Google Charts vs. Tableau Desktop

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Google Charts
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Google Charts provides a way to visualize data on your website - for free. From simple line charts to complex hierarchical tree maps, the chart gallery provides a large number of ready-to-use chart types. The most common way to use Google Charts is with simple JavaScript that you embed in your web page.N/A
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
Google ChartsTableau Desktop
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Tableau Creator
$70.00
Per User / Per Month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google ChartsTableau Desktop
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
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
Google ChartsTableau Desktop
Considered Both Products
Google Charts
Chose Google Charts
Google Charts is a free version compared to Tableau. This was the biggest selling point, as the cost-per-user for Tableau cannot be justified since the program does not offer much more power compared to Google Charts.
Chose Google Charts
Tableau Online is pricier but will give you more. You pay for what you get when it comes to Google Charts - free with your Google Suite. Where Tableau is smart, Google Charts is quick and simple. In the end, it comes down to money and how complex you need to make your …
Chose Google Charts
In comparison to Microsoft Power BI, Google Charts has more ease of use for businesses who simply need a way to visually display their data from their reports. Although Power BI may be more robust in more complicated data compilation, Google Charts can still be able to do some …
Chose Google Charts
As our company heavily utilizes Google products, when we first looked into the tool to help us to present our data, we were looking if we could find anything that is from Google and can satisfy our basic needs. Google Charts fit in it very well. That does not mean we are not …
Chose Google Charts
I also would like to add Chart.js to the list, although it was not a searchable option. Google Charts is hard to beat, considering how effective it is, and that there's no need for an enterprise subscription. It's got basically any sort of chart or timeline or trend tracker you …
Chose Google Charts
Our teams were already using Google's G suite and as google charts simply came tagged along with it, they were more than happy to go with google charts given its capabilities. Though we have another BI solution in place but teams mostly work with google charts and export their …
Chose Google Charts
Google Charts stacks up better since it is free and does not have the constant pressure for cost overruns, add-ons, annual maintenance and implementation services. The speed of using Google Charts is quick, saving users potentially weeks in getting up and going. For the …
Chose Google Charts
Went with Google Charts directly. Integrates with other Google apps that we use seamlessly.
Chose Google Charts
I have not used many other software similar to Google Charts because a lot of the software I have used in the past has integrated reporting available to the customer. However, for instances where our software reporting is not accurate, we are able to use this online source to …
Chose Google Charts
Google Charts, compared to other software, provides the best ratio of quality, shareability, an ease of access.
Tableau Desktop
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Google ChartsTableau Desktop
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Google Charts
8.7
50 Ratings
6% above category average
Tableau Desktop
8.5
166 Ratings
4% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports8.145 Ratings8.3138 Ratings
Customizable dashboards9.448 Ratings9.0165 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates8.744 Ratings8.3144 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Google Charts
9.2
51 Ratings
13% above category average
Tableau Desktop
9.0
163 Ratings
10% above category average
Drill-down analysis8.645 Ratings9.2158 Ratings
Formatting capabilities9.451 Ratings9.0161 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages9.437 Ratings8.4121 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration9.546 Ratings9.4156 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Google Charts
9.0
51 Ratings
7% above category average
Tableau Desktop
8.8
157 Ratings
5% above category average
Publish to Web9.549 Ratings9.3148 Ratings
Publish to PDF9.546 Ratings8.4148 Ratings
Report Versioning8.643 Ratings8.7115 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling8.637 Ratings9.2122 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers8.730 Ratings8.572 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Google Charts
8.8
50 Ratings
9% above category average
Tableau Desktop
8.6
155 Ratings
6% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)8.949 Ratings8.9153 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.847 Ratings8.8148 Ratings
Predictive Analytics8.739 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
Google Charts
8.8
45 Ratings
2% above category average
Tableau Desktop
8.7
141 Ratings
1% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)8.844 Ratings8.8138 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model8.739 Ratings8.4118 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.841 Ratings8.7128 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)8.831 Ratings8.976 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings9.02 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Google Charts
9.0
48 Ratings
12% above category average
Tableau Desktop
8.4
134 Ratings
5% above category average
Responsive Design for Web Access9.546 Ratings8.6123 Ratings
Mobile Application9.529 Ratings8.396 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile8.744 Ratings8.7116 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Google Charts
8.8
40 Ratings
10% above category average
Tableau Desktop
8.7
63 Ratings
9% above category average
REST API8.932 Ratings8.655 Ratings
Javascript API8.839 Ratings8.350 Ratings
iFrames8.826 Ratings8.948 Ratings
Java API8.926 Ratings8.945 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)8.828 Ratings8.552 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)8.728 Ratings8.845 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Google ChartsTableau Desktop
Small Businesses
BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 8.9 out of 10
BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
Reveal
Score 9.9 out of 10
Reveal
Reveal
Score 9.9 out of 10
Enterprises
Jaspersoft Community Edition
Jaspersoft Community Edition
Score 9.7 out of 10
Jaspersoft Community Edition
Jaspersoft Community Edition
Score 9.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Google ChartsTableau Desktop
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(61 ratings)
8.8
(193 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.3
(8 ratings)
8.9
(39 ratings)
Usability
8.9
(33 ratings)
8.6
(63 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(10 ratings)
Performance
5.0
(1 ratings)
6.1
(9 ratings)
Support Rating
8.2
(33 ratings)
6.9
(56 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.4
(4 ratings)
Online Training
5.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(4 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(34 ratings)
Configurability
8.0
(1 ratings)
8.1
(2 ratings)
Ease of integration
10.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.0
(1 ratings)
7.0
(3 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Google ChartsTableau Desktop
Likelihood to Recommend
Google
We can easily recommend Google Charts to any company that needs a way to visually represent their data. Another great thing about Google Charts is that it is free to use and does not require any membership fees. Although it requires a skilled used to be able to use the charts, the results are great and can be beneficial to any company who is looking to make better decisions.
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
Google
  • they're free with Google suite and they have backing in terms of powerful Google apps which can be plugged in to perform multiple actions like using Google sheets to import raw data into Google Charts
  • they're the most simple app to use when it comes to creating charts and visual dashboards
  • ease of customization
  • ease of using custom APIs from developers side to help make any types of charts and dashboards you want
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
Google
  • I would like a couple more introductory videos or a live chat option for when you run into an issue. I think this is a Google-wide problem, not only linked to Google Charts.
  • I have run into some issues with the Dynamic Data but also admittedly could potentially dive in deeper and investigate.
  • It would be great if Google Charts made it possible to integrate Google Chat into the platform.
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
Google
Google Charts is a good product. It's widely supported with deep documentation and a large community. But for me, it wasn't customizable enough. When we started with simple charts, it was great, but as we got deeper and more complex, our needs outgrew the library. If I was going forward, I would choose a more barebones library with more freedom and extensibility.
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
Google
Google Charts is about as easy to use as the rest of their applications. The UI is very well thought out, allowing you to add what you need, and customize it to your exact liking. The default theme is actually really nice, which helps as most of the time, customizing is not needed.
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
Google
Google charts is always available and provides fast output.
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.
Read full review
Performance
Google
Connectivity is occasionally very slow.
Read full review
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
Google
As a free tool with massively powerful, infinitely customisable charts that can be dynamically updated - Google Charts is my favourite data visualisation tool. However, my hatred of JavaScript does jade my view on it. This is the price of the tool though, and I'm glad it's available for me.
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
Google
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.
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Online Training
Google
The online training was solely done through self training on google's guide to charts.
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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
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Implementation Rating
Google
Easy to implement
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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
Google
Google Charts stacks up better since it is free and does not have the constant pressure for cost overruns, add-ons, annual maintenance and implementation services. The speed of using Google Charts is quick, saving users potentially weeks in getting up and going. For the readers of websites with limited resources, the application shows up nicely is look and feel with charts. Great way of showing data visually.
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
Google
Google Charts is essential for quick, easy, reporting. There are opportunities for advanced features.
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.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Google
  • teams were easily able to create charts and find out progress on our learning courses and thus take actionable insights to their managers, professors
  • students could also know their progress on various courses from one single view, same for instructors in terms of imparting education
  • sales team could learn which kind of courses sold more to focus more on those areas
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