SAP Analytics Cloud vs. Tableau Server

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
SAP Analytics Cloud
Score 7.8 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 Server
Score 7.6 out of 10
N/A
Tableau Server allows Tableau Desktop users to publish dashboards to a central server to be shared across their organizations. The product is designed to facilitate collaboration across the organization. It can be deployed on a server in the data center, or it can be deployed on a public cloud.
$12
Per User Per Month
Pricing
SAP Analytics CloudTableau Server
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
Viewer
$12.00
Per User Per Month
Explorer
$35.00
Per User Per Month
Creator
$70.00
Per User Per Month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
SAP Analytics CloudTableau Server
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
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.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
SAP Analytics CloudTableau Server
Features
SAP Analytics CloudTableau Server
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
SAP Analytics Cloud
8.0
Ratings
2% below category average
Tableau Server
9.5
Ratings
15% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports8.00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.10 Ratings9.70 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates7.90 Ratings9.70 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
SAP Analytics Cloud
7.9
Ratings
2% below category average
Tableau Server
9.1
Ratings
12% above category average
Drill-down analysis8.10 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Formatting capabilities8.10 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages7.70 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration7.80 Ratings9.80 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
SAP Analytics Cloud
8.0
Ratings
4% below category average
Tableau Server
8.4
Ratings
1% above category average
Publish to Web8.00 Ratings9.80 Ratings
Publish to PDF8.40 Ratings9.70 Ratings
Report Versioning8.10 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling7.70 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
SAP Analytics Cloud
8.0
Ratings
0% above category average
Tableau Server
8.7
Ratings
9% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)7.70 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization7.70 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Predictive Analytics8.30 Ratings8.50 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
SAP Analytics Cloud
8.1
Ratings
5% below category average
Tableau Server
8.3
Ratings
2% below category average
Multi-User Support (named login)8.10 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model8.10 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)7.80 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)8.50 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
SAP Analytics Cloud
7.9
Ratings
0% above category average
Tableau Server
8.4
Ratings
6% above category average
Responsive Design for Web Access7.70 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Mobile Application7.50 Ratings8.10 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile8.00 Ratings9.00 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 Server
7.2
Ratings
8% below category average
REST API00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings5.50 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings6.10 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings4.60 Ratings
Best Alternatives
SAP Analytics CloudTableau Server
Small Businesses
BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 9.1 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
SAP Analytics CloudTableau Server
Likelihood to Recommend
8.2
(0 ratings)
8.1
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.8
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(0 ratings)
5.2
(0 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.1
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
5.6
(0 ratings)
3.0
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
9.0
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
2.0
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
SAP Analytics CloudTableau Server
Likelihood to Recommend
SAP Ecosystem Integration:For businesses already using other SAP solutions such as SAP BW or SAP HANA, SAP Analytics Cloud is a natural fit. It integrates well with the broader SAP ecosystem, providing a cohesive analytics experience for users familiar with SAP technologies.Predictive Analytics Use Cases:Companies seeking to incorporate predictive analytics into their decision-making processes can leverage SAP Analytics Cloud. Its built-in predictive features enable users to create models and gain insights into future trends based on historical data.
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Tableau Server is well suited for a data warehouse build and handling big data. Tableau data aggregation, transformation, clustering capability is powerful and easy to implement. The choice of charts and visualisation tools is outstanding. Customisation and dynamic data visualisation capability is superb. The user interface takes some time getting used to.
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Pros
  • 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.
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  • It's good at doing what it is designed for: accessing visualizations without having to download and open a workbook in Tableau Desktop. The latter would be a very inefficient method for sharing our metrics, so I am glad that we have Tableau Server to serve this function.
  • Publishing to Tableau Server is quick and easy. Just a few clicks from Tableau Desktop and a few seconds of publishing through an average speed network, and the new visualizations are live!
  • Seeing details on who has viewed the visualization and when. This is something particularly useful to me for trying to drive adoption of some new pages, so I really appreciate the granularity provided in Tableau Server
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Cons
  • Possibility of more advanced scripting for data transformation without analytics designer
  • Provision to consider rate types from TCURR in SAC and should be able to write FX conversion logic considering rate types
  • Read data directly from BW by reading aDSOs backend tables
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  • While it took little time for our data analysts to crank out visualizations, it did take some time(longer than I expected) for our technology operations team to configure the server to share the sizes.
  • The server update process is rather cumbersome -- requires a full uninstall/re-install.
  • Again, while it took our data analysts next to no time to start creating, I've been in other organizations that have struggled with the feature-rich interface and complexity of the Tableau client. So, it requires the right personnel, with dedicated time, to fully leverage the tool.
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Likelihood to Renew
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.
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It simply is used all the time by more and more people. Migrating to something else would involve lots of work and lots of training. The renewal fee being fair, it simply isn't worth migrating to a different tool for now.
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Usability
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.
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User experience is the most important factor to consider whenever considering capabilities for non-technical business users. If the learning curve is so steep business users must be advanced users to be productive, you hit the wall of diminishing returns, this is exceptionally true when it comes to analyzing data. Transforming data analysts into BI development experts shifts the focus of the analyst from analyzing data to mastering software. Tableau does a masterful job at minimizing the technology and maximizing the users understanding of their data.
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Reliability and Availability
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.
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Our instance of Tableau Server was hosted on premises (I believe all instances are) so if there were any outages it was normally due to scheduled maintenance on our end. If the Tableau server ever went down, a quick restart solved most issues
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Performance
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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While there are definitely cases where a user can do things that will make a particular worksheet or dashboard run slowly, overall the performance is extremely fast. The user experience of exploratory analysis particularly shines, there's nothing out there with the polish of Tableau.
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Support Rating
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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I think the folks that work in support are generally pretty good at what they do (when you get them on a WebEx). But the process of reporting issues to them and waiting for a response (via email only) is a hassle. I never understood why you can't just call them up and discuss the issues with them. It would take a handful of email exchanges before they would agree to a WebEx session. That was frustrating.
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In-Person Training
Good videos and reference material available in SAP Portal.
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In our case, they hired a private third party consultant to train our dept. It was extremely boring and felt like it dragged on. Everything I learned was self taught so I was not really paying attention. But I do think that you can easily spend a week on the tool and go over every nook and cranny. We only had the consultant in for a day or two.
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Online Training
it's ok
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The sales consultants do an amazing job of introducing the tool and its capabilities. They are also helpful in explaining the layout of the desktop client and its different functionality. Keep in mind that they use a sample data source (MS Excel) with a very small amount of data to show off what it can do. What you have to remember is that you are buying the tool so that you can connect to large amounts of data (and possibly blend data together from different databases).
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Implementation Rating
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
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Implementation was over the phone with the vendor, and did not go particularly well. Again, think this was our fault as our integration and IT oversight was poor, and we made errors. Would they have happened had a vendor been onsite? Not sure, probably not, but we probably wouldn't have paid for that either
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Alternatives Considered
SAP Analytics Cloud and Power BI are both tools that help businesses understand their data, but they have some differences. SAC, made by SAP, works well if your company already uses other SAP products. It's in the cloud, easy to use, and has features for analyzing data, getting insights, and planning for the future. Power BI, made by Microsoft, can be used in the cloud or on your own computers. It fits well with Microsoft tools, is easy to use, and can do advanced data analysis. SAC has built-in planning tools, while Power BI needs extra tools for detailed planning
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Looker and Tableau are quite similar products. I think Tableau's ability to view data visually is more comprehensive. The different breakdowns in UTM level versus first touch and last touch are shown in a visual format, making it much easier to view and interpret the results. Tableau also has faster load times compared to Looker for larger datasets.
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Scalability
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.
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Return on Investment
  • Optimized our budgeting and forecasting processes. The platform facilitates real-time collaboration among our teams, allowing for more accurate and agile financial planning. This has led to improved precision in budget allocation, ensuring that resources are strategically deployed to support the most promising startups within our portfolio.
  • SAC's intuitive dashboards and visualizations provide a consolidated view of key performance indicators, startup health metrics, and portfolio analytics. This heightened data visibility enables our teams to make informed decisions promptly, identify emerging trends, and proactively address challenges.
  • Routine tasks, such as performance tracking and reporting, are automated, allowing our teams to focus on more strategic initiatives. This has resulted in time savings and increased productivity across various operational processes.
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  • Tableau Server has had a huge positive impact. It has allowed us to quickly distribute complex dashboards across the company
  • Tableau Server has allowed us to easily manage our entire employee base at the company and control the dashboards they view and interact with
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ScreenShots

Tableau Server Screenshots

Screenshot of Tableau Server interface and administration view 1.Screenshot of Tableau Server interface and administration view 2.Screenshot of Tableau Server permissions view.Screenshot of Tableau Services Manager (TSM) view 1.Screenshot of Tableau Services Manager (TSM) view 2.