Microsoft Power BI vs. Tableau Cloud

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Microsoft Power BI
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Power BI is a visualization and data discovery tool from Microsoft. It allows users to convert data into visuals and graphics, visually explore and analyze data, collaborate on interactive dashboards and reports, and scale across their organization with built-in governance and security.
$10
per month per user
Tableau Cloud
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Tableau Cloud (formerly Tableau Online) is a self-service analytics platform that is fully hosted in the cloud. Tableau Cloud enables users to publish dashboards and invite colleagues to explore hidden opportunities with interactive visualizations and accurate data, from any browser or mobile device.
$15
per month per user
Pricing
Microsoft Power BITableau Cloud
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Tableau Viewer
$15
per month billed annually per user
Enterprise Viewer
$35
per month billed annually per user
Tableau Explorer
$42
per month billed annually per user
Enterprise Explorer
$70
per month billed annually per user
Tableau Creator
$75
per month billed annually per user
Enterprise Creator
$115
per month billed annually per user
Tableau+
Contact Sales
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft Power BITableau Cloud
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Microsoft Power BITableau Cloud
Considered Both Products
Microsoft Power BI
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Power BI is a great tool to create reports and share data. However, it does not have the budgeting, forecasting and predictive modeling tools we need for our Financial Planning and Analysis part of our business. So we also implemented Vena for our financial reporting, …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
We have used Microsoft Power BI for almost seven years. When looking for a reporting platform, remember that you are about to make a long-term choice. Moving reports to another system isn't easy. If you have, for example, more than 100 reports, the move to a different platform …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Microsoft PowerBI is easy to use, has leadership alignment, and is liked by everyone using it in the past and in the current setup. Thus, we decided to continue renewing Microsoft Power BI. We had also evaluated some competitors, but those platforms were not as easy to onboard. …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
In the case of Tableau or Google Charts, thay have a lack on customization and on the options they have. For Qlik Sense, you need to spend too much time on the data model for doing quick tests or data validation when comparing it to Microsoft Power BI. Also, Microsoft Power BI …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
I selected Power BI because it is the best in all because of its ecosystem and its ability to connect with multiple data source like Microsoft Excel, Microsoft SQL Server, web, analysis services etc. Moreover, its available on both Cloud and Desktop with some pro and cons …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Compared to Amazon QuickSight, if your dataset is coming from Amazon S3, it is much easier to just use QuickSight. However, if you are building a pipeline using prefect to transfer data, MS Power BI would potentially be a good tool to use and visualize the data by some none …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
We selected Power BI because we could push a single source out to a group of people for instant viewing and reporting. They could select from pre-created filters that we selected, but also land on a default view. It's intuitive to use and gets the job done in an enterprise …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Even though Power BI is not the only tool we use, is the most powerful one! Its easiness to integrate information and directly import queries makes it super easy to set up and start using it. Also, it's much faster handling a lot of data compared to other products like microstra…
Chose Microsoft Power BI
MS Power BI is a bit more rigid than Tableau in terms of dynamic visualizations, but we chose it because we were already using the MS ecosystem. In terms of sharing and integrating with our MS Suite, MS Power BI was better in terms of licensing and integrations with our …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
We liked Power BI over the other options we looked at (primarily Tableau) because of its super easy integration with other Microsoft products like Dynamics 365, MS Server, as well as desktop applications that we use company-wide that are base don Windows. The price was also a …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Our team selected Power BI because its features rival that of Tableau's, we are a Microsoft O365 company and the price is much more competitive.
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Both do a good job from a presentation layer. I feel that PowerBI has better data modeling capabilities, and Tableau has a slight edge on the visualizations and end-user experience. Power BI is more attractive to most of our B2B clients, and Tableau is more attractive for B2C …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Microsoft BI tool does a better job than most of the other software. The reason is excellent visualizations and its capability to connect with various other software and data sources. Tableau does a better job when it comes to tutorials and being more user-friendly. Also …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Cheaper than Tableau but at the cost of certain functionality. However, PowerBI has an active developer forum and releases updates every month.
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Power BI is usually the cheapest solution and most user-friendly for most people (since we are all used to the Microsoft Suite). However the connectivity to non-Microsoft soft tools (databases and data analysis tools) are somewhat limited, especially when compared to its …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Power BI, Tableau, and QlikView are the market leaders when analyzed on Gartner`s magic quadrant for business intelligence tool. One of the critical drawbacks of all these visionary tools is the absence or expensive back end that are needed to support the infrastructure. …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
We selected Power BI because it had more flexibility in modelling/measurement definition, excellent per-user pricing, easy self-implementation, integration with our other Office 365 tools, and easy distribution of content to others in the organization.
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Power BI performs quite well in comparison to it's competitor's products. We compared it mainly to GoodData and Tableau. Power BI has a great pricing. It's affordable and efficient with mid-sized datasets. Hence many companies go for it. Competitive products like Tableau are …
Tableau Cloud
Chose Tableau Cloud
Tableau works quite differently when compared to Microsoft Power BI. When using Tableau to generate reports, you are required to define your data field first, run the query, and only then format the visualisation options you wish to include in your reports. This is quite …
Chose Tableau Cloud
In my opinion, while Microsoft Power BI is a bit easier to build reports and dashboards with in part to its shared traits and connectivity with other Microsoft products, Tableau Online allows for a greater depth of customization, data sourcing, and most of all the sharing of …
Chose Tableau Cloud
We formally used Microsoft Power BI as our reporting software throughout our organization. I believe Tableau Cloud is a step above Power BI and is our preferred program. The end reports are look cleaner and are easier to work with than Power BI. There are more options and …
Chose Tableau Cloud
Tableau has a way easier Intuitive UI compare to Power BI or Amplitude. AMplitude is great since anyone could create their own dashboard, but building it it's a different thing.
Chose Tableau Cloud
Tableau Cloud is very easy to create entire company's Data visualization and dashboards
Chose Tableau Cloud
Tableau Cloud is ery powerful and user friendly with minimal cost when compared with other BI tools.Its robust features like switching toggles, supporting SQL queries for buiding charts and all stands out as the best.It reduces time in creating difficult and complex dashbords …
Chose Tableau Cloud
Tableau Cloud offers easier ways to make the content browsable by users. It also offers more flexible ways to set up self-service governance. Standard filtering functionalities are easier to use.
Chose Tableau Cloud
It seems more robust then the other platforms. There is a lot you can do from merging many different data sets together by joining them at like points, to creating visualizations of the data, or by showcasing some important data to any number of people within your organization. …
Chose Tableau Cloud
When weighing the pros and cons of Tableau Online vs. SAP ERP, two key considerations emerged as clear winners. SAP ERP is a powerful data purification tool, but it doesn't measure up to the competition in terms of data presentation. When it came to data visualization and …
Chose Tableau Cloud
  • Breadth of services offered is good with Tableau Online
  • Tableau Online offers advanced analytics and visualisations with easy implementation
Chose Tableau Cloud
Tableau Online provides better data visualizations (especially when comparing out of the box visualizations that are available) than MS Power BI and historically we have connected more of our data sources to Tableau vs. other platforms like Google Analytics.
Chose Tableau Cloud
Tableau provides more robust system to perform data analytics as compared to the alternatives like Power BI and Qlik. Moreover, Tableaus is super simple to use and is very reliable in terms of its connection with databases. The ability to manipulate data is another big reason …
Chose Tableau Cloud
Tableau is among the top applications out there in the space and at this level. It really comes down to personal preference and data visualization goals. All of the top products I listed do their job very well and are packed with features. I prefer Tableau online for analyzing …
Chose Tableau Cloud
Spotfire can do similar things, but Tableau's plots are prettier in my opinion. However, if one needs to perform complex calculations on the data first, Spotfire can do it better than Tableau. So, it depends on the task at hand.
Chose Tableau Cloud
Tableau does a great job compared to all of these mentioned tools. Other tools also have a great shape-up of dashboards but obviously all have their advantages and disadvantages. The reason Tableau has an edge over all the other tools is because of its excellent visual design …
Chose Tableau Cloud
I believe Tableau is better for less experienced users. It is a straighforward interface for checking the dashboards.
Chose Tableau Cloud
This is user friendly, no coding required, easy to set up, easy to put data into, has a connector to our CRM/ERP so there are low barriers to get data into. Tableau is really the smart and easy choice in the business intelligence software area. Ease of deployment and the …
Features
Microsoft Power BITableau Cloud
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
8.4
193 Ratings
3% above category average
Tableau Cloud
7.7
74 Ratings
6% below category average
Pixel Perfect reports8.3164 Ratings8.056 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.8192 Ratings8.974 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates8.0175 Ratings6.363 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
7.9
191 Ratings
1% below category average
Tableau Cloud
7.7
74 Ratings
4% below category average
Drill-down analysis8.2188 Ratings8.774 Ratings
Formatting capabilities7.7188 Ratings7.070 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages7.3140 Ratings6.447 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration8.5186 Ratings8.672 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
8.1
184 Ratings
2% below category average
Tableau Cloud
7.5
72 Ratings
10% below category average
Publish to Web8.3174 Ratings8.468 Ratings
Publish to PDF8.2169 Ratings7.566 Ratings
Report Versioning7.7141 Ratings7.555 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling8.3144 Ratings8.259 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers7.9107 Ratings6.038 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
7.8
184 Ratings
2% below category average
Tableau Cloud
7.8
70 Ratings
2% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)8.2178 Ratings8.167 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.1163 Ratings8.366 Ratings
Predictive Analytics7.4133 Ratings7.757 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining7.434 Ratings7.25 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
8.6
175 Ratings
1% above category average
Tableau Cloud
8.2
69 Ratings
4% below category average
Multi-User Support (named login)8.8165 Ratings8.163 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model8.5143 Ratings7.656 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.4155 Ratings8.459 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control8.444 Ratings8.47 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)8.7137 Ratings8.654 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
8.0
157 Ratings
2% above category average
Tableau Cloud
7.7
59 Ratings
2% below category average
Responsive Design for Web Access7.8147 Ratings7.757 Ratings
Mobile Application7.7128 Ratings7.844 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile8.0150 Ratings8.051 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Power BI
7.8
113 Ratings
1% above category average
Tableau Cloud
6.9
41 Ratings
12% below category average
REST API8.2101 Ratings7.736 Ratings
Javascript API7.682 Ratings7.134 Ratings
iFrames8.055 Ratings7.033 Ratings
Java API6.967 Ratings5.629 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)7.588 Ratings6.735 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)8.444 Ratings7.432 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Microsoft Power BITableau Cloud
Small Businesses
Yellowfin
Yellowfin
Score 9.0 out of 10
Yellowfin
Yellowfin
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 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
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User Ratings
Microsoft Power BITableau Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(195 ratings)
9.4
(75 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.5
(3 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.3
(111 ratings)
8.7
(28 ratings)
Support Rating
9.8
(52 ratings)
8.0
(21 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Microsoft Power BITableau Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft
Has significantly improved collation of data and visualisation especially with business across Europe. Has given me the ability to see the Site availability at the click of a button to see which Site is in the "money" and seize opportunities based on Market data
Read full review
Tableau
If you're using Tableau as the primary BI tool, then Tableau Cloud is well suited to publish and share the results with a wide(r) audience. It is well suited for various degrees of self-service proficiency, from pure consumers of analytical work to more advanced users who can use web editing for smaller or larger adjustments, and even for desktop power users who will publish their work to Tableau Cloud. It has many good ways to organize the content and make it easily accessible via search, favorites, folders, collections ("playlists for your data"), or history ("recents"). It might not be ideally suited if there are many on-prem sources to be used (even though there are options to connect them) or if you have very special requirements regarding custom server setup, which is limited in a shared cloud environment like Tableau Cloud.
Read full review
Pros
Microsoft
  • Options for data source connections are immense. Not just which sources, but your options for *how* the data is brought in.
  • Constant updates (this is both good and bad at times).
  • User friendliness. I can get the data connections set up and draft some quick visuals, then release to the target audience and let them expand on it how they want to.
Read full review
Tableau
  • Tableau Online is completely cloud based and that's why the reports and dashboards are accessible even on the go. One doesn't always need to access the office laptop to access the reports.
  • The visualizations are interactive and one can quickly change the level at which they want to view the information. For example, one person might be more interested in looking at the country level performances rather than client level. This is intuitive and one doesn't need to create multiple reports for the same.
  • The feature to ask questions in plain vanilla English language is great and helpful. For quick adhoc fact checks one can simply type what they are looking for and the Natural Language Programming algorithms under the hood parse the query, interpret it and then fetch the results accordingly in a visual form.
Read full review
Cons
Microsoft
  • It would be easier for users could Microsoft Power BI and Excel used the same programming languages.
  • Would like to see the online version of Microsoft Power BI be as powerful as the desktop version.
  • Publishing a Microsoft Power BI file online and then having to save the file is somewhat redundant.
  • Would like to export each page or chart as an image.
Read full review
Tableau
  • Can be a steep learning curve for new users
  • Modeling and building algorithms aren't always intuitive and take some testing/retesting to ensure it's working as it should
  • Inability to integrate easily with our HRIS platform. Reports are pulled from HRIS at various intervals and uploaded into Tableau
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Microsoft
Microsoft Power BI is an excellent and scalable tool. It has a learning curve, but once you get past that, the sky is the limit and you can build from the most simple to the most complex dashboards. I have built everything from simple reports with only a few data points to complex reports with many pages and advanced filtering.
Read full review
Tableau
The tool's capacity to handle complex data sources.
Read full review
Usability
Microsoft
Automating reporting has reduced manual data processing by 50-70%, freeing up analysts for higher-value tasks. A finance team that previously spent 20+ hours per week on Excel-based reports now does it in minutes with Microsoft Power BI's automated Real-time dashboards have shortened decision cycles by 30-40%, enabling leadership to react quickly to sales trends, operational bottlenecks, and customer behavior.
Read full review
Tableau
Based on comments from our clients, I awarded it this grade. Non-technical customers frequently compliment us on the ease with which they can utilize Tableau Online. Usability is rarely a source of contention amongst our customers. Few complaints have come from me as a user of our internal products.
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Support Rating
Microsoft
It is a fantastic tool, you can do almost everything related with data and reports, it is a perfect substitutive of Power Point and Excel with a high evolution and flexibility, and also it is very friendly and easy to share. I think all companies should have Power BI (or other BI tool) in their software package and if they are in the MS Suite, for sure Power BI should be the one due to all the benefits of the MS ecosystem.
Read full review
Tableau
I have not had any issues that require customer support from Tableau at this time, which speaks well to Tableau. I have taken an online course with Tableau and it was very professional and well done, so based on that I would assume a similar level of quality for their customer service.
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Implementation Rating
Microsoft
It was integrated with our erp easily and was accessible on cloud.
Read full review
Tableau
I wasn't part of the implementation team
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Microsoft
Microsoft Power BI is free. If I didn't want to create a custom platform (i.e. my organization insisted on an existing platform that I *had* to use), I'd use Microsoft Power BI. For any start-up or SMB, I'd just use Claude & Grok to build it quickly, also for free. Would not pay for Tableau or Sigma anymore. Not worth it at all.
Read full review
Tableau
In determining whether to go with Tableau Online versus Alteryx, two important factors stood out in determining our go-to solution. First, while Alteryx is an impressive tool for data cleansing, it did not stack up in terms of data visualization capabilities. Tableau, on the other hand, provided us everything we needed in terms of visualizing our data and analytics. The second factor is cost. Well neither solution would be considered cheap, Tableau was the more cost effective solution for our needs.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Microsoft
  • Power BI usage reduced the effort of analytical reports creation by about 80%
  • Empowered all the level of employee to be more vigilant of the data and business insights, gained the profit of 8% overall.
  • AI-powered predictive analytics improved forecasting accuracy by 17%, that topped the overall sales.
Read full review
Tableau
  • When we release new products, we are now able to quickly see data and toggle between current periods and previous to see performance
  • Generating new reports requires less IT time to build
  • Data can be shared across many different device types
  • We now have integration where our customers can extract data from our software more easily-this was a big ask from our customers
Read full review
ScreenShots

Microsoft Power BI Screenshots

Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Turns insights into impact for business usersScreenshot of Power BI integrates easily with Microsoft 365Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - AI-Powered CapabilitiesScreenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Copilot can be used to create reportsScreenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Data HubScreenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Scales as organizational needs grow