Databricks Lakehouse Platform vs. Tableau Desktop

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Databricks Lakehouse Platform
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Databricks in San Francisco offers the Databricks Lakehouse Platform (formerly the Unified Analytics Platform), a data science platform and Apache Spark cluster manager. The Databricks Unified Data Service aims to provide a reliable and scalable platform for data pipelines, data lakes, and data platforms. Users can manage full data journey, to ingest, process, store, and expose data throughout an organization. Its Data Science Workspace is a collaborative environment for practitioners to run…
$0.07
Per DBU
Tableau Desktop
Score 8.3 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.
$70
per month
Pricing
Databricks Lakehouse PlatformTableau Desktop
Editions & Modules
Standard
$0.07
Per DBU
Premium
$0.10
Per DBU
Enterprise
$0.13
Per DBU
Tableau Creator
$70.00
Per User / Per Month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Databricks Lakehouse PlatformTableau Desktop
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsAll pricing plans are billed annually.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Databricks Lakehouse PlatformTableau Desktop
Considered Both Products
Databricks Lakehouse Platform
Chose Databricks Lakehouse Platform
Compared to Synapse & Snowflake, Databricks provides a much better development experience, and deeper configuration capabilities.
It works out-of-the-box but still allows you intricate customisation of the environment.
I find Databricks very flexible and resilient at the same …
Tableau Desktop
Chose Tableau Desktop
Tableau Desktop allows for a lot more customisation then the other products which are more targeted at being easier to use. Tableau is also easy to use for standard analytics and dashboards, but allows advanced users to create more powerful data driven dashboards through its …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Databricks Lakehouse PlatformTableau Desktop
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Databricks Lakehouse Platform
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.5
166 Ratings
4% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings8.3138 Ratings
Customizable dashboards00 Ratings9.0165 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings8.3144 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Databricks Lakehouse Platform
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
9.0
163 Ratings
10% above category average
Drill-down analysis00 Ratings9.2158 Ratings
Formatting capabilities00 Ratings9.0161 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings8.4121 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration00 Ratings9.3156 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Databricks Lakehouse Platform
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.8
157 Ratings
5% above category average
Publish to Web00 Ratings9.3148 Ratings
Publish to PDF00 Ratings8.4148 Ratings
Report Versioning00 Ratings8.7115 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings9.2122 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings8.572 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Databricks Lakehouse Platform
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.6
155 Ratings
6% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)00 Ratings8.9153 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings8.8148 Ratings
Predictive Analytics00 Ratings8.7125 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Databricks Lakehouse Platform
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.7
141 Ratings
1% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)00 Ratings8.8138 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model00 Ratings8.4118 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)00 Ratings8.7128 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings9.02 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings8.976 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Databricks Lakehouse Platform
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.4
134 Ratings
5% above category average
Responsive Design for Web Access00 Ratings8.6123 Ratings
Mobile Application00 Ratings8.396 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile00 Ratings8.7116 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Databricks Lakehouse Platform
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.7
63 Ratings
9% above category average
REST API00 Ratings8.655 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings8.350 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings8.948 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings8.945 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings8.552 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings8.845 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Databricks Lakehouse PlatformTableau Desktop
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Snowflake
Snowflake
Score 9.0 out of 10
Reveal
Reveal
Score 9.9 out of 10
Enterprises
Snowflake
Snowflake
Score 9.0 out of 10
Jaspersoft Community Edition
Jaspersoft Community Edition
Score 9.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Databricks Lakehouse PlatformTableau Desktop
Likelihood to Recommend
8.4
(17 ratings)
8.8
(193 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
8.9
(39 ratings)
Usability
9.4
(3 ratings)
8.6
(63 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(10 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
6.1
(9 ratings)
Support Rating
8.6
(2 ratings)
6.9
(56 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.4
(4 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(4 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(34 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
8.1
(2 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(3 ratings)
Professional Services
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Databricks Lakehouse PlatformTableau Desktop
Likelihood to Recommend
Databricks
If you need a managed big data megastore, which has native integration with highly optimized Apache Spark Engine and native integration with MLflow, go for Databricks Lakehouse Platform. The Databricks Lakehouse Platform is a breeze to use and analytics capabilities are supported out of the box. You will find it a bit difficult to manage code in notebooks but you will get used to it soon.
Read full review
Tableau
Tableau Desktop is one the finest tool available in the market with such a wide range of capabilities in its suite that makes it easy to generate insights. Further, if optimally designed, then its reports are fairly simple to understand, yet capable enough to make changes at the required levels. One can create a variety of visualizations as required by the business or the clients. The data pipelines in the backend are very robust. The tableau desktop also provides options to develop the reports in developer mode, which is one of the finest features to embed and execute even the most complex possible logic. It's easier to operate, simple to navigate, and fluent to understand by the users.
Read full review
Pros
Databricks
  • Process raw data in One Lake (S3) env to relational tables and views
  • Share notebooks with our business analysts so that they can use the queries and generate value out of the data
  • Try out PySpark and Spark SQL queries on raw data before using them in our Spark jobs
  • Modern day ETL operations made easy using Databricks. Provide access mechanism for different set of customers
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
Databricks
  • Connect my local code in Visual code to my Databricks Lakehouse Platform cluster so I can run the code on the cluster. The old databricks-connect approach has many bugs and is hard to set up. The new Databricks Lakehouse Platform extension on Visual Code, doesn't allow the developers to debug their code line by line (only we can run the code).
  • Maybe have a specific Databricks Lakehouse Platform IDE that can be used by Databricks Lakehouse Platform users to develop locally.
  • Visualization in MLFLOW experiment can be enhanced
Read full review
Tableau
  • Formatting the data to work correctly in graphical presentations can be time consuming
  • Daily data extracts can run slowly depending on how much data is required and the source of the data
  • The desktop version is required for advanced functionality, editing on [the] Tableau server allows only limited features
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Databricks
No answers on this topic
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
Databricks
Because it is an amazing platform for designing experiments and delivering a deep dive analysis that requires execution of highly complex queries, as well as it allows to share the information and insights across the company with their shared workspaces, while keeping it secured.

in terms of graph generation and interaction it could improve their UI and UX
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
Databricks
No answers on this topic
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.
Read full review
Performance
Databricks
No answers on this topic
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
Read full review
Support Rating
Databricks
One of the best customer and technology support that I have ever experienced in my career. You pay for what you get and you get the Rolls Royce. It reminds me of the customer support of SAS in the 2000s when the tools were reaching some limits and their engineer wanted to know more about what we were doing, long before "data science" was even a name. Databricks truly embraces the partnership with their customer and help them on any given challenge.
Read full review
Tableau
I have never really used support much, to be honest. I think the support is not as user-friendly to search and use it. I did have an encounter with them once and it required a bit of going back and forth for licensing before reaching a resolution. They did solve my issue though
Read full review
In-Person Training
Databricks
No answers on this topic
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
Databricks
No answers on this topic
Tableau
The training for new users are quite good because it covers topic wise training and the best part was that it also had video tutorials which are very helpful
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Databricks
No answers on this topic
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.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Databricks
Compared to Synapse & Snowflake, Databricks provides a much better development experience, and deeper configuration capabilities. It works out-of-the-box but still allows you intricate customisation of the environment. I find Databricks very flexible and resilient at the same time while Synapse and Snowflake feel more limited in terms of configuration and connectivity to external tools.
Read full review
Tableau
If we do not have legacy tools which have already been set up, I would switch the visualization method to open source software via PyCharm, Atom, and Visual Studio IDE. These IDEs cannot directly help you to visualize the data but you can use many python packages to do so through these IDEs.
Read full review
Scalability
Databricks
No answers on this topic
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.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Databricks
  • The ability to spin up a BIG Data platform with little infrastructure overhead allows us to focus on business value not admin
  • DB has the ability to terminate/time out instances which helps manage cost.
  • The ability to quickly access typical hard to build data scenarios easily is a strength.
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.
Read full review
ScreenShots