My whole career I have been working with business intelligence (BI), and data visualization software’s within multiple organization. I have also used the latest versions of both Tableau and Power BI in real life projects. Today

1. TABLEAU VS POWER BI COMPARISON:
My whole career I have been working with business
intelligence (BI), and data visualization software’s within
multiple organization. I have also used the latest
versions of both Tableau and Power BI in real life
projects. Today I am writing a comparison between my
two favorite data visualization tools, Tableau and
Microsoft Power BI. I will try to share what I saw using
both data visualization tools as well as what other
experts say about these tools. We will cover the
advantages and disadvantages of both software’s which
will hopefully help you answer any questions you have
between the two.

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3. DATA VISUALIZATION:
Today’s world is full of data. In every second 37 TB data is being created. Data
visualization should be an essential part of any business strategy. The process
of collecting data and transforming data into a meaningful visualization will
reduce cost and help teams make accurate business decisions.
Visualization gives you answers to questions you didn’t know you had. – Ben
Schneiderman

5. Figure: Power BI and Tableau visualization
In my opinion, Tableau is the winner (might be biased), but Power BI is getting close.
Tableau has been conducting research over a decade around data visualization, that is
what they specialize in compare to Microsoft has there hands in everything. I feel
Tableau is a more intuitive and flexible software when designing dashboards
compared to Power BI. What I like most is I can get an immediate answer from my
data in minutes using Tableau. This is possible because of the easy to understand click
and drag interface within Tableau. Even my younger brother made some decent
visualizations with some complex data without coding knowledge.
Now don’t get me wrong, Tableau can be very complicated at times but overall if you
have some decently clean data it is pretty easy to build something if it’s your first
time. In the case of Power BI, it seems to be made with a more programmer
approach. Things are not as easy to understand especially the calculations. The layout
is also not as intuitive to me, but maybe that is just because I learned Tableau first.
Another cool thing that just came out is in Tableau you can ask questions which is
missing in Power BI. With that being said, I feel like Tableau development team is
incredible. They are always coming up with new features and doing it quickly!

6. TABLEAU AND POWER BI DATA SOURCES:
Both Tableau and Power BI allows us to connect to data directly from various
sources. Tableau supports much more native data connections than Power BI at
the moment. Here is a complete list of data connections for both software.
Power BI
Tableau Desktop
Local Files
Excel (*.xls, *.xlsx)
Microsoft Access file
Cube file
Excel (*.xls, *.xlsx)
Microsoft Access file (*.mdb,*.accdb)
Cube file
Text file (*.txt, *.csv, *.xml)
JSON
Folder
Power BI Files
Text file (*.txt, *.csv, *.tab, *.tsv)
JSON, Statistical file (SAS,SPSS,R)
Other (Tableau Data Extract files, Tableau workbooks)

7. Server
Azure – Blob Storage, Data Lake Store
(Beta), DocumentDB (Beta), HDInsight,
Marketplace, SQL Data Warehouse,
SQL Database, Table Storage,
HDInsight Spark (Beta)
Tableau Server
Google Analytics
Google Analytics, Google
BigQuery, Google Cloud
SQL
Hadoop File (HDFS) Cloudera Hadoop
IBM DB2
IBM – BigInsights, DB2,
PDA (Netezza)
MySQL, OData, Oracle, PostgreSQL
MySQL, OData, Oracle,
PostgreSQL
Microsoft – Analysis Services,
PowerPivot, SQL Server
Microsoft – Analysis
Services, PowerPivot, SQL
Server
SAP – HANA, Sybase
SAP – HANA, NetWeaver
Business Warehouse,
Sybase ASE, Sybase IQ
Salesforce, Spark (Beta) Salesforce, Spark SQL
Teradata
Teradata & Teradata OLAP
Connector

8. Open Database
Connectivity
Actian Vectorwise, Actian Matrix, Amazon
Aurora, Amazon EMR, Amazon Redshift,
Aster Database, DataStax Enterprise, Firebird,
Hortonworks Hadoop Hive, HP Vertica, MapR
Hadoop Hive, Splunk
Actian Vectorwise, Actian
Matrix, Amazon Aurora,
Amazon EMR, Amazon
Redshift, Aster Database,
DataStax Enterprise, Firebird,
Hortonworks Hadoop Hive, HP
Vertica, MapR Hadoop Hive,
Splunk
Other
Databases
Active Directory, appFigures (Beta), Blank
Query, Dynamics CRM Online, GitHub (Beta),
MailChimp (Beta), Marketo (Beta), Microsoft
Exchange QuickBooks Online (Beta), R Script
(Beta), SharePoint List Smartsheet (Beta),
SQL Sentry (Beta), Stripe (Beta), SweetIQ
(Beta), Twilio (Beta), Web ZenDesk (Beta)
EXASolution, MarkLogic,
MonetDB, Pivotal Greenplum,
Progress OpenEdge,
Snowflake.

9. Price Comparison Between Power BI and Tableau
Free version Power BI Desktop version is free.
Tableau Desktop has no free
version but has 14 days trial.
For Students There is no plan
For students, Tableau Desktop is
free with full functionality.
Types of
subscription
1. Power BI Desktop (free)
2. Power BI Pro ($9.99/user/month)
(60 days free trial and allows you to
share and collaborate)
3. Power BI Premium (Capacity
pricing/per node/per month)
1. Tableau
Creator($70/user/month) (full
functionality of Tableau)
2. Tableau Explorer ($35 or
42/user/month) (Explore governed
self-service analytics.)
3. Tableau Viewer($12or
$15/user/month) (It is possible to
view and interact but can’t create
and edit visualizations)
DEPLOYMENT:
Power BI has a SAAS model for deployment on the other hand Tableau has both on-premises and cloud
options. On-premise is only for Power BI premium users. I have seen many business intelligence projects
not using Power BI because of this as they need a more customizable solution and data security.
PRODUCT PRICE:

10. Note:
•Though you can work with Power BI Desktop free version, you will need
Power BI Pro license to distribute your work to others, publishing content
to Power BI Premium or Power BI Report Server and doing a collaboration
with others.
•All invoices need to be paid annually for both Power BI and Tableau.
•Based on the deployment option, Tableau explorer and Tableau Viewer
price differ.
If you have a small budget and you work with small data, then power BI is
the best option based on price. But as your business grows and you have
to analyze huge data then I will recommend using Tableau as a product
license cost is not the only factor of total cost.
In a recent survey about the total cost of ownership done by International
Institute of IT Economics shows us that Tableau is cheaper than Power BI
in the long run.

11. This chart is taken from the survey, and it shows a comparison between Tableau and
Power BI. From this chart, we can see although Tableau license cost is higher than
Power BI, in 3 years the total cost of ownership is 29% lower in Tableau. If you want
to see how this survey is done and what methods was used dive into the report here.

12. CUSTOMER SUPPORT:
There is not much difference between them. By phone and email, people
can get direct support. Also, they can go to a customer portal and get
support via a support ticket. All users of Power BI can get support from the
support ticket system, but premium and pro members get a faster response.
COMMUNITY MATTERS:
Tableau has a larger active community than Power BI. Strong growing
communities indicates how many peoples are using their BI tool and how
popular this software is getting day by day. 150,000 passionate users are in
the Tableau community forum and ready to welcome new people. People
can get answers to their Tableau problems, connect with other users online
or at Tableau user groups.
Another cool thing is you will get access to Tableau Zen Masters who gives
awesome tutorials and tips to create a masterpiece like them in their blogs,
videos, and seminars. Tableau selects them every year from the experts
who work to make Tableau easier for everyone. Though Power BI started its
journey late, Tableau community is growing at a ridiculous rate.

13. REPORT BY GARTNER:
In Gartner Magic Quadrant for business intelligence and analytics platforms, 2018 both Tableau and
Power BI have been recognized as a Leader.

14. Gartner is an IT consulting firm which provides Magic Quadrant (the culmination of research
in a specific market) every year. This research evaluates the progress and positions of
companies in a specific, technology-based market. According to Gartner, Tableau is the
most attractive and intuitive visualization tool. Tableau leads in the ability to execute, but
Power BI leads in the completeness of vision.
REPORT BY IT CENTRAL STATION:
IT central station provides a report based on their community. They verify the reviewer (are
they real user) using their verification methods. They have ranked Tableau as the number 1
software for BI. They update the report every month.
This picture is taken from the report (2019 January) done by It central station.

15. Parameters Tableau Power BI
Year Of Establishment 2003 2013
License Paid (14 days trial)
Free available for desktop
version.
Application AD-Hoc Analysis/Dashboards Dashboards
Visualization Best Good
Customer support Best Good
Environment Runs on Windows and Mac Only for Windows
Data Points No limit Up to 3500 data Points
What if question feature Available Not available
Forecasting feature Available Not available
HEAD TO HEAD TABLEAU VS POWER BI COMPARISON:

16. Users All People Analyst
Feature More Features Fewer Features
Work with a large dataset Very good Good
URL, Filter, and
Highlight Actions
Available Not available
This article is not written to make your decision in buying software rather giving you the
introduction of both front runners that are leading the business intelligence industry. As
you can see both software’s are great for data analysis and has some differences.
Both software’s keep innovating and adding new features so you can’t lose with either
one. But Tableau still my favorite.
Article Resource - https://vizualintelligenceconsulting.com/blog-tableau-vs-power-bi/