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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Microsoft Access

    Score7.5 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft Access is a database management system from Microsoft that combines the relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and software-development tools.

    $139.99

    per PC

    Tableau Server

    Score7.5 out of 10
    N/ATableau 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
    Microsoft AccessTableau Server
    Editions & Modules
    Microsoft Access
    $139.99
    per PC
    Viewer
    $12.00
    Per User Per Month
    Explorer
    $35.00
    Per User Per Month
    Creator
    $70.00
    Per User Per Month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Microsoft AccessTableau Server
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Microsoft AccessTableau Server
    Considered Both Products
    Microsoft
    Chose Microsoft Access
    Access should be relatively cost effective because it is included in the MS office 365. But it is not suitable for larger organization due to lack of work sharing environment.
    Incentivized
    Tableau
    Chose Tableau Server
    Compared to our previous version of software and tool that had been used since the beginning of the company, Tableau is reliable, fast and accurate. Some important features for advanced analytics and data visualization are not available with the previous system. Therefore it …
    Incentivized
    Chose Tableau Server
    I didn't select Tableau but am very glad we have it! I have used several reporting tools and Tableau is the easiest to use and has the best user adoption. Other tools can involve lots of background work or just difficult to display the data as needed. Tableau is easy to use and …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    97%
    Would buy again
    29 Answers
    75%
    Would buy again
    6 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    29 Answers
    75%
    Delivers good value for the price
    6 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    93%
    Happy with the feature set
    28 Answers
    88%
    Happy with the feature set
    7 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    86%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    19 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    91%
    Implementation went as expected
    21 Answers
    71%
    Implementation went as expected
    5 Answers
    Features
    Microsoft AccessTableau Server
    Relational Databases
    Comparison of Relational Databases features of Microsoft Access and Tableau Server
    Feature
    Microsoft Access
    7.7
    3 Ratings
    5% below category average
    Tableau Server
    -
    Ratings
    ACID compliance7.02 Ratings00 Ratings
    Database monitoring8.02 Ratings00 Ratings
    Database locking8.03 Ratings00 Ratings
    Encryption7.02 Ratings00 Ratings
    Disaster recovery7.73 Ratings00 Ratings
    Flexible deployment8.02 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multiple datatypes8.03 Ratings00 Ratings
    BI Standard Reporting
    Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Microsoft Access and Tableau Server
    Feature
    Microsoft Access
    -
    Ratings
    Tableau Server
    8.4
    95 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings9.129 Ratings
    Customizable dashboards00 Ratings7.094 Ratings
    Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings9.081 Ratings
    Ad-hoc Reporting
    Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Microsoft Access and Tableau Server
    Feature
    Microsoft Access
    -
    Ratings
    Tableau Server
    7.8
    95 Ratings
    3% below category average
    Drill-down analysis00 Ratings8.095 Ratings
    Formatting capabilities00 Ratings8.093 Ratings
    Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings8.059 Ratings
    Report sharing and collaboration00 Ratings7.089 Ratings
    Report Output and Scheduling
    Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Microsoft Access and Tableau Server
    Feature
    Microsoft Access
    -
    Ratings
    Tableau Server
    7.2
    91 Ratings
    13% below category average
    Publish to Web00 Ratings8.085 Ratings
    Publish to PDF00 Ratings7.084 Ratings
    Report Versioning00 Ratings8.070 Ratings
    Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings8.077 Ratings
    Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings5.19 Ratings
    Data Discovery and Visualization
    Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Microsoft Access and Tableau Server
    Feature
    Microsoft Access
    -
    Ratings
    Tableau Server
    8.3
    90 Ratings
    4% above category average
    Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)00 Ratings9.086 Ratings
    Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings8.085 Ratings
    Predictive Analytics00 Ratings8.064 Ratings
    Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
    Access Control and Security
    Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Microsoft Access and Tableau Server
    Feature
    Microsoft Access
    -
    Ratings
    Tableau Server
    10.0
    95 Ratings
    16% above category average
    Multi-User Support (named login)00 Ratings10.093 Ratings
    Role-Based Security Model00 Ratings10.090 Ratings
    Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)00 Ratings10.092 Ratings
    Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
    Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings10.062 Ratings
    Mobile Capabilities
    Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Microsoft Access and Tableau Server
    Feature
    Microsoft Access
    -
    Ratings
    Tableau Server
    8.1
    79 Ratings
    4% above category average
    Responsive Design for Web Access00 Ratings10.077 Ratings
    Mobile Application00 Ratings7.061 Ratings
    Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile00 Ratings7.068 Ratings
    Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
    Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Microsoft Access and Tableau Server
    Feature
    Microsoft Access
    -
    Ratings
    Tableau Server
    6.4
    46 Ratings
    19% below category average
    REST API00 Ratings8.040 Ratings
    Javascript API00 Ratings8.037 Ratings
    iFrames00 Ratings6.040 Ratings
    Java API00 Ratings5.57 Ratings
    Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings6.19 Ratings
    Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings4.67 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Microsoft AccessTableau Server
    Small Businesses
    Amazon RDS
    Score8.1 out of 10
    Cyfe
    Score4 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    SingleStore
    Score8.2 out of 10
    Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
    Score8.1 out of 10
    Enterprises
    SAP IQ
    Score5.4 out of 10
    Sisense
    Score6.9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Microsoft AccessTableau Server
    Likelihood to Recommend
    7.4
    (102 ratings)
    8.0
    (111 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (15 ratings)
    10.0
    (20 ratings)
    Usability
    7.6
    (8 ratings)
    8.0
    (17 ratings)
    Availability
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (9 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.1
    (8 ratings)
    Support Rating
    6.4
    (5 ratings)
    3.0
    (18 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (4 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (9 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.1
    (13 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Data Sharing and Collaboration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.1
    (79 ratings)
    Data Sources
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.6
    (82 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Microsoft AccessTableau Server
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Microsoft
    As a Material Purchasing/Planning/inventory tracking application, Microsoft Access serves its purpose well. It's presentation is clean, data entry is simple and the ability to customize search fields is welcome. It does, however, come with some caveats; namely, when setting search filters and the need arises to back up a step or two, with Microsoft Access you have to reset, or "clear all", adding extra steps/time to a query.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Tableau
    Whole funnel and specific channel performance from upper to lower funnel metrics. The ability to view full channel performance for some time, such as weekly, monthly, or quarterly, has truly been monumental in how my team optimizes specific channels and campaigns. Daily performance tracking is a bit overwhelming, with load times and having to refresh specific live views over time. It can be challenging to do so at times, as extensive dashboards take much longer to load.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Microsoft
    • Very easy to create entity-relationship diagrams for various tables and designing mock layouts.
    • Really easy to navigate as it hold[s] the classic Microsoft UI. Another good thing is that it comes with the complete MS Office Suite.
    • It is really fast when joining multiple tables no matter what type of join.
    • Works on pretty much same SQL scripts so no need to learn a new language!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Tableau
    • 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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Microsoft
    • Microsoft Access has not really changed at all for several years. It might be nice to see some upgrades and changes.
    • The help info is often not helpful. Need more tutorials for Microsoft Access to show how to do specific things.
    • Be careful naming objects such as tables, forms, etc. Names that are too long can get cut off in dialog boxes to choose a table, form, report, etc. So, I wish they would have resizable dialog boxes to allow you to see objects with long names.
    • I wish it could show me objects that are not in use in the database for current queries, tables, reports, forms, and macros. That way unused objects can be deleted without worrying about losing a report or query because you deleted the underlying object.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Tableau
    • Tableau Server has had some issue handling some of our larger data sets. Our extract refreshes fail intermittently with no obvious error that we can fix
    • Tableau Server has been hard to work with before they launched their new Rest API, which is also a little tricky to work with
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Microsoft
    I and the rest of my team will renew our Microsoft Access in the future because we use and maintain many different applications and databases created using Microsoft Access so we will need to maintain them in the future. Additionally, it is a standard at our place of work so it is at $0 cost to us to use. Another reason for renewing Microsoft Access is that we just don' t have the resources needed to extend into a network of users so we need to remain a single-desktop application at this time.
    Read full review
    Tableau
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Microsoft
    Microsoft Access is easy to use. It is compatible with spreadsheets. It is a very good data management tool. There is scope to save a large amount of data in one place. For using this database, one does not need much training, can be shared among multiple users. This database has to sort and filtering features which seem to be very useful.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Tableau
    Tableau Server takes training and experience in order to unlock the application's full potential. This is best handled by a qualified data scientist or data analytics manager. Tableau user interface layout, nomenclature, and command structure take time and training to become proficient with. Integration and connectivity require proper IT developer support.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Microsoft
    I don't think the program has ever failed me. It is one of those programs where there is always a solution if you know where to look.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Tableau
    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
    Read full review
    Performance
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Tableau
    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.
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Microsoft
    While I have never contacted Microsoft directly for product support, for some reason there's a real prejudice against MS Access among most IT support professionals. They are usually discouraging when it comes to using MS Access. Most of this is due to their lack of understanding of MS Access and how it can improve one's productivity. If Microsoft invested more resources towards enhancing and promoting the use of MS Access then maybe things would be different.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Tableau
    We have consistently had highly satisfactory results every time we've reached out for help. Our contractor, used for Tableau server maintenance and dashboard development is very technically skilled. When he hits a roadblock on how to do something with Tableau, the support staff have provided timely and useful guidance. He frequently compares it to Cognos and says that while Cognos has capabilities Tableau doesn't, the bottom line value for us is a no-brainer
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Tableau
    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.
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Tableau
    The Tableau website is full of videos that you can follow at your own pace. As a very small company with a Tableau install, access to these free resources was incredibly useful to allowing me to implement Tableau to its potential in a reasonable and proportionate manner.
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Microsoft
    there is no key idea, since it is easy to implement Microsoft Access
    Read full review
    Tableau
    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
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Microsoft
    Excel is a fantastic - robust application that can do so much so easily. Its easy to train and understand. However - excel does not provide a reporting function and that is typically where we will suggest a move to [Microsoft] Access. [Microsoft] Access requires a little more knowledge of data manipulation.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Tableau
    Today, if my shop is largely Microsoft-centric, I would be hard pressed to choose a product other than Power BI. Tableau was the visualization leader for years, but Microsoft has caught up with them in many areas, and surpassed them in some. Its ability to source, transform, and model data is superior to Tableau. Tableau still has the lead in some visualizations, but Power BI's rise is evidenced by its ever-increasing position in the leadership section of the Gartner Magic Quadrant.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Microsoft
    • Not having to recreate queries or reports every time you want to use them.
    • Once an item is created and saved as part of the database, you save manpower by not having to recreate them.
    • ROI from a usability standpoint is great. Solid product with great functionality that requires low maintenance usually.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Tableau
    • Tableau does take dedicated FTE to create and analyze the data. It's too complex (and powerful) a product not to have someone dedicated to developing with it.
    • There are some significant setup for the server product.
    • Once sever setup is complete, it's largely "fire and forget" until an update is necessary. The server update process is cumbersome.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.