SAS Viya vs. Tableau Desktop

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
SAS Viya
Score 6.9 out of 10
N/A
An end-to-end platform for AI, data science, and analytics, used for modeling, as well as management and deployment of AI models.N/A
Tableau Desktop
Score 8.2 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
SAS ViyaTableau Desktop
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Tableau Creator
$70.00
Per User / Per Month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
SAS ViyaTableau Desktop
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
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
SAS ViyaTableau Desktop
Considered Both Products
SAS Viya
Chose SAS Viya
SAS has a much superior and comprehensive data preparation capability with a clear approach on how to handle and scale for a large amount of data and users. However, it can be more expensive to implement.
Tableau Desktop

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
SAS ViyaTableau Desktop
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
SAS Viya
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.5
166 Ratings
4% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings8.3138 Ratings
Customizable dashboards00 Ratings9.0165 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings8.3144 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
SAS Viya
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.9
163 Ratings
9% above category average
Drill-down analysis00 Ratings9.2158 Ratings
Formatting capabilities00 Ratings8.9161 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings8.3121 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration00 Ratings9.3156 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
SAS Viya
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.8
157 Ratings
5% above category average
Publish to Web00 Ratings9.2148 Ratings
Publish to PDF00 Ratings8.4148 Ratings
Report Versioning00 Ratings8.6115 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings9.1122 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings8.572 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
SAS Viya
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.6
155 Ratings
6% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)00 Ratings8.9153 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings8.8148 Ratings
Predictive Analytics00 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
SAS Viya
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.7
141 Ratings
1% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)00 Ratings8.8138 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model00 Ratings8.4118 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)00 Ratings8.7128 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings9.02 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings8.976 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
SAS Viya
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.4
134 Ratings
6% above category average
Responsive Design for Web Access00 Ratings8.6123 Ratings
Mobile Application00 Ratings8.396 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile00 Ratings8.7116 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
SAS Viya
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.6
63 Ratings
8% above category average
REST API00 Ratings8.555 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings8.350 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings8.848 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings8.745 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings8.452 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings8.845 Ratings
Best Alternatives
SAS ViyaTableau Desktop
Small Businesses
IBM SPSS Modeler
IBM SPSS Modeler
Score 7.8 out of 10
BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Posit
Posit
Score 9.1 out of 10
Reveal
Reveal
Score 9.9 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM SPSS Modeler
IBM SPSS Modeler
Score 7.8 out of 10
TIBCO Jaspersoft Community Edition
TIBCO Jaspersoft Community Edition
Score 9.7 out of 10
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User Ratings
SAS ViyaTableau Desktop
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(12 ratings)
8.8
(193 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
4.5
(5 ratings)
8.9
(39 ratings)
Usability
6.1
(2 ratings)
8.6
(63 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(10 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(1 ratings)
6.1
(9 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(3 ratings)
6.9
(56 ratings)
In-Person Training
9.0
(1 ratings)
9.4
(4 ratings)
Online Training
8.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(4 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(34 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.1
(2 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.0
(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
SAS ViyaTableau Desktop
Likelihood to Recommend
SAS
SAS Advanced Analytics excels with projects that have at least 3 parts. The first part is the ability to address and compare different modeling types. Suppose you are an analyst interested in predicting home prices or whether an individual will reapply for unemployment insurance. There are lots of model types that could work for these two situations. SAS Advanced Analytics makes it easy (although not as easy as SAS Enterprise Miner) to compare the performance of different modeling types, such as comparing support vector machines with random forest models. A second scenario that SAS Advanced Analytics does a good job at is making the analysis reproducible. By showing the lineage of analyses, another analyst is able to follow the work of the previous analyst. This is a huge advantage for individuals working in corporations or governments. The third area SAS Advanced Analytics is useful is in text analytics. The field is huge now, and I haven't come across a software that makes text analytics as easy as SAS Advanced Analytics.
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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.
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Pros
SAS
  • Complex Survey Analysis- SAS is a great resource if you need to analyze complex survey data. One can easily write code for this by inserting (survey) in front of the procedure with the weight, cluster, and strata variables. (ex: surveyfreq)
  • Modeling/ Graphing- SAS creates clean and easy to understand graphs and models which take visual data to the next level.
  • Support- There is a large SAS Advanced analytics online support in place. It is easy to find help on many procedures that you will use in this software.
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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.
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Cons
SAS
  • SAS Analytics does not have very good graphic capabilities. Their advanced graphics packages are expensive, and still not very appealing or intuitive to customize.
  • SAS Analytics is not as up-to-date when it comes to advanced analytical techniques as R or other open-source analytics packages.
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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
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Likelihood to Renew
SAS
Not only does SAS become easier to use as the user gets more familiar with its capabilities, but the customer service is excellent. Any issues with SAS and their technical team is either contacting the user via email, chat, text, WebEx, or phone. They have power users that have years of experience with SAS there to help with any issue.
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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.
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Usability
SAS
If SAS Enterprise Guide is utilized any beginning user will be able to shorten the learning curve. This is allow the user a plethora of basic capabilities until they can utilize coding to expand their needs in manipulating and presenting data. SAS is also dedicated to expanding this environment so it is ever growing.
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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.
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Reliability and Availability
SAS
SAS probably has the most market saturation out of all of the analytics software worldwide. They are in every industry and they are knowledgable about every industry. They are always available to take questions, solve issues, and discuss a company's needs. A company that buys SAS software has a dedicated representative that is there for all of their needs.
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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.
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Performance
SAS
Although nothing is perfect, SAS is almost there. The software can handle billions of rows of data without a glitch and runs at a quick pace regardless of what the user wants to perform. SAS products are made to handle data so performance is of their utmost important. The software is created to run things as efficiently as SAS software can to maximize performance.
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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
SAS
SAS is generally known for good support that's one of the main reasons to justify the cost of having SAS licenses within our organization is knowing that customer support is just a quick phone call away. I've usually had good experiences with the SAS customer support team it's one of the ways in which the company stands out in my view.
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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
SAS
SAS has regional and national conferences that are dedicated to expanding users' knowledge of the software and showing them what changes and additions they are making to the software. There are user groups in most of the major cities that also provide multi-day seminars that focus on specific topics for education. If online training isn't the best way for the user, there is ample in-person training available.
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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
SAS
There are online videos, live classes, and resource material which makes training very easy to access. However, nothing is circumstantial so applying your training can get tricky if the user is performing complex tasks. When purchasing software, SAS will also allocate education credits so the user(s) can access classes and material online to help expand their knowledge.
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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
SAS
Ask as many questions you can before the install to understand the process. Since a third party does the installation your company is sort of a passanger and it is easy to get lost in the process. It also helps to have all users and IT support involved in the install to help increase the knowledge as to how SAS runs and what it needs to perform correctly.
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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.
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Alternatives Considered
SAS
We had major use of SAS in forecasting where it doesn't require high level of coding knowledge and which has highly efficient models built in which can give good results on forecasts without lot of manual intervention. This tool was designed specifically for forecasting and hence was always a better choice compared to other tools.
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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.
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Scalability
SAS
It all depends on the type of SAS product the user has. Scaleability differs from product to product, and if the user has SAS Office Analytics the scaleability is quite robust. This software will satisfy the majority of the company's analytic needs for years to come. In addition, if SAS is not meeting the users needs the company can easily find SAS solutions that will.
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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.
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Return on Investment
SAS
  • SAS Advanced Analytics is not the cheapest software on the market. The overall cost was weighed against free, open-source software tools. The overall return, I think, was quite positive because SAS Advanced Analytics saves enormous amounts of time compared to the open-source software tools.
  • At first, adopting SAS Advanced Analytics was a negative return because it took time for individuals to change their analytics habits and adjust to superior tools available at their discretion.
  • SAS Advanced Analytics has replaced the need to hire less expensive R or Python programmers. So, although the software requires an initial expensive upfront investment, the ease of use makes it so that other areas of expenditure save money.
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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.
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ScreenShots