Custom Visual Imports
Tableau is not an entirely open platform. Tableau allows developers to
quickly import custom-made graphics. Therefore, any new visuals must be
recreated rather than imported.
SQL Knowledge
SQL knowledge is required to generate rich and sophisticated datasets
from numerous data sources. Once a dataset has been built, business
users have a fantastic choice for manipulating the data with a tableau.
No Version Control
Once the dashboards and reports have been published on the server, it is
impossible to return to the previous data levels in Tableau. It is impossible
to recover historical data.
Needs Manual Effort
Tableau parameters are inactive and can only be used to select a single
value. You must manually update it whenever the data changes.
Which one to choose, Power BI or Tableau?
It depends on the user. The data analytics field has evolved from traditional
BI practice to embedded BI and collaborative BI over time. Initially, IBM,
Oracle, and SAP dominated data analytics, but this is no longer the case.
Now, companies such as Microsoft and Tableau have taken the lead due to
their Embedded BI, Collaborative BI, Data Blending, and Multi-Data Source
Connection capabilities.

15. Power BI’s drag-and-drop features make it easy to use, even for those with
no prior knowledge of data analysis. However, Tableau does provide the
same, but users require some prior knowledge of data visualization and big
data, and they need the help of analysts to leverage it. Tableau and Power
BI are both distinct and well-suited to the organization’s varied
requirements. Different organizations have different needs, and the
selection of the appropriate tool is contingent on business use cases and
data requirements.
Determining a clear winner is a challenge. Overall, Power BI outperforms
Tableau in terms of features and capabilities. It is the most interesting BI
tool for data analysts and complex data visualizations on the market.
Moreover, according to the Forrester WaveM, Microsoft Power BI is a
leader among augmented business intelligence platforms for Q3 2021
Power BI is a great option for employees in a business who are primarily
involved in self-service business intelligence and not necessarily in
complex data analytics. If your organization already uses Microsoft
products, Power BI is also an excellent choice. For those who are still
evaluating their business requirements or considering the implementation
of a business intelligence platform in order to gain actionable insight from
their data, Sparity can assist. Alternatively, they can enhance their current
BI capabilities to get more out of their existing Power BI platform. Sparity
has been implementing different BI solutions for a variety of clients, each
with specific business needs. Feel free to contact us at info@sparity.com if
you have any questions or concerns.