Salesforce Lightning Platform vs. Tableau Server

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Salesforce Lightning Platform
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Salesforce Platform is designed for building and deploying scalable cloud applications with managed hardware provisioning and app stacks. It provides out-of-the-box tools and services to automate business processes, integrate with external apps, and provide responsive layouts and more.
$25
Per User Per Month
Tableau Server
Score 7.7 out of 10
N/A
Tableau 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
Salesforce Lightning PlatformTableau Server
Editions & Modules
Starter
$25.00
Per User Per Month
Plus
$100.00
Per User Per Month
Viewer
$12.00
Per User Per Month
Explorer
$35.00
Per User Per Month
Creator
$70.00
Per User Per Month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Salesforce Lightning PlatformTableau 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
Salesforce Lightning PlatformTableau Server
Considered Both Products
Salesforce Lightning Platform

No answer on this topic

Tableau Server
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 …
Features
Salesforce Lightning PlatformTableau Server
Platform-as-a-Service
Comparison of Platform-as-a-Service features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
7.4
39 Ratings
8% below category average
Tableau Server
-
Ratings
Ease of building user interfaces5.539 Ratings00 Ratings
Scalability8.737 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform management overhead7.633 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow engine capability6.835 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform access control8.736 Ratings00 Ratings
Services-enabled integration9.036 Ratings00 Ratings
Development environment creation7.133 Ratings00 Ratings
Development environment replication6.831 Ratings00 Ratings
Issue monitoring and notification7.034 Ratings00 Ratings
Issue recovery6.631 Ratings00 Ratings
Upgrades and platform fixes7.536 Ratings00 Ratings
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Tableau Server
8.4
95 Ratings
3% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings9.129 Ratings
Customizable dashboards00 Ratings7.194 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings9.081 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
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 Ratings7.189 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Tableau Server
7.2
91 Ratings
14% below category average
Publish to Web00 Ratings8.085 Ratings
Publish to PDF00 Ratings7.184 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 Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
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 Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
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 Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Tableau Server
8.1
79 Ratings
3% 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 Product A and Product B
Salesforce Lightning Platform
-
Ratings
Tableau Server
6.4
46 Ratings
19% below category average
REST API00 Ratings8.040 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings8.037 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings6.140 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings5.57 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings6.19 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings4.67 Ratings
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User Ratings
Salesforce Lightning PlatformTableau Server
Likelihood to Recommend
7.1
(39 ratings)
8.0
(111 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(20 ratings)
Usability
7.5
(4 ratings)
8.0
(17 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(9 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.1
(8 ratings)
Support Rating
8.1
(15 ratings)
3.0
(18 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(4 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(9 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(13 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Salesforce Lightning PlatformTableau Server
Likelihood to Recommend
Salesforce
We use Salesforce Lightning Platform in everyday business as sales coordinators. By using this tool, we are able to send new requests to clients and communicate regarding pending proposals in real-time. This also tool holds many of our client accounts where we are able to monitor their sales and revenue.
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.
Read full review
Pros
Salesforce
  • Reporting and Dashboards are thorough and can show a wealth of important data to inform and scale processes. It's helpful in a high volume sales cycle to be able to quickly identify weak points in performance and productivity so that adjustments can be made.
  • Highly customizable. We are able to customize just about everything which allows us to track very specific things and in theory create better efficiency.
  • Parent/Child account hierarchy exists which is helpful.
  • Contact records can be associated with multiple accounts and opportunities. This, in theory, should minimize duplicates and mismanagement of contacts.
  • Console helps a lot with data nesting. Having a fairly comprehensive look at an account without searching through various tabs and sections speeds up an otherwise cumbersome platform.
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
Read full review
Cons
Salesforce
  • Can be cumbersome: takes multiple clicks to get where you need to go
  • Lightning is slower than original Salesforce, and it is very noticeable
  • The UI change means sometimes I can't find what I need, so I have to switch back to the Classic version to find it
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
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
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.
Read full review
Usability
Salesforce
UI can be quite complex, but the more that is required will bring more complexity. Can handle complexity and variety very well, but makes ground-level views harder when not knowing full extent of functionality. Finding new functionalities can be difficult to pinpoint on some pages
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.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
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
Salesforce
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
Salesforce
Salesforce's support is top-notch. They have subject-matter experts that are accessible at all times to address needs as they come up. They let you know in advance when there are system updates and enhancements so that you are prepared for upcoming changes. I've never had an issue that wasn't addressed immediately when reaching out for support.
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
Read full review
In-Person Training
Salesforce
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
Salesforce
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
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
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
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Alternatives Considered
Salesforce
We were previously using an older version prior to it becoming Salesforce Lightning Platform so we were well adverse on the advantages of using a CRM, to begin with. It made sense to convert to Salesforce Lightning Platform after we were given a free trial of the platform. Certain reps were chosen to experiment with it and from there a decision was made to move forward. We've been customers ever since.
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.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Salesforce
  • Better visibility of Accounts and Contacts interactions makes it easier to maintain during employee transitions.
  • Tracking of current jobs and relating them to past jobs is very useful.
  • More efficient use of Sales Reps time.
  • Sales Managers have good visibility into how their people are working.
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.
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.