Table of Contents
Introduction
Microsoft Power BI and Tableau are two of the most popular and powerful business intelligence tools available today. Both are good for making decisions based on facts. Tableau is the best tool for managing complex data at scale and turning large sets of data into visualizations that can be used to take action. It has more features and capabilities than Power BI, but Tableau is made for advanced users and data analysts who are familiar with BI software. Power BI vs Tableau; Power BI is better for business users who need to figure out what their data means.
Power BI vs Tableau
What Is Power Bi
Power BI can meet the needs of individuals, medium-sized businesses, and large businesses. Compared to Tableau and other BI tools in the market, it’s a bit easier for beginners and people who don’t have much experience with data visualization software and building reports.
How Easy Is Power BI To Use?
Power BI is an easy-to-use interface that looks a lot like Excel and PowerPoint, which is good for people who use other Microsoft products regularly. It’s also easy to make reports and dashboards and share them with everyone in your company.
Power BI is easy to get started with, and Microsoft offers a lot of tutorials and training that are helpful for both new users and experienced professionals. Because of this, many people use Power BI, making it one of the easiest business intelligence platforms.
What Is Tableau?
Tableau is made for data analysts who need to make powerful visualizations of complex data. For advanced data visualizations, Tableau is truly in a league compared to other business intelligence (BI) software on the market. You can use endless visual dashboards for storytelling, sharing, and advanced analytics to make sense of huge datasets from many different sources.
How To Create A Dashboard In Tableau
Tableau has many different plans, meaning the ease of use changes at each level. Tableau’s best feature is that it is easy to make dashboards, and even less experienced users can understand how to use the drag-and-drop feature. The bad thing is that the user interface (UI) is harder to understand than Power BI. It is not as familiar, which makes it harder to get started.
Data Sources
Power BI and Tableau are the most popular business intelligence platforms, and both can support multiple data sources. You can connect to external sources via live connection or by importing data.
Power BI can connect directly to many data sources, including databases, flat files, and web services. In this case, Power BI is helpful because it makes getting data from your source system much easier. Power BI is also flexible in preparing data, which means it can work well for companies whose data is not well organized.
Advantages of Power BI
Hundreds of Data Visuals
Power BI makes it easy to turn your data into simple visuals that can be used for various purposes. These visual representations of data are great for making faster decisions based on data and sharing insights with key team members and other stakeholders. Between the Power BI library and AppSource, there are hundreds of different ways to visualize data.
Build Your Visuals
You can change the way data is displayed to meet the needs of your industry and organization. This gives you the ability to make and use data visualizations that are unique to your organization.
User-Friendly Interface
People think that many BI tools and data visualization solutions on the market are rigid and hard to use. However, Power BI is surprisingly easy to use, which makes it a great choice for business people who do not have the technical skills needed for more advanced tools. You still need some basic tech skills, and learning how to use Power BI takes time. But overall, the platform is easy to use, and you don’t need to be a data scientist to figure it out.
Drag-And-Drop
Once you connect your data to Power BI, it’s easy to make the most of it. You must drag and drop files or checkboxes to make dashboards and reports. You can quickly make a graph, table, or other visual by clicking a space on your dashboard, dragging a data source, and releasing it. When you move things around on the screen, everything is right at your fingertips and easy to see.
Cloud and Local Deployments:
When you install the desktop version on your device, it’s easy to connect to different data sources and turn that data into other models. Many users like to use the desktop version to make reports and the cloud-based service for sharing, distributing, and working as a team.
Disadvantages of Power BI
Sharing Limitations
However, it is hard to share dashboards with people who aren’t part of your organization using a login. There are ways around this, but none of them are built into Power BI.
Rigid Integrations
Many Microsoft products have this same flaw. The process is not always easy if you want to use Power BI with applications and tools from companies other than Microsoft. Power BI works best when you get data from apps that are part of the Microsoft ecosystem. You can still get data from different sources and integrate third-party tools, but the process can be frustrating.
Lack of Premium Support
Customers of Power BI Pro and above get support free as part of their plans. However, this is handled through ticket support, which is not always ideal when managing data, making dashboards, and needing some white-glove help. Microsoft does have a paid enterprise plan for premier support, but it is not just for Power BI. Instead, it is more of a general Microsoft support plan.
Advantages of Using Tableau
Rigid Integrations
None of its competitors compare to how well it shows data and how many options it gives you. Tableau lets you turn unstructured statistics into logical data and put that data into dashboards that are both useful and fun to use.
Engaged Community and Resources
You can connect with other analysts in your field, share ideas, and get the most out of your subscription. You will also have access to over 1,300 learning resources and almost 500 training videos to help you improve your skills.
A Variety of User Types
There are three main parts: creating, exploring, and watching. Creators can do anything, while viewers can only see and interact with dashboards. Explorers are in the middle, giving you and your team more freedom in how you use Tableau.
High Performance
Users love how well it works, how fast, and how reliable it is. This is very important, especially if you use Tableau to change large amounts of “big data.” Even if you think you are pushing the software to its limits, it is great to know that it still works at its best.
A Wide Variety of Data Sources
To put it simply, you can link it to both files and servers. However, if you look deeper, you will see that Tableau can work with Excel files, PDFs, JSON files, local text files, Microsoft SQL servers, MySQL servers, and more.
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Disadvantages of Tableau
High Prices
Tableau is pricey compared to Power BI, which starts at $9.99 per user per month. This seems even more expensive. Even the most expensive plan for Power BI is less than a third of what Tableau costs. Even though the package is costly compared to other business intelligence (BI) tools available in the market, you are getting one of the best solutions available.
Tableau is not for beginners because it is hard to learn. To use this software well, you should know how to use other business analytics and data visualization tools. The software is not made for the average person with internet access or even for business users who are good with technology. It will be easier for data analysts, scientists, and engineers to get the most out of Tableau.
Lack of Support after the Sale
The sales staff at Tableau tends to sell you the software if you ask questions and need help in getting started. However, once you have deployed, you do not get as much help when encountering problems. Many reviews of Tableau from real users point to this flaw, as they are frustrated with how hard it is to troubleshoot and solve issues without paying for premium support.
It is never easy to choose between two big players, and both Tableau vs. Power BI have pros and cons that you need to consider.
Data visualization is where Tableau shines, but the low barrier to entry and ease of use of Power BI has been a big draw for users worldwide. In either case, there is more to think about than we have listed here.
Conclusion
Two of the most well-known and effective business intelligence solutions available today are Microsoft Power BI and Tableau. Both are useful for making fact-based decisions. The greatest solution for managing complicated data at scale and creating actionable representations from huge data sets is Tableau. Tableau is designed for experienced users and data analysts who are familiar with BI software, even though it has more features and capabilities than Power BI. Business users that need to interpret their data should use Power BI.
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FAQs
1 Which one is better: Tableau vs Power BI for students?
Ans- When managing big data, Power BI frequently lags. Tableau is able to process huge quantities of information quickly. It is quicker and offers a wide range of tools for data visual representation. Tableau gives you a 360-degree perspective of your data by allowing an unlimited amount of data points in visualization and by enforcing no row or size restrictions.
2 Is Tableau easier to use than Power BI?
Ans- For new users and non-data analysts, Power BI is typically thought to be simpler to use. Because Tableau is recognized to have a more difficult learning curve, it is more widely used by seasoned data analysts. See our analysis of user evaluations below for opinions on the benefits and limitations of the tools.
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