SAP Analytics Cloud vs. Tableau Desktop

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
SAP Analytics Cloud
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
The SAP Analytics Cloud solution brings together analytics and planning with integration to SAP applications and access to heterogenous data sources. As the analytics and planning solution within SAP Business Technology Platform, SAP Analytics Cloud supports trusted insights and integrated planning processes enterprise-wide to help make decisions without doubt.
$36
per month per user
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
Pricing
SAP Analytics CloudTableau Desktop
Editions & Modules
SAP Analytics Cloud for Business Intelligence
$36.00
per month per user
SAP Analytics Cloud for Planning
Price upon request
per month per user
Tableau
$75
per month per user
Tableau Enterprise
$115
per month per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
SAP Analytics CloudTableau Desktop
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsA 30-day trial with SAP Analytics Cloud is available, supporting analytics enterprise-wide. A trial can be extended up to 90 days on request.All pricing plans are billed annually.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
SAP Analytics CloudTableau Desktop
Considered Both Products
SAP Analytics Cloud
Chose SAP Analytics Cloud
SAC is a strong solution that offers a high degree of flexibility in its usage. The ability to incorporate excel type based logic and functionality, as well as a myriad of supported models makes SAC a solid choice. Other systems like BI and Tableau have better UI interfaces …
Chose SAP Analytics Cloud
SAP Analytics Cloud is competitive and has huge potential to get to the top. It should also learn from the market leaders in cloud and analytics, be it, AWS, GCP, Azure, Databricks, Tableau, etc., and should incorporate the missing features.
Chose SAP Analytics Cloud
Positives and negatives to both, Tableau is the best visually but not as strong on integration. Power Bi is very customization but is very ungoverned.
Chose SAP Analytics Cloud
SAC is a full-featured analytics platform, it offers AP, CPM and PA unlike Tableau which doesn’t encompass corporate performance management tools.
Chose SAP Analytics Cloud
SAP Analytics Cloud stacks better with SAP ERP and this has improved its workability and accuracy.
Chose SAP Analytics Cloud
It was a corporate decision that will serve all hubs in the world to gain scalability. Once a gain, one fits all.
Chose SAP Analytics Cloud
SAP Analytics Cloud has the largest user base in the manufacturing field because of its service.
Chose SAP Analytics Cloud
Single tool to have all built in capabilities of reporting, planning & prediction. Ease of usage to business users as no need to sign in on different tools for different kind of analytics. Easy integration with SAP Source systems for importing data. Natural Language Querying …
Chose SAP Analytics Cloud
SAC includes predictive analytics features, allowing users to perform advanced analytics and forecast future trends. This can be a valuable asset for organizations seeking predictive modeling capabilities.

It has an integration with the SAP landscape, seek a unified platform for …
Chose SAP Analytics Cloud
More integrated to our landscape SAP based
Chose SAP Analytics Cloud
I preferred SAC since it had a lot of tools unlike some alternatives which were missing some capabilities such as CPM on Ms Power BI.
Chose SAP Analytics Cloud
Easy integration with the ERP
Chose SAP Analytics Cloud
SAP Analytics Cloud has better visuals.
Chose SAP Analytics Cloud
End to end seamless integration with other SAP products in the eco system.
Chose SAP Analytics Cloud
It's very advanced as compared to any other software and its usability is effective with its data usage power to give effective results from that data as well as profitable from the company's perspective, and you can do work in clicks, which are mainly for data inputs, …
Chose SAP Analytics Cloud
Since we are IT software Selling organisation we need to review data of the deals that are closed new project coming so we can plan our resources. SAP Analytics helps us to analyse the data and plan our deals and projects. Obviously, there are manual decisions taken post …
Chose SAP Analytics Cloud
Firstly the support is much much better than the other platform used by me. The interactive and user-friendliness and also the fact it is a product from one of the leading software companies is a key reason to recommend this tool. The tool, I'm sure will evolve and be …
Chose SAP Analytics Cloud
As compared to Lumira and design studio SAC is installation free software which offers multiple features on cloud platform with live and import data conectivity features within one product.
Chose SAP Analytics Cloud
Similar visualization options, but SAP Analytics Cloud has better integration to SAP backend data.
Tableau Desktop
Chose Tableau Desktop
Well, Tableau has a nicer UI compared to Spotfire. But the main reason why Tableau stacked against the other was the pricing.
Features
SAP Analytics CloudTableau Desktop
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
SAP Analytics Cloud
8.0
247 Ratings
2% below category average
Tableau Desktop
8.3
167 Ratings
2% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports8.0204 Ratings8.8139 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.1242 Ratings8.4166 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates7.9220 Ratings7.8145 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
SAP Analytics Cloud
7.9
257 Ratings
2% below category average
Tableau Desktop
8.7
164 Ratings
8% above category average
Drill-down analysis8.1248 Ratings8.6159 Ratings
Formatting capabilities8.1245 Ratings9.2162 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages7.7190 Ratings7.7122 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration7.8235 Ratings9.3157 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
SAP Analytics Cloud
8.0
242 Ratings
4% below category average
Tableau Desktop
8.1
158 Ratings
2% below category average
Publish to Web8.0208 Ratings7.4149 Ratings
Publish to PDF8.3233 Ratings7.9149 Ratings
Report Versioning8.1202 Ratings8.2116 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling7.7194 Ratings9.2123 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings8.073 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
SAP Analytics Cloud
8.0
250 Ratings
0% above category average
Tableau Desktop
8.4
156 Ratings
5% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)7.7239 Ratings9.0154 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization7.7232 Ratings8.2149 Ratings
Predictive Analytics8.3236 Ratings8.6126 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining8.234 Ratings8.02 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
SAP Analytics Cloud
8.1
256 Ratings
5% below category average
Tableau Desktop
8.7
142 Ratings
3% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)8.1235 Ratings9.0139 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model8.1242 Ratings8.0119 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)7.8233 Ratings8.8129 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control8.145 Ratings9.03 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)8.5236 Ratings8.877 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
SAP Analytics Cloud
7.9
219 Ratings
0% above category average
Tableau Desktop
8.0
135 Ratings
1% above category average
Responsive Design for Web Access7.7208 Ratings8.2124 Ratings
Mobile Application7.6180 Ratings7.097 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile8.0203 Ratings8.8117 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
SAP Analytics Cloud
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
9.0
64 Ratings
14% above category average
REST API00 Ratings9.256 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings9.051 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings9.249 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings10.046 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings8.453 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings8.546 Ratings
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SAP Analytics CloudTableau Desktop
Small Businesses
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Score 9.0 out of 10
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Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
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Score 10.0 out of 10
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Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
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User Ratings
SAP Analytics CloudTableau Desktop
Likelihood to Recommend
8.2
(297 ratings)
8.7
(194 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.8
(7 ratings)
8.9
(39 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(219 ratings)
8.6
(63 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(10 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
6.1
(9 ratings)
Support Rating
5.6
(75 ratings)
7.0
(56 ratings)
In-Person Training
9.0
(1 ratings)
9.4
(4 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(4 ratings)
Implementation Rating
2.0
(6 ratings)
8.0
(34 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
8.1
(2 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(3 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
SAP Analytics CloudTableau Desktop
Likelihood to Recommend
SAP
SAP Analytics Cloud is great for big companies that want advanced data analysis and planning, especially when they need to work together in real-time or when people need to access data on their phones. It's like a super tool for predicting future trends in industries like retail or finance. SAC also works well for companies that use different types of computer systems because it can easily connect them. But, for small businesses that only need basic reports or don't have a lot of technical resources, a simpler tool might be better. If a company doesn't always have a good internet connection or if they're just starting with analytics, there might be other tools that work better.
Read full review
Tableau
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).
Read full review
Pros
SAP
  • It makes it easier yo analyse order and related records easily.
  • We can easily maintain and track the performance of employees in organisation.
  • Can easily track various aspects for the growth of an organisation thus allowing real time analysis and tracking of organisation's growth and performance.
Read full review
Tableau
  • An excellent tool for data visualization, it presents information in an appealing visual format—an exceptional platform for storing and analyzing data in any size organization.
  • Through interactive parameters, it enables real-time interaction with the user and is easy to learn and get support from the community.
Read full review
Cons
SAP
  • Complexity in Data Modeling
  • SAC supports various data sources, but improvements in the ease of connecting to and integrating with certain data repositories, especially non-SAP databases, would enhance the platform's versatility and integration capabilities.
  • An offline mode for SAC could be valuable for users who need to access and analyze data without an internet connection. Additionally, optimizing performance for large datasets and complex visualizations would contribute to a smoother user experience.
Read full review
Tableau
  • Pricing should be more user-friendly and usage-driven
  • Making edits to the production reports is fairly tough and has a vast scope of additional capabilities
  • Tableau Desktop should be able to differentiate itself from the Tableau server else there is no major meaning of two different products being offered
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
SAP
There’s no doubt I will renew SAP Analytics Cloud. It is the most vital tool in our organization that makes it seamless to make rapid business decisions by collecting, modeling and visualizing data in real-time.
Read full review
Tableau
Our use of Tableau Desktop is still fairly low, and will continue over time. The only real concern is around cost of the licenses, and I have mentioned this to Tableau and fully expect the development of more sensible models for our industry. This will remove any impediment to expansion of our use.
Read full review
Usability
SAP
On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate 8 SAP Analytics Cloud's overall usability as a 7. SAC has a clean, modern user interface with drag-and-drop features. It is an integrated platform that combines reporting, planning, and predictive analytics in one tool. It has Real-time connectivity with SAP data sources like S/4HANA.


Self-service analytics capabilities allow non-technical users to build simple dashboards.
Read full review
Tableau
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.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
SAP
I would rate SAP Analytics Cloud an 8 out of 10 for scalability. It offers a flexible, cloud-based architecture that supports expansion across departments and geographies. The platform adapts well to growing data volumes and user needs, making it a strong choice for organizations looking to scale analytics capabilities efficiently.
Read full review
Tableau
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
SAP
I would rate SAP Analytics Cloud’s performance an 8 out of 10. Pages generally load quickly, and reports run within a reasonable time frame, even with complex datasets. Integration with other systems is smooth and doesn’t noticeably affect performance. Overall, it’s a responsive and efficient tool for business analytics. But
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Tableau
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
SAP
Since the implementation stage, the support team has been very helpful and assisting. Even in the later stages, the tech team had quite a rapid response. In general, SAP has provided us with great customer support, let it be for a specific product of SAP or for integration of different modules.
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Tableau
Tableau support has been extremely responsive and willing to help with all of our requests. They have assisted with creating advanced analysis and many different types of custom icons, data formatting, formulas, and actions embedded into graphs. Tableau offers a weekly presentation of features and assists with internal company projects.
Read full review
In-Person Training
SAP
Good videos and reference material available in SAP Portal.
Read full review
Tableau
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.
Read full review
Online Training
SAP
it's ok
Read full review
Tableau
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
Read full review
Implementation Rating
SAP
SAC is a simple solution ad it works fine when connecting it to other SAP tools. On the other hand, connecting it to third party solutions brings difficulties when there's no previous design and the objetives are not clear. It is really important to integrate Business users from the start to provide with valuable business insights
Read full review
Tableau
Again, training is the key and the company provides a lot of example videos that will help users discover use cases that will greatly assist their creation of original visualizations. As with any new software tool, productivity will decline for a period. In the case of Tableau, the decline period is short and the later gains are well worth it.
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Alternatives Considered
SAP
SAP Analytics Cloud vs. Microsoft Power BI:Cost: Power BI is often perceived as a cost-effective solution, especially for organizations already using Microsoft products. SAP Analytics Cloud might be seen as a higher-cost option.Integration: SAP Analytics Cloud may have an edge in integration with SAP systems, while Power BI is known for its broad integration capabilities, including seamless integration with other Microsoft tools.Usability: Power BI is often praised for its user-friendly interface and quick adoption, while SAP Analytics Cloud may be seen as offering more advanced features.
Read full review
Tableau
I have used Power BI as well, the pricing is better, and also training costs or certifications are not that high. Since there is python integration in Power BI where I can use data cleaning and visualizing libraries and also some machine learning models. I can import my python scripts and create a visualization on processed data.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
SAP
unit pricing
Read full review
Tableau
No answers on this topic
Scalability
SAP
I would rate SAP Analytics Cloud an 8 out of 10 for scalability. It offers a flexible, cloud-based architecture that supports expansion across departments and geographies. The platform adapts well to growing data volumes and user needs, making it a strong choice for organizations looking to scale analytics capabilities efficiently.
Read full review
Tableau
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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Professional Services
SAP
very simple
Read full review
Tableau
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
SAP
  • Many manual data manipulations and exports in Excel have been replaced by the tool, providing management with improved insight into the amount of time spent at each stage of an invoice's lifetime, allowing bottlenecks to be discovered.
  • We now have more insight into the data, and people with little technical experience can easily build stories.
Read full review
Tableau
  • Tableau was acquired years ago, and has provided good value with the content created.
  • Ongoing maintenance costs for the platform, both to maintain desktop and server licensing has made the continuing value questionable when compared to other offerings in the marketplace.
  • Users have largely been satisfied with the content, but not with the overall performance. This is due to a combination of factors including the performance of the Tableau engines as well as development deficiencies.
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ScreenShots