SAP Crystal vs. Tableau Cloud

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
SAP Crystal
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
SAP Crystal is an analytics and reporting software solution for SMBs. SAP Crystal comprises Crystal Reports for pixel-perfect reporting, and SAP Crystal Server for automated distribution and self-service access to reports, dashboards and data exploration.
$295
per single user license
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
SAP CrystalTableau Cloud
Editions & Modules
Upgrade Version to SAP Crystal Reports 2020
$295
per single user license
SAP Crystal Reports 2020 64-Bit
$495
per single user license
SAP Crystal Reports 2016 32-Bit
$495
per single user license
SAP Crystal Server 2020 1 NUL
$869
per user license + first year maintenance to be added
SAP Crystal Server 2020 5 CAL
$8,744
5 concurrent users + first year maintenance to be added
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
SAP CrystalTableau Cloud
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details* SAP Crystal Reports 2020 Viewer allows you to view static data within a SAP Crystal Reports file. * SAP Crystal Reports 2020 - Full version allows you to create powerful, richly formatted, and dynamic reports from virtually any data source, delivered in dozens of formats, in up to 28 languages. If you already have an older version of Crystal Reports, buy a license for SAP Crystal Reports 2020 - Upgrade at a discounted, upgrade price. * SAP Crystal Server 2020, 1 NUL includes 1 license of: SAP Crystal Reports 2020 - SAP Crystal Server 2020. * As an add-on to SAP Crystal Server 2020 1 NUL, SAP Crystal Server 2020 5 CAL allows you to support a wider, intermittent audience of end users, up to five logged on at the same time.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
SAP CrystalTableau Cloud
Considered Both Products
SAP Crystal
Chose SAP Crystal
Based on our organization policy we had to use this software. Tableau is also an equally solid software for preparing reports with an upper hand over business users - they don't require any coding experience. As opposed to Crystal Reports, it requires developers to do the work. …
Chose SAP Crystal
Excel has some competitive features with Crystal Reports, especially if you have it connected directly with the database, however, it's overall very different. With Crystal, it allows you to enter values before running a report to really compare between different parameters. It …
Chose SAP Crystal
We have a lot of clients who use SAP Crystal Server that we collaborate on reports with and this was a big reason for why we work with SAP Crystal Server. If I had to rate all the other analytics programs that I have worked with against SAP Crystal Server I would rate SAP …
Chose SAP Crystal
SAP Crystal Server stacks up better than Tableau Desktop and Google Charts because we found it was easier to customize and for what we needed it was easier to create the reports. So that is why we went with SAP Crystal Server over the other options that we had considered.
Tableau Cloud

No answer on this topic

Features
SAP CrystalTableau Cloud
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
SAP Crystal
8.3
123 Ratings
2% above category average
Tableau Cloud
7.7
74 Ratings
6% below category average
Pixel Perfect reports8.0112 Ratings8.056 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.499 Ratings8.974 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates8.4116 Ratings6.363 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
SAP Crystal
8.3
135 Ratings
3% above category average
Tableau Cloud
7.7
74 Ratings
4% below category average
Drill-down analysis8.8116 Ratings8.774 Ratings
Formatting capabilities8.4134 Ratings7.070 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages7.064 Ratings6.447 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration8.8119 Ratings8.672 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
SAP Crystal
8.8
135 Ratings
6% above category average
Tableau Cloud
7.5
72 Ratings
10% below category average
Publish to Web8.590 Ratings8.468 Ratings
Publish to PDF9.2132 Ratings7.566 Ratings
Report Versioning8.294 Ratings7.555 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling9.097 Ratings8.259 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers8.854 Ratings6.038 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
SAP Crystal
7.6
89 Ratings
4% below category average
Tableau Cloud
7.8
70 Ratings
2% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)7.650 Ratings8.167 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization7.576 Ratings8.366 Ratings
Predictive Analytics7.841 Ratings7.757 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings7.25 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
SAP Crystal
8.7
88 Ratings
2% above category average
Tableau Cloud
8.2
69 Ratings
4% below category average
Multi-User Support (named login)8.581 Ratings8.163 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model8.580 Ratings7.656 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.580 Ratings8.459 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control8.83 Ratings8.47 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)9.040 Ratings8.654 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
SAP Crystal
7.3
64 Ratings
7% below category average
Tableau Cloud
7.7
59 Ratings
2% below category average
Responsive Design for Web Access7.062 Ratings7.757 Ratings
Mobile Application6.545 Ratings7.844 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile7.559 Ratings8.051 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
SAP Crystal
7.7
45 Ratings
0% below category average
Tableau Cloud
6.9
41 Ratings
11% below category average
REST API7.48 Ratings7.736 Ratings
Javascript API7.937 Ratings7.134 Ratings
iFrames7.18 Ratings7.033 Ratings
Java API7.937 Ratings5.629 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)7.539 Ratings6.735 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)8.233 Ratings7.432 Ratings
Best Alternatives
SAP CrystalTableau Cloud
Small Businesses
BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 8.9 out of 10
BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Kyvos Insights
Kyvos Insights
Score 9.5 out of 10
Kyvos Insights
Kyvos Insights
Score 9.5 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
SAP CrystalTableau Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
8.4
(157 ratings)
9.4
(75 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(19 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(30 ratings)
8.7
(28 ratings)
Availability
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.6
(21 ratings)
8.0
(21 ratings)
In-Person Training
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.8
(14 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Configurability
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
SAP CrystalTableau Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
SAP
Generation of templated reports is the strong suit of SAP Crystal. Allows users to change formats in templates bases on requirement with minimal effort. Automated report delivery requires the user to be aware of sql which cannot be expected from all users. Should support more document export formats and improve the UI for SAP B1 Users
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
SAP
  • Crystal Reports allows us to create a consistent template for all of our reports.
  • Crystal Reports and Server allows us to house a repository for all of our reports to make them easy to find and update when necessary.
  • Crystal Reports can connect to a wide variety of data sources.
  • Crystal Reports can be a little daunting when first implementing. There are a lot of nuances in learning how to truly master this software and it can be frustrating at times.
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
SAP
  • The export of reports to Excel is very cumbersome and the results are difficult to format.
  • The design of reports and the graphical features (e.g. charts) feel quite rigid.
  • The learning curve for a non-programmer is incredibly steep, making Crystal a specialty tool.
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
SAP
We have been using this product for so many years and it has truly become a cornerstone to our business processes when it comes to developing and distributing information via reports. We currently have over 500 reports developed to date over about 30 systems and that will continue to grow as user needs change.
Read full review
Tableau
The tool's capacity to handle complex data sources.
Read full review
Usability
SAP
Crystal is very robust, but not always easy to use. It create wonderful looking reports, and so deserves a high rating. However, I have to take a couple of points off for the simple fact that I cannot hand it to a user and expect them to be able to do development with it.
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.
Read full review
Support Rating
SAP
The support community can be difficult to navigate. I've also run into issues with my login. The SAP system has a bizarre mechanism for validating users that requires users to have what is called an S-ID. A basic ID may not give you access to all the features in the portal. The limitation may include not being able to perform a simple task like downloading patches and updates. This isn't a big deal for single user license but for teams it can be a pain.
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.
Read full review
In-Person Training
SAP
Trainer was patient and thorough in going through the basics and willing to answer questions by email after the initial training
Read full review
Tableau
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
SAP
Just like any other implementation: When designing the differing reports, get end users' input, make sure to design the reports so that they display the information that the company requires, in the best and clearest way possible.
Test, test, test, revise when needed, and, particularly, do sufficient training so users are comfortable using Crystal Reports!
Read full review
Tableau
I wasn't part of the implementation team
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
SAP
Crystal reports is useful in case we want to import data from data base . We can write queries in it but Google Charts require to be implemented in our application using code so crystal reports is better than Google Charts.
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
SAP
  • It is a decent buy for specific departments in terms of reporting capabilities but updates and cost (frequent) demands are higher with the benefits offered.
  • So long as the requirements are not ever changing, with scheduling functionality, it's a handsome tool.
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

SAP Crystal Screenshots

Screenshot of Pixel-perfect reporting solutionScreenshot of Refresh with a clickScreenshot of Build pixel-perfect documentsScreenshot of Connect to all data sourcesScreenshot of Use drag and dropScreenshot of Build interactive reports