Microsoft Power BI vs. Tableau Prep

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 Prep
Score 7.6 out of 10
N/A
Tableau Prep enables users to get to the analysis phase faster by helping them quickly combine, shape, and clean their data. According to the vendor, a direct and visual experience helps provide users with a deeper understanding of their data, smart features make data preparation simple, and integration with the Tableau analytical workflow allows for faster speed to insight. Tableau Prep allows users to connect to data on-premises or in the cloud, whether it’s a database or a…
$15
per month billed annually per user
Pricing
Microsoft Power BITableau Prep
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Viewer
$15
per month billed annually per user
Explorer
$42
per month billed annually per user
Creator
$70
per month billed annually per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft Power BITableau Prep
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 Prep
Features
Microsoft Power BITableau Prep
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 Prep
-
Ratings
Pixel Perfect reports8.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable dashboards10.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates8.00 Ratings00 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 Prep
-
Ratings
Drill-down analysis7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Formatting capabilities9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
8.6
Ratings
3% above category average
Tableau Prep
-
Ratings
Publish to Web8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Publish to PDF9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Versioning9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers9.00 Ratings00 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 Prep
-
Ratings
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Predictive Analytics9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining9.00 Ratings00 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 Prep
-
Ratings
Multi-User Support (named login)9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)10.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)8.30 Ratings00 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 Prep
-
Ratings
Responsive Design for Web Access8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Application7.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile7.70 Ratings00 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
8% above category average
Tableau Prep
-
Ratings
REST API8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Javascript API9.90 Ratings00 Ratings
iFrames8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Java API8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)8.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)8.40 Ratings00 Ratings
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Microsoft Power BITableau Prep
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Score 10.0 out of 10
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User Ratings
Microsoft Power BITableau Prep
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.9
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
5.3
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(0 ratings)
6.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Microsoft Power BITableau Prep
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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Tableau Prep is a very powerful tool when it comes to creating workflows to monitor each stage for data analysis and quality issues. Also, it is convenient to explore the data with the wealth of operators and checking work at each stage of the process. Also, some areas that would help is if there are more types of automation provided.
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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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  • Display the raw data coming in from the data warehouse
  • Point out situations that might be erroneous
  • Show the distribution of raw data figures
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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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  • Use of Macros within Workflow (and more types of automation)
  • Join Editor also giving a SQL Update Query
  • More types of visuals
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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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It is a valuable tool for generating and cleaning files for multiple purposes.
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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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It works well and is user friendly for the basics but needs more options for bring in data (using SQL queries for example) and export format options.
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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 not really had to reach out for any kind of customer support for Tableau Prep, so I can't really say. However, the support that Tableau has given for their other products has been great, so I would assume it would be the same here. They are also constantly adding new features and providing software updates, and that is always a plus.
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Implementation Rating
It was integrated with our erp easily and was accessible on cloud.
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Live connections to cloud services (Google Sheets for example) and cloud hosted databases (cloud hosted SIS for example) for scheduled flows are not supported
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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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Tableau Prep is covered in our license whereas Alteryx required additional fees and a separate license. Tableau Prep is similar to Tableau Desktop which a lot of our team is comfortable with so it wasn't difficult to get a feel for Tableau Prep. However, Alteryx would have been a totally new platform.
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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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  • Quicker data sets for online reports
  • More efficient data cleaning Ad Hoc reports
  • Costly if using data management to schedule data pull and cleaning (priced per viewer accounts not creator accounts)
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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