Power BI vs Tableau
Tableau and Microsoft Power BI are both Business Intelligence and data analytics applications. Gartner places these tools in the leadership quadrant. These applications are hugely popular within businesses and developers around the globe. In this article, we will discuss Power BI vs Tableau.
The diverse functionalities provided by these technologies make it difficult for any organization to choose one for their enterprise implementation. The choice should depend on the specific use case of the corporation. Both technologies have some advantages and some disadvantages.
Having enjoyed the benefit of working with both Power BI and Tableau, I have put my best effort in comparing these tools on different parameters based on my experience.
Components of Power BI and Tableau
Power BI Components
Power BI desktop
Power BI desktop is an interface that lets you interact with all the other tools in the Power BI environment. It is an authoring tool and is used to connect and shape the data, write powerful code for calculations and create reports containing visualizations.
- Power Query. Power Query is used for connecting and preparing data to create a dashboarding application. It enables users to connect and combine data from different data sources. The Power Query Editor is used to edit the loaded queries or tables. It allows users to apply different transformations on the tables.
- Power Pivot. Power Pivot is the calculation engine of Power BI. It is used to model relationships between the tables and create calculations. Power pivot uses the DAX (Data Analysis Expressions) to build formulas and expressions.
- Power View. Power View is the visualization technology that is used to create tables, graphs and maps. It is embedded in Power BI desktop and uses the drag-and-drop feature in faster creation of data visualization.
Power BI Service
Power BI Service is the cloud-based service of Power BI that lets you publish your reports, dashboards and datasets, to the cloud, which are created using Power BI desktop. Power BI service will share your visualizations with other users and also refresh data. Visualizations are published to the service from Power BI desktop.
Power BI Report Server
Power BI report server is similar to Power BI Service except that it is on-premises and not a cloud service. It allows you to interact with on-premise data i.e. within your firewall.
Power BI mobile apps
Power BI offers a set of mobile apps for all kinds of mobile devices. Using these apps, you can interact with visualizations and data located on Power BI Service or report server.
Tableau components
Tableau desktop
Tableau desktop is used to connect to data and create powerful data visualizations. When data is connected to Tableau, it is automatically segregated into dimensions and measures. It helps in analyzing any data and produce highly interactive visualizations, dashboards and stories. Tableau desktop application is free for two weeks.
Tableau Public
Tableau public is similar to Tableau desktop but with limited functionality. It is available for free download. It enables users to publish their dashboards on the Tableau Public Server. All the content is owned by Tableau. Using Tableau Public, you cannot save visualizations on your machine but you can publish them to your public profile available on Tableau public server.
Tableau Online
Tableau online is Tableau Server on the cloud. Only authorized Users can interact with data & dashboards.
Tableau Mobile
It is a mobile application available in both App Store and Google Play. To access dashboards on Tableau Mobile, an account with Tableau Online or Tableau Server is required.
Tableau Server
It is the Central Repository for all the dashboards and data sources of an Enterprise. Tableau desktop is used to publish Dashboards and Data sources on the server. The Developer or Admin provides access to the user with a certain set of permissions as per their role. It also provides the Web editing option for authorized users. Web editing provides limited development options as compared to Tableau Desktop.
Tableau Data prep
Tableau data prep is a recent addition to the Tableau product line. It is used to perform data cleansing and transformation.
Power BI vs Tableau
| Features | Power BI | Tableau |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Power BI is cheaper as compared to Tableau. Desktop version is free | Tableau desktop license and Server license costs more than Power BI. The Desktop version is free only for two weeks. |
| Cloud Implementation | Available with Power Service | Available with Tableau Online |
| Data Source Connectors | Can connect to wide range of data sources | Can connect to wide range of data sources |
| Data modeling capability | Strong ETL capability, you can transform data within the application and use it to create visualizations | Can use Tableau Data prep for data modeling |
| Functions and calculations | Extensive range of functions makes it difficult to use and understand. Some overlapping functions create confusion for the users. | A fine set of calculations and functions such as Table calculations, Quick table calculations, LODs can cover a wide range business use case |
| Self service | Application is developer-centric, making self-service challenging | Development is easy. Good for both developers as well as self-service |
| Development effort | User has to go through multiple steps to create a simple visualization. | Development is faster with easy drag-and-drop functionality |
| User interface | Not very intuitive | Intuitive interface |
| Visualization best practices | User has to make his own decision on the type of visualization to use for the given data source columns | For the selected dimensions and measures, Tableau’s Show Me feature gives suggestions on the best visualization to create |
| Number of Charts | Power BI has a broad set of charts available (30 by default) and many more available in the Power BI marketplace | Tableau has a smaller number of charts available (24 by default) but other advanced charts can be designed. |
| Product enhancement | Power BI desktop releases monthly versions with added functionality. This can make it difficult for an enterprise to keep up with the updates and upgrades | Stable application, with a few enhancements releases every year |
| Server functions | Power Service is used for cloud implementations and Report server is used for on-premise data | Tableau Online is used for cloud and Tableau server is used for on-premise data |
| Data size | There are limitations on the amount of data per data set. Power BI premium is used to increase data load capacity to 10GB | Tableau columnar data can handle huge amounts of data |
| Learning curve | Even if a user is from a strong Microsoft excel background, the use of multiple languages such as DAX and M Code makes it hard to learn and develop | Tableau applications are easy to develop. Functions and calculations are easy to master |
| Multi-tenants | Available with Power BI embedded on Azure | Good multi-tenant functionality available by using Tableau sites |
More Details on Power BI vs Tableau
Pricing
Power BI is cheaper and thus suitable for small and medium range organizations. Tableau is pricey as compared to Power BI but still cheaper compared to other BI applications. Tableau cloud versions can be used for smaller implementations.
Data modeling
Power BI definitely has strong data modeling capabilities as compared to Tableau data prep. But a thoughtful decision should be made if you want to perform extensive data transformation in the dash boarding tool itself. For full-fledged data modeling or to create a data warehouse, an ETL (Extract-transform -Load) application such as Informatica or Abinitio should be used that will keep the data centralized and provide single version of the truth. All data complexities should be handled outside the dash boarding application.
Functions and Calculations
Functions and calculations in a dash boarding application should be simple and easier to use. This will assist in self-service BI. Power BI has some 600 functions. The large array of functions can be a double-edged sword. While it can provide a wide variety, it also makes the visualizations cumbersome to understand and maintain. For e.g. There are different implementations of aggregate functions to perform row-level and table level aggregations. There are different kinds of count functions.
Tableau provides a reasonable amount of functions that can cover a wide range of business scenarios.
Self- Service
Both Power BI and Tableau provide self-service analytics. In Power BI self-service, it has some challenges. Given a data set, user needs to know how to create a data model, what cardinality to use between the tables. How tables are joined and modify the query in query editor. On the visualization side, a user should know what charts to use and the aggregations.
In Tableau, self-service analytics is easy. User needs to know how tables are related and not how they are joined. Tableau creates a relationship based on common field names. With dimensions and measures selected, Tableau makes suggestions on which chart type to use.
Visualization best practices
In Power BI, creating a visualization is not very intuitive. The user should know what to create and how. Multiple steps are required to create a simple visualization with formatting etc. Tableau provides a ‘Show Me’ feature that suggests the users which visualization will be best suited for the selected dimensions and measures. Visualization creation is intuitive and simply drag-and-drop. Best suited for self-service.
Number of Charts
Power BI definitely has more chart options compared to Tableau. Tableau also has many charts types and many more advanced charts can be created.
Product enhancement
Power BI releases new versions monthly. In some versions, the look-and-feel of the application also changes. It puts a big burden on the implementation team to keep up with all the new versions across the enterprise. Tableau also releases new versions but those versions are limited.
Learning Curve
To use Power BI effectively, user should have good knowledge of DAX(Data Analysis Expressions) and M code(Mashup Language). These languages are used to create calculations and to model query in query editor. It requires an extensive experience to use these languages.
Tableau uses Table calculations, Quick table calculations and Level of Detail calculations which are easy to use and understand.
Multi-tenants
In Power BI, multi-tenant functionality is available with ‘Power BI embedded’. It is available as a service on Azure. In Tableau, multi-tenant functionality can be added by using sites which is a feature of Tableau Server.
In conclusion, both the applications are similar with some key differences. Selection of the tool depends on the specific business use case. Tableau focuses on data discovery with building its capability on data manipulation. Power BI focuses on how there should be structured data. Both the tools approach data discovery in a different fashion.
When to choose Tableau:
Choose Tableau for your implementation, if your organization has the following requirements:
- On-prim data or use Tableau online for cloud implementations
- A strong data warehouse is available and needs less data modeling requirements within the dash boarding application
- Need for higher Self-service Business analytics
- Fast paced development and deployment
- Multi-tenant server deployment
When to choose Power BI
Power BI will be more suitable for your implementation, if your organization has the following requirements:
- Data in the cloud. Power BI is more suited for cloud implementations
- Data warehouse and ETL capability requirements with the dashboarding application
- More Developer centric development as compared to self-service
- Longer development life cycle is acceptable
- More complex implementation that requires the use of complex DAX functions and Mashup language (M Code)
- Need for complex customized charts
- Comfortable with using Power BI embedded with Azure for multi-tenant implementation
About the Author
Chandraish Sinha has 20+ years of experience in Information Technology. He is an accomplished author and has published 11 books covering Business Intelligence related topics such as, Tableau,Power BI, and Qlik. Checkout his Amazon Author profile.
His latest book Excel Basics to Advanced covers all the aspects of MS Excel and provides exercises for self-learning.
Similarly, his recent book, Dashboarding with Tableau, covers all the features in Tableau and includes exercises for self-learning.
He has implemented IT solutions in different domains viz. Pharmaceutical, Healthcare, Telecom, Financial and Retail.
He blogs regularly on various IT topics. Check them out in the links given below:
