BrightGauge vs. Tableau Desktop

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
BrightGauge
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
BrightGauge is a BI tool from ConnectWise that puts essential information in one place, providing visibility for more informed decisions. The user can customize BrightGauge dashboards and sync other business tools in its BI dashboard software for ultimate visibility. Users can also display data with embeddable gauges on public sites.
$325
per month
Tableau Desktop
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Tableau Desktop is a data visualization product from Tableau. It connects to a variety of data sources for combining disparate data sources without coding. It provides tools for discovering patterns and insights, data calculations, forecasts, and statistical summaries and visual storytelling.
$75
per month per user
Pricing
BrightGaugeTableau Desktop
Editions & Modules
Standard
$325
per month
Enterprise
$449
per month
Enterprise+
$635
per month
Tableau
$75
per month per user
Tableau Enterprise
$115
per month per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BrightGaugeTableau Desktop
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup Fee$499 one-time feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsSet up fee is waived for Enterprise+ customers. A discount is offered for annual billing.All pricing plans are billed annually.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BrightGaugeTableau Desktop
Features
BrightGaugeTableau Desktop
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
BrightGauge
8.1
Ratings
1% below category average
Tableau Desktop
8.3
Ratings
2% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports8.20 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.80 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates7.10 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
BrightGauge
7.7
Ratings
5% below category average
Tableau Desktop
8.7
Ratings
8% above category average
Drill-down analysis8.40 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Formatting capabilities8.50 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages4.70 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration9.20 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
BrightGauge
7.9
Ratings
5% below category average
Tableau Desktop
8.1
Ratings
3% below category average
Publish to Web9.40 Ratings7.30 Ratings
Publish to PDF7.40 Ratings7.90 Ratings
Report Versioning5.00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling9.20 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers8.50 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
BrightGauge
5.9
Ratings
30% below category average
Tableau Desktop
8.4
Ratings
5% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)8.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization7.10 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Predictive Analytics6.00 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining2.50 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
BrightGauge
8.7
Ratings
3% above category average
Tableau Desktop
8.7
Ratings
3% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)9.60 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model9.20 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.30 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control8.30 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)8.30 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
BrightGauge
6.8
Ratings
14% below category average
Tableau Desktop
8.0
Ratings
2% above category average
Responsive Design for Web Access8.50 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Mobile Application6.00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile5.80 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
BrightGauge
7.4
Ratings
5% below category average
Tableau Desktop
9.0
Ratings
14% above category average
REST API8.30 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Javascript API9.60 Ratings9.00 Ratings
iFrames10.00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Java API6.00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)3.50 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)7.00 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BrightGaugeTableau Desktop
Small Businesses
Yellowfin
Yellowfin
Score 8.0 out of 10
BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Kyvos Semantic Intelligence Layer
Kyvos Semantic Intelligence Layer
Score 9.9 out of 10
Kyvos Semantic Intelligence Layer
Kyvos Semantic Intelligence Layer
Score 9.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BrightGaugeTableau Desktop
Likelihood to Recommend
9.2
(0 ratings)
8.7
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
8.9
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.4
(0 ratings)
8.6
(0 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
6.1
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.4
(0 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
8.1
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BrightGaugeTableau Desktop
Likelihood to Recommend
BrightGauge lets us know when we have critical issues that need solving. A massive influx of tickets all at the same time triggers an investigation. Usually, it is tied to a server going down, which we can address. It would not be helpful for a small MSP or IT department with just a few daily tickets. The stats are better used to track a large amount of clients.
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The best scenario is definitely to collect data from several sources and create dedicated dashboards for specific recipients. However, I miss the possibility of explaining these reports in more detail. Sometimes, we order a report, and after half a year, we don't remember the meaning of some data (I know it's our fault as an organization, but the tool could force better practices).
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Pros
  • SQL queries can be presented in many different ways to illustrate the data. They can be used in lists, graphs, meter, etc.
  • The datasets frequency of updates can be customized to from 5 minutes to annually. It's very granular in this respect.
  • It allows dashboards to be shared outside your organization with clients, partners, and vendors to maximize collaboration and reporting.
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  • The Visualizations graphics are really good and the color options help in designing attractive charts. They help to convey more information and can be made interactive.
  • You can add filters with offer you to plug and play with values and understand different outcomes.
  • You can drag and drop options while creating charts and dashboards. also it is a very fluid layout.
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Cons
  • Modifying data sets to bring in custom fields requires an experienced SQL engineer
  • Cost when bringing in lots of data sources can be prohibitive
  • Limited ability to format gauges and reports
  • Make MFA a requirement - this data is sensitive and giving the admin the ability to force MFA is a MUST!
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  • Formatting the data to work correctly in graphical presentations can be time consuming
  • Daily data extracts can run slowly depending on how much data is required and the source of the data
  • The desktop version is required for advanced functionality, editing on [the] Tableau server allows only limited features
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Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
Because right now its the best option out there (disclosure: I haven't used Qlikview or some of the other direct competitors of Tableau). The big investment is in Tableau Server not desktop. For the cost of the license of Tableau desktop, its a pretty good deal. You can hook it up to pretty much any data source easily. You can easily share the visualizations with your team/colleagues easily. Tableau Desktop is generally easy to use for business users. But the more advanced stuff is better suited for a analyst or someone with a IT/CS background.
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Usability
Usability is BrightGauge's strength. Granting the ability of virtually any user to be able to create a dashboard is incredibly valuable. If an organization very simple and straight forward reporting needs then BrightGauge is a perfect fit for them. Connecting to the dataset we used was very quick and easy and I imagine it would be the same for any major data source you would like to pull from.
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Tableau Desktop has proven to be a lifesaver in many situations. Once we've completed the initial setup, it's simple to use. It has all of the features we need to quickly and efficiently synthesize our data. Tableau Desktop has advanced capabilities to improve our company's data structure and enable self-service for our employees.
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Reliability and Availability
No answers on this topic
When used as a stand-alone tool, Tableau Desktop has unlimited uptime, which is always nice. When used in conjunction with Tableau Server, this tool has as much uptime as your server admins are willing to give it. All in all, I've never had an issue with Tableau's availability.
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Performance
No answers on this topic
Tableau Desktop's performance is solid. You can really dig into a large dataset in the form of a spreadsheet, and it exhibits similarly good performance when accessing a moderately sized Oracle database. I noticed that with Tableau Desktop 9.3, the performance using a spreadsheet started to slow around 75K rows by about 60 columns. This was easily remedied by creating an extract and pushing it to Tableau Server, where performance went to lightning fast
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Support Rating
We did not need to use BrightGauge's support for the entire time that we used it. Best support is always the one that isn't needed because nothing breaks.
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The Tableau Desktop's support team has been very helpful and tend to response very quickly. After all you have paid very premium price for the product and it goes to the services. This makes using the tool much easier for these who doesn't have such experience to get help quickly.
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In-Person Training
No answers on this topic
It is admittedly hard to train a group of people with disparate levels of ability coming in, but the software is so easy to use that this is not a huge problem; anyone who can follow simple instructions can catch up pretty quickly.
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Online Training
No answers on this topic
I think the training was good overall, but it was maybe stating the obvious things that a tech savvy young engineer would be able to pick up themselves too. However, the example work books were good and Tableau web community has helped me with many problems
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Implementation Rating
No answers on this topic
Time needs to be spent ahead of implementation to make sure data sources are set up and ready. Consultants need to understand the data sources and the goals before setting foot on-site. Installation is easy, learning to use it takes time. The training resources available are great.
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Alternatives Considered
I'm not aware of any other competitors to Bright Gauge that we selected. They seem to be very close to managed IT service providers and have been great at tailoring their support to the PSAs like ConnectWise, AutoTask, etc. I can see Bright Gauge getting more and more popular as time goes by
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Tableau Desktop is clearly one of the best in the business. It has incredible capabilities, and many features are extremely useful. The intuitiveness of the dashboards and the graphical nature of the visualizations are widely used features and super helpful. One of the other benefits is that both programmers and non-programmers can equally explore and create their own opportunities, and seamless integration is possible.
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Scalability
No answers on this topic
Tableau Desktop's scaleability is really limited to the scale of your back-end data systems. If you want to pull down an extract and work quickly in-memory, in my application it scaled to a few tens of millions of rows using the in-memory engine. But it's really only limited by your back-end data store if you have or are willing to invest in an optimized SQL store or purpose-built query engine like Veritca or Netezza or something similar.
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Return on Investment
  • Faster compilation of Business Review material
  • For larger customers, the dashboarding has helped our customers to remain sticky and add services/revenue to our MSP. They want to add more fragments of their IT for the 1 pane rollup.
  • From a leadership perspective, BG has allowed me to make difficult staffing decisions with confidence. Detailed metric driven decisions on who is hitting KPIs/who isn't - as well as when data proved we were overstaffed and understaffed.
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  • Easy to share and manage viewer access on a different level to help identify fraud.
  • Faster report generation, increased revenue, better decision-making, and data storytelling.
  • One-click access to business health and the ability to build/maintain more effective and efficient reports.
  • It's easy to share and even manage access to viewers on a different level, and reports are done in a more visual and storytelling manner.
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ScreenShots