Fathom vs. Tableau Desktop

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Fathom
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Fathom is a management reporting, forecasting and financial analysis tool from the Access Group. It helps users to assess business performance, monitor trends and identify improvement opportunities. Fathom combines business planning with simple three-way cash flow forecasting.
$44
per month
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
FathomTableau Desktop
Editions & Modules
Starter
$44
per month
Silver
$225
per month
Gold
$325
per month
Platinum
$575
per month
Tableau Creator
$70.00
Per User / Per Month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
FathomTableau Desktop
Free Trial
YesNo
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
FathomTableau Desktop
Top Pros
Top Cons

No answers on this topic

Features
FathomTableau Desktop
Budgeting, Planning, and Forecasting
Comparison of Budgeting, Planning, and Forecasting features of Product A and Product B
Fathom
7.8
1 Ratings
18% below category average
Tableau Desktop
-
Ratings
Long-term financial planning7.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Financial budgeting9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Forecasting6.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Management reporting9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Analytics and Reporting
Comparison of Analytics and Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Fathom
8.0
1 Ratings
2% below category average
Tableau Desktop
-
Ratings
KPIs8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Cost and profitability analysis8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Key Performance Indicator setting8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Revenue Forecasting8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Budgeting Tools
Comparison of Budgeting Tools features of Product A and Product B
Fathom
6.5
1 Ratings
26% below category average
Tableau Desktop
-
Ratings
Financial Planning Collaboration7.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Budget Customization8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Departmental Budgeting4.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Import & Export Tools7.01 Ratings00 Ratings
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Fathom
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.5
167 Ratings
4% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings8.5139 Ratings
Customizable dashboards00 Ratings8.8166 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings8.2145 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Fathom
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.8
164 Ratings
8% above category average
Drill-down analysis00 Ratings9.0159 Ratings
Formatting capabilities00 Ratings9.0162 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings8.0122 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration00 Ratings9.3157 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Fathom
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.6
158 Ratings
3% above category average
Publish to Web00 Ratings8.7149 Ratings
Publish to PDF00 Ratings8.3149 Ratings
Report Versioning00 Ratings8.6116 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings9.1123 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings8.473 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Fathom
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.6
156 Ratings
6% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)00 Ratings8.9154 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings8.7149 Ratings
Predictive Analytics00 Ratings8.7126 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
Fathom
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.8
142 Ratings
2% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)00 Ratings8.8139 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model00 Ratings8.3119 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)00 Ratings8.7129 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings9.03 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings8.977 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Fathom
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.4
135 Ratings
5% above category average
Responsive Design for Web Access00 Ratings8.5124 Ratings
Mobile Application00 Ratings8.197 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile00 Ratings8.8117 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Fathom
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.7
64 Ratings
9% above category average
REST API00 Ratings8.756 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings8.551 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings8.949 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings9.146 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings8.453 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings8.646 Ratings
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User Ratings
FathomTableau Desktop
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(3 ratings)
8.9
(194 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
8.9
(39 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.6
(63 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(10 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
6.1
(9 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(1 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)
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
FathomTableau Desktop
Likelihood to Recommend
The Access Group
I always ask if the other attendees are ok with my using the app. If they were not comfortable, I would turn it off. This is likely over-cautious, but I also am hesitant to use it in extremely sensitive and confidential conversations. I use it as often as possible and am heavily reliant on it for any status meetings where there might be action items for any attendee, etc
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
The Access Group
  • Xero Integration
  • Instant Financials Reports
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
The Access Group
  • Honestly I do not have any Cons to add.
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
The Access Group
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
The Access Group
Great dashboards and very easy to use.
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
The Access Group
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
The Access Group
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
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Support Rating
The Access Group
I have not used customer support.
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
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In-Person Training
The Access Group
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
The Access Group
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
The Access Group
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
The Access Group
otter is audio only, and doesn't monitor things like talk time. Both systems have great (relatively new) AI features. Fathom's is a little more functional (templates for notes that can be swapped out after the meeting. Otter's is a little more useful with the AI chat feature and the summaries are a bit stronger
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
The Access Group
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.
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Return on Investment
The Access Group
  • it saved us few hours a month to prepare consolidated reports.
  • it made is easy to understand the financials with visuals
  • Integration with Xero also made it much accurate
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