Sisense vs Tableau comparison

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Sisense Logo
1,020 views|908 comparisons
95% willing to recommend
Tableau Logo
7,020 views|5,931 comparisons
89% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Sisense and Tableau based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Embedded BI solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Sisense vs. Tableau Report (Updated: March 2024).
767,319 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Q&A Highlights
Question: I'm looking for real info about licensing, ease of setup and other costs involved. Can you help?
Answer: Thanks everyone for the great input... I have zeroed down to Tableau; and will shortly post my reasons for doing so. I DO hope they will help future products selectors. Regards pete
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The solution's technical support team is good.""The most valuable thing I have found is the ability for Sisense to connect data from totally different sources.""Allows us to execute heavy, complex computations on the fly so customers can slice and dice the data based on their business needs.""Ability to work with very large data sources without the limitations of Excel.""Whenever we have an issue or are unsure how to proceed, they manage to simplify the issue and help us execute it in a graceful and scalable way.""The dashboard design interface is very intuitive and allows you to quickly and easily produce professional, innovative dashboards.""No issues with stability. It is a very stable solution.""The best part about this solution is how easy it is to mash up the data from many sources. Sisense is fast compared to other solutions."

More Sisense Pros →

"Tableau is easy to use compared to some other solutions, such as Excel.""The solution helps users create dashboards and analyze data without relying on IT or product teams.""The initial setup is quick and easy and you don't need special outside assistance to set everything up.""Compared to other products, visualization features are really good.""The ease of presenting findings is very helpful.""Good data flow and management.""Any feature I am looking for usually is part of the next upgrade within a few months. They have a very good dynamic evolution.""It has made the reporting stage simple and enabled us to focus mainly on the ETL part"

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Cons
"They should improve the filters to create downloaded data by moving them to the top of the dashboard.""Larger datasets will sometimes give a "Accumulated logs" error when trying to make minor changes. T""I would like to see more development and growth for the support of Knowledge Base and Community forums.""At present there are additional costs involved if we wish to share our data queues within this solution, which we would like to see removed.""The administrative side of Sisense is a little cumbersome and confusing.""This solution does not have tabs. In order to have tabs, you have to download an add-on to mimic the tabs. They should be integrated to improve the solution.""I would love to have more customization capabilities for building dashboards, especially in creating custom widget sizes.""I would also like to be able to run a bursts of reports based on different field values with PDF output right in the tool, rather than filtering on each field value and generating each PDF manually."

More Sisense Cons →

"Requires a lot of user training.""When it comes to visualizations, Tableau has a limitation as compared to Power BI. It has a limited set of visualizations. Power BI has the entire marketplace, so you can connect and import many visualizations and use them, whereas Tableau has only 10 or 15 visualizations. There should be more visualizations, and there should also be data integration with more cloud providers.""The customization requires a lot of effort and should be simplified. The performance could be better.""It is not so great when it comes to data exchange/integration, data mining, etc.""I would like to be able to set the parameters in a more specific manner.""People are migrating to Microsoft BI due to the speed, which is quite slow to load, and the lack of visualization options.""They need to improve the icons and the filters, because they look too old, resembling Excel from 1997.""Provide additional enhancements in any business process: Operations, Marketing and Sales, Finance, Human Resources, Logistics, etc."

More Tableau Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "This solution is more expensive than Tableau, Qlik and Dundas. It is an expensive tool. They charge $75,000 while Tableau is $45,000."
  • More Sisense Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "For big business, Tableau could be expensive as having a lot of Tableau server users (entering with a browser to reports) could be a bit expensive."
  • "Best advice on pricing is to anticipate the desire for more licenses once the results of this product are acknowledged in other parts of your company."
  • "Paying for users you never setup or buying expensive desktop licenses for users who can solve their users with web editing on the server are the two biggest expenses."
  • "Buy 50 at a time. Project your use base every three months, and project your requirements forward."
  • "Tableau can be costly (but this can be indefinable, such as user experience vs. cheaper etc.)"
  • "I wish there was more of a subscription model with the pricing when it comes to Tableau, so you can get all the latest version upgrades/features if you pay monthly/annually."
  • "The cost is high."
  • "Deployment of dashboards to viewers and unit supervisors can be prohibitively expensive."
  • More Tableau Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Comparison Review
    Anonymous User
    After a recent presentation, several attendees asked me about the applications of Visual Insights and Tableau. Many companies are investing in both tools and are trying to figure out the right tool for specific applications Tableau has found its sweet-spot as an agile discovery tool that analysts use to create and share insights. It is also the tool of choice for rapid prototyping of dashboards. Tableau is very flexible with its data import. Tableau's data blending capability is very intuitive. This capability is useful when you have data spread across several different sources that has not gone through ETL processes. This is a problem analysts deal with routinely. They are unable to wait for the data warehouse team to develop ETL processes to provide the physical models they need to build an analysis. The Tableau interface is Excel-like and has a low barrier to entry for analysts that are used to working in Excel. Building a dashboard by mashing up visualizations in a Tableau worksheet is extremely simple. Users are able to build good presentation-quality dashboards in a very short amount time. Tableau's annotations capabilities and its time and geographical intelligence are key differentiators. Tableau has overcome limitations in data sharing with the introduction of a Data Server in Tableau 7.0. The Data server allows Data sources and extracts to be shared securely and opens up interesting new possibilities. If your application can take advantage of the above… Read more →
    Answers from the Community
    Anonymous User
    it_user73638 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user73638 (Architect)
    Vendor

    I was in the same boat. Sisense said if you have any single table of more than half a billion rows, its big data and costs are 25k plus for server version. Though Sisense said they would offer discount later, I was put of by their price for 10 licenses. Tableau scored better when we try to weight average the features for our requirements.

    it_user137202 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user137202 (Business Analyst at a tech services company with 51-200 employees)
    Consultant

    Dear Peter,

    Your analysis is so ever helpful. The imaginary TCO as broken down is quite helpful too. Will definitely incorporate your insights into my final analysis.

    Thank you.

    it_user109818 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user109818 (Owner at a tech consulting company)
    Consultant

    I work with a competing product, QlikView, but the rules are similar. Tableau and QlikView are 1 and 2 respectively in the Gartner Leadership quadrant and are similar in design, hence my answering specific issues as follows:

    Licensing costs are normally your outright purchase plus 20% for annual maintenance, and then 20% of the purchase price going forward. There should be nothing "hidden" in the licensing costs.

    Where you do have the potential to have cost creep is with the models required. It is obviously not feasible to put all information for all areas of a company in a single model, so what you might find is that as the product gains traction in the organisation, more models are required. to use an example:

    You buy a Small Business edition with 10 license at $20,000 incl 1st year maintenance. Year two will cost you $4,000 assuming no price increase.

    You have one model created at $8,000. Then you need a 2nd, third, and 4th to cater for different needs. All of a sudden you have spent R20,000 on the licenses and $32,000 on models. There is some backwards compatibility with new versions, but assume maintenance on those models of $2,000 per model in say year three. Year three then costs you $4,000 annual maintenance plus $8,000 model maintenance.

    Next scenario, the data source - lets say an ERP or Accounting system, releases a major upgrade. fields are changed, and you need to do changes on all your models another = $8,000. the key then is to try to ensure you align both source and BI software upgrades to minimise costs.

    Obviously each implementation is different, and these numbers tend towards a worst case scenario, but have occurred with many companies.

    My final thought though is you mustn't be focused solely on the costs. You are using BI because it adds value to the business either through increased profit margins or reduced costs - either of which should cover the BI costs many times over.

    it_user133629 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user133629 (Works)
    Vendor

    We are using Tableau and satisfying our more than 250 clients. Its easy to handle & strong product in the manner of BI.

    it_user120558 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user120558 (Head of Data Analytics at a hospitality company)
    Vendor

    Regarding Tableau 

    There are 2 versions of the software Desktop and Server 

    The Desktop version may be licensed in Europe at 1600 euro per seat and the server has an initial cost of 6250 euro for 10 seats , after the initial 10 seats the server licences are 625 euro per seat 

    Desktop provides a full blown analysis and design and visualisation capability for analysts 
    Server provides report and dashboard scheduling and distribution capabilities and allows visualisations created in desktop to be shared in a web portal.

    Most organisations require both types of licence and to understand  the best fit for your organisation means that you should understand the needs of your business and analytical users.

    You can obtain a trial licence for 14 days form the tableau website that will enable you to evaluate the capabilities of the product. 

    Regarding training, lots of online training resources are available on the tableau website and it is a very intuitive tool and so IU would highly recommend hat you give it a try before you buy. 

    I hope that this helps

    Kind Regards
    Andrew McSwiggan

    it_user91872 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user91872 (Senior HR Analyst at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees)
    Real User

    I'm in the middle of a Tableau implementation going from desktop to server. It's a great product and our team went through a review of several products for about 8 months before deciding on this one. Very easy to install and use. We conducted an end-user test with one of our managers who is not very tech savvy. With outlined tasks he was able to complete all tasks in independent visuals with limited support in about 20 minutes. In 10 additional minutes was able to gather those visuals into a dynamic dashboard. The R site integration was perfect for our I/O analysts to conduct predictive analysis. If the start up company ends up moving this from desktop to server the costs are low in comparison to the other options out there. No signs of upcharging and costs are spelled out clearly in their quotes. Good luck with your selection process!

    it_user136791 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user136791 (CRM Manager at a marketing services firm with 51-200 employees)
    Vendor

    I forgot to mention-
    Tableau Desktop Installs by clicking setup.exe - very easy and fast. To show your already made visualization you can use Tableau Reader - it is free of charge - http://www.tableausoftware.com/products/reader
    To publish your visualization you can use Tableau Server ($999 per user, but at first you should buy license for 10 user min) or Tableau Online - it is cloud service by Tableau - $500 per year per user.

    it_user136791 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user136791 (CRM Manager at a marketing services firm with 51-200 employees)
    Vendor

    Hi, Tableau Desktop - $1999. You can use one license key for two PCs. Your PCs, I think, should have 4 CPU and 8 Gb ROM for feeling you comfortable during working with Tableau Desktop. About trainings - a lot of free online training sessions. Also they have online trainings from $200 to $600 depends on level (you will get a certificate:)). Classroom - $1390 - http://www.tableausoftware.com/learn/training

    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The solution's technical support team is good.
    Top Answer:Sisense is good in terms of visualization, but it has some drawbacks. For example, it doesn't have any way to sort or filter tables directly on the server side. Also, you can't have multiple tabs; it… more »
    Top Answer:We use the solution to centralize all processes.
    Top Answer:It depends on the Data architecture and the complexity of your requirement Some great tools in the market are Qlik Sense, Power BI, OBIEE, Tableau, etc. I have recently started using Cognos… more »
    Top Answer:Both tools have their positives and negatives. First, I should mention that I am relatively new to Tableau. I have been working on and off Tableau for about a year, but getting to work on it… more »
    Top Answer:Tableau is easy to set up and maintain. In about a day it is possible for the entire platform to be deployed for use. This relatively short amount of time can make all the difference for companies… more »
    Ranking
    9th
    out of 31 in Embedded BI
    Views
    1,020
    Comparisons
    908
    Reviews
    5
    Average Words per Review
    373
    Rating
    7.4
    1st
    out of 31 in Embedded BI
    Views
    7,020
    Comparisons
    5,931
    Reviews
    14
    Average Words per Review
    534
    Rating
    8.5
    Comparisons
    Microsoft Power BI logo
    Compared 39% of the time.
    Apache Superset logo
    Compared 10% of the time.
    Qlik Sense logo
    Compared 5% of the time.
    Amazon QuickSight logo
    Compared 4% of the time.
    QlikView logo
    Compared 2% of the time.
    Microsoft Power BI logo
    Compared 17% of the time.
    Amazon QuickSight logo
    Compared 10% of the time.
    Domo logo
    Compared 8% of the time.
    SAS Visual Analytics logo
    Compared 5% of the time.
    Databricks logo
    Compared 4% of the time.
    Also Known As
    Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online
    Learn More
    Overview

    Sisense is an end-to-end business analytics software that enables users to easily prepare and analyze large, complex datasets. Sisense’s Single-Stack BI software includes data preparation, data management, analysis, visualization and reporting capabilities.

    Tableau is a tool for data visualization and business intelligence that allows businesses to report insights through easy-to-use, customizable visualizations and dashboards. Tableau makes it exceedingly simple for its customers to organize, manage, visualize, and comprehend data. It enables users to dig deep into the data so that they can see patterns and gain meaningful insights. 

    Make data-driven decisions with confidence thanks to Tableau’s assistance in providing faster answers to queries, solving harder problems more easily, and offering new insights more frequently. Tableau integrates directly to hundreds of data sources, both in the cloud and on premises, making it simpler to begin research. People of various skill levels can quickly find actionable information using Tableau’s natural language queries, interactive dashboards, and drag-and-drop capabilities. By quickly creating strong calculations, adding trend lines to examine statistical summaries, or clustering data to identify relationships, users can ask more in-depth inquiries.

    Tableau has many valuable key features:

    • Tableau dashboards provide a complete view of your data through visualizations, visual objects, text, and more.
    • Tableau provides convenient, real-time options to collaborate with other users and instantly share data in the form of visualizations, sheets, and dashboards. 
    • Tableau ensures connectivity to both live data sources and data extraction from external data sources as in-memory data. This gives users the flexibility to use data from more than one source without any restrictions. 
    • Tableau gives many data source option, ranging from spreadsheets, big data, on-premise files, relational databases, non-relational databases, data warehouses, and big data, to on-cloud data. 
    • Tableau has a lot of pre-installed information on maps, such as cities, postal codes, and administrative boundaries. 
    • Tableau has a foolproof security system based on authentication and permission systems for data connections and user access. Tableau also gives you the freedom to integrate with other security protocols.

    Tableau stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Some of these include its fast data access, easy creation of visualizations, and its stability. PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features in their reviews:

    Romil S., Deputy General Manager of IT at Nayara Energy, notes, "Its visualizations are good, and its features make the development process a little less time-consuming. It has an in-memory extract feature that allows us to extract data and keep it on the server, and then our users can use it quickly.

    Ariful M., Consulting Practice Partner of Data, Analytics & AI at FH, writes, “Tableau is very flexible and easy to learn. It has drag-and-drop function analytics, and its design is very good.

    Sample Customers
    Ebay, WIX, Wave Accounting, ESPN.com, Magellan Luxury Hotel, Paylogic, Sony, Merck, EDA, One Hour Translation, NASA, Plastic Jungle, Philips, Yahoo
    Accenture, Adobe, Amazon.com, Bank of America, Charles Schwab Corp, Citigroup, Coca-Cola Company, Cornell University, Dell, Deloitte, Duke University, eBay, Exxon Mobil, Fannie Mae, Ferrari, French Red Cross, Goldman Sachs, Google, Government of Canada, HP, Intel, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Macy's, Merck, The New York Times, PayPal, Pfizer, US Army, US Air Force, Skype, and Walmart.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    University17%
    Media Company13%
    Leisure / Travel Company8%
    Retailer8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm25%
    Computer Software Company16%
    Healthcare Company6%
    Media Company5%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm12%
    Computer Software Company12%
    University7%
    Healthcare Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization35%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Computer Software Company8%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business57%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise26%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business26%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise60%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business32%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise50%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business14%
    Midsize Enterprise39%
    Large Enterprise47%
    Buyer's Guide
    Sisense vs. Tableau
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Sisense vs. Tableau and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    767,319 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Sisense is ranked 9th in Embedded BI with 39 reviews while Tableau is ranked 1st in Embedded BI with 290 reviews. Sisense is rated 8.8, while Tableau is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Sisense writes "Business intelligence solution that has improved automation and provided meaningful insights". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Tableau writes "Provides fast data access with in-memory extracts, makes it easy to create visualizations, and saves time". Sisense is most compared with Microsoft Power BI, Apache Superset, Qlik Sense, Amazon QuickSight and QlikView, whereas Tableau is most compared with Microsoft Power BI, Amazon QuickSight, Domo, SAS Visual Analytics and Databricks. See our Sisense vs. Tableau report.

    See our list of best Reporting vendors, best Data Visualization vendors, and best Embedded BI vendors.

    We monitor all Embedded BI reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.