Microsoft Power BI vs. Tableau Cloud

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Microsoft Power BI
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Power BI is a visualization and data discovery tool from Microsoft. It allows users to convert data into visuals and graphics, visually explore and analyze data, collaborate on interactive dashboards and reports, and scale across their organization with built-in governance and security.N/A
Tableau Cloud
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
Tableau Cloud (formerly Tableau Online) is a self-service analytics platform that is fully hosted in the cloud. Tableau Cloud enables users to publish dashboards and invite colleagues to explore hidden opportunities with interactive visualizations and accurate data, from any browser or mobile device.
$15
per month billed annually per user
Pricing
Microsoft Power BITableau Cloud
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Tableau Viewer
$15
per month billed annually per user
Enterprise Viewer
$35
per month billed annually per user
Tableau Explorer
$42
per month billed annually per user
Enterprise Explorer
$70
per month billed annually per user
Tableau Creator
$75
per month billed annually per user
Enterprise Creator
$115
per month billed annually per user
Tableau+
Contact Sales
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft Power BITableau Cloud
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Microsoft Power BITableau Cloud
Features
Microsoft Power BITableau Cloud
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
8.8
Ratings
8% above category average
Tableau Cloud
7.0
Ratings
15% below category average
Pixel Perfect reports8.50 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Customizable dashboards10.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates8.00 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
8.2
Ratings
2% above category average
Tableau Cloud
6.9
Ratings
15% below category average
Drill-down analysis7.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Formatting capabilities8.90 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages8.00 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration9.00 Ratings7.50 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
8.6
Ratings
4% above category average
Tableau Cloud
7.1
Ratings
16% below category average
Publish to Web8.00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Publish to PDF9.00 Ratings7.50 Ratings
Report Versioning9.00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling8.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers9.00 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
8.7
Ratings
9% above category average
Tableau Cloud
6.8
Ratings
16% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)9.00 Ratings7.50 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.00 Ratings6.50 Ratings
Predictive Analytics9.00 Ratings6.50 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining9.00 Ratings6.50 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
8.6
Ratings
1% above category average
Tableau Cloud
7.0
Ratings
19% below category average
Multi-User Support (named login)9.00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model9.00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)10.00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control7.00 Ratings6.50 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)8.30 Ratings7.50 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
8.0
Ratings
2% above category average
Tableau Cloud
6.4
Ratings
21% below category average
Responsive Design for Web Access8.00 Ratings5.50 Ratings
Mobile Application7.70 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile7.70 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
8.4
Ratings
7% above category average
Tableau Cloud
6.4
Ratings
20% below category average
REST API8.00 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Javascript API9.90 Ratings6.50 Ratings
iFrames8.00 Ratings6.50 Ratings
Java API8.00 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)8.10 Ratings6.50 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)8.40 Ratings7.00 Ratings
User Ratings
Microsoft Power BITableau Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.7
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Microsoft Power BITableau Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft Power BI is great for sales tracking, financial reporting, and real-time operations monitoring. It integrates data from multiple sources, creating interactive dashboards for better decision-making. However, it's less ideal for real-time big data processing, offline access, or when deep customization is needed. It works best for structured reporting but struggles with highly complex data models.
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If you're using Tableau as the primary BI tool, then Tableau Cloud is well suited to publish and share the results with a wide(r) audience. It is well suited for various degrees of self-service proficiency, from pure consumers of analytical work to more advanced users who can use web editing for smaller or larger adjustments, and even for desktop power users who will publish their work to Tableau Cloud. It has many good ways to organize the content and make it easily accessible via search, favorites, folders, collections ("playlists for your data"), or history ("recents"). It might not be ideally suited if there are many on-prem sources to be used (even though there are options to connect them) or if you have very special requirements regarding custom server setup, which is limited in a shared cloud environment like Tableau Cloud.
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Pros
  • It is great at taking in large amounts of data and housing it all.
  • Microsoft Power BI is so user friendly and it's dashboards are very easy on the eye.
  • The ease of sharing dashboards makes it great for use across a large company.
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  • Tableau Online is completely cloud based and that's why the reports and dashboards are accessible even on the go. One doesn't always need to access the office laptop to access the reports.
  • The visualizations are interactive and one can quickly change the level at which they want to view the information. For example, one person might be more interested in looking at the country level performances rather than client level. This is intuitive and one doesn't need to create multiple reports for the same.
  • The feature to ask questions in plain vanilla English language is great and helpful. For quick adhoc fact checks one can simply type what they are looking for and the Natural Language Programming algorithms under the hood parse the query, interpret it and then fetch the results accordingly in a visual form.
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Cons
  • It would be easier for users could Microsoft Power BI and Excel used the same programming languages.
  • Would like to see the online version of Microsoft Power BI be as powerful as the desktop version.
  • Publishing a Microsoft Power BI file online and then having to save the file is somewhat redundant.
  • Would like to export each page or chart as an image.
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  • Can be a steep learning curve for new users
  • Modeling and building algorithms aren't always intuitive and take some testing/retesting to ensure it's working as it should
  • Inability to integrate easily with our HRIS platform. Reports are pulled from HRIS at various intervals and uploaded into Tableau
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Likelihood to Renew
Microsoft Power BI is an excellent and scalable tool. It has a learning curve, but once you get past that, the sky is the limit and you can build from the most simple to the most complex dashboards. I have built everything from simple reports with only a few data points to complex reports with many pages and advanced filtering.
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The tool's capacity to handle complex data sources.
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Usability
Takes a little bit to get used to it. Not natively intuitive but fairly straight forward to pick up. Also docking it a few points because you can create a really clean, simple UI in Claude very quickly that's faster than building all of this yourself in Microsoft Power BI.
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From an end user perspective Tableau Online is overall very easy to navigate once you get used to it, my only complaint is that when expanding or contracting a graph, the "plus" and "minus" on the bottom left is sometimes hidden, and should always be visible. From a builder perspective, it can take some getting used to but the sheer depth of customization makes it all worthwhile.
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Support Rating
It is a fantastic tool, you can do almost everything related with data and reports, it is a perfect substitutive of Power Point and Excel with a high evolution and flexibility, and also it is very friendly and easy to share. I think all companies should have Power BI (or other BI tool) in their software package and if they are in the MS Suite, for sure Power BI should be the one due to all the benefits of the MS ecosystem.
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I have no had a lot of experience with the support team, but I know that it’s hardly necessary for the end-user to contact. Usually, the main questions I get are on how to read a certain dashboard or how to navigate to a certain place. Overall, the simplicity of the software is what helps out with less need for support.
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Implementation Rating
It was integrated with our erp easily and was accessible on cloud.
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I wasn't part of the implementation team
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Alternatives Considered
All others apps are enablers and Microsoft Power BI is the visual that end user sees which often adds more value to the end user to make strategic decisions from this. All are equally great but Microsoft Power BI is the end result
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When weighing the pros and cons of Tableau Online vs. SAP ERP, two key considerations emerged as clear winners. SAP ERP is a powerful data purification tool, but it doesn't measure up to the competition in terms of data presentation. When it came to data visualization and analytics, Tableau was our go-to tool. The price is the second consideration. Tableau, on the other hand, was the more cost-effective option for our requirements.
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Return on Investment
  • We're still early in the adoption process at this company, but we've illustrated how bad data keeps us from being more productive. ~25% of a team's work week was dedicated to effectively cleaning up entries, but it was always seen as a normal to them.
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  • No need to hire a team of developers to deliver our product, a huge cost savings for a start up company.
  • The ability to work off data extracts allows us to "set in and forget it" so to speak, which allows our customers to use the system during business hours with almost no cost in terms of database usage.
  • It has been a great internal tool for dashboarding company metrics and helping us track goals and implement solutions to meet those goals through efficient data analysis.
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ScreenShots

Microsoft Power BI Screenshots

Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Turns insights into impact for business usersScreenshot of Power BI integrates easily with Microsoft 365Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - AI-Powered CapabilitiesScreenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Copilot can be used to create reportsScreenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Data HubScreenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Scales as organizational needs grow