SAS Visual Analytics vs. Tableau Cloud

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
SAS Visual Analytics
Score 7.6 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
SAS Visual Analytics provides a complete platform for analytics visualization, enabling users to identify patterns and relationships in data that weren't initially evident. Interactive, self-service BI and reporting capabilities are combined with out-of-the-box advanced analytics so everyone can discover insights from any size and type of data, including text.
$0
Annual By Users: 5, 10, 20
Tableau Cloud
Score 8.0 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
SAS Visual AnalyticsTableau Cloud
Editions & Modules
SAS Visual Analytics for SAS Cloud
Annual By Users: 5, 10, 20
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
SAS Visual AnalyticsTableau Cloud
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsSAS Visual Statistics and SAS Office Analytics are also available as add-ons.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
SAS Visual AnalyticsTableau Cloud
Features
SAS Visual AnalyticsTableau Cloud
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
SAS Visual Analytics
8.3
11 Ratings
1% above category average
Tableau Cloud
7.7
75 Ratings
6% below category average
Pixel Perfect reports8.011 Ratings7.857 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.011 Ratings8.875 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates9.010 Ratings6.564 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
SAS Visual Analytics
8.8
12 Ratings
9% above category average
Tableau Cloud
7.7
75 Ratings
4% below category average
Drill-down analysis9.012 Ratings8.575 Ratings
Formatting capabilities8.012 Ratings7.271 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages8.010 Ratings6.548 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration10.011 Ratings8.573 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
SAS Visual Analytics
9.2
12 Ratings
11% above category average
Tableau Cloud
7.6
73 Ratings
8% below category average
Publish to Web9.011 Ratings8.469 Ratings
Publish to PDF9.012 Ratings7.667 Ratings
Report Versioning9.09 Ratings7.656 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling10.011 Ratings8.260 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers9.06 Ratings6.339 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
SAS Visual Analytics
9.7
10 Ratings
19% above category average
Tableau Cloud
7.8
71 Ratings
3% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)10.09 Ratings8.168 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization10.010 Ratings8.367 Ratings
Predictive Analytics9.09 Ratings7.858 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings7.26 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
SAS Visual Analytics
8.3
11 Ratings
2% below category average
Tableau Cloud
8.2
70 Ratings
4% below category average
Multi-User Support (named login)9.011 Ratings8.064 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model8.010 Ratings7.657 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.011 Ratings8.460 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)8.07 Ratings8.555 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings8.48 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
SAS Visual Analytics
8.7
9 Ratings
11% above category average
Tableau Cloud
7.6
60 Ratings
2% below category average
Responsive Design for Web Access10.09 Ratings7.558 Ratings
Mobile Application9.07 Ratings7.745 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile9.08 Ratings7.952 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
SAS Visual Analytics
9.2
5 Ratings
17% above category average
Tableau Cloud
7.0
42 Ratings
10% below category average
REST API10.04 Ratings7.837 Ratings
Javascript API9.04 Ratings7.335 Ratings
iFrames9.04 Ratings7.034 Ratings
Java API9.04 Ratings6.030 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)9.04 Ratings6.736 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)9.03 Ratings7.333 Ratings
Best Alternatives
SAS Visual AnalyticsTableau Cloud
Small Businesses
Yellowfin
Yellowfin
Score 8.7 out of 10
Yellowfin
Yellowfin
Score 8.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Kyvos Semantic Layer
Kyvos Semantic Layer
Score 9.5 out of 10
Kyvos Semantic Layer
Kyvos Semantic Layer
Score 9.5 out of 10
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User Ratings
SAS Visual AnalyticsTableau Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(17 ratings)
9.2
(76 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.3
(3 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
6.0
(1 ratings)
8.6
(29 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(3 ratings)
8.0
(21 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
SAS Visual AnalyticsTableau Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
SAS
I was in a meeting with the client and there I have to show them some analytic data to them. But I was confused about how I will manage to show big data to clients with accuracy. But then the SAS Visual Analytics software helps me in presenting accurate data at the moment and it was very presentable and through that, I got the deal for that business.
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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.
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Pros
SAS
  • Provides the flexibility to the end user to slice and dice the data.
  • Anyone can make predictive models with the help of in-built algorithms without the need to write a single line of code or knowledge of what's under the hood of algorithms.
  • The feature to simply ask a question related to data and getting a response in form of text, chart or graph is amazing.
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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.
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Cons
SAS
  • SAS is relatively expensive when compared to other BI tools and requires a large amount of upfront fee which becomes an issue for smaller organizations.
  • UI for the dashboards looks a little date in comparison to competitors like Tableau and Microstrategy.
  • Integration with other open source software like Python needs to be built in.
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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
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Likelihood to Renew
SAS
SAS really is the cutting edge in Business Intelligence. That is all they do! They are constantly coming out with new products, product upgrades, and their tech support is second to none. In addition, their support of Education has made our ability to acquire their product possible.
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Tableau
The tool's capacity to handle complex data sources.
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Usability
SAS
SAS BI is good for creating reports and dashboards and then sharing it with the users. It also has ability to manage access to the reports and dashboards but somehow with most of the world moving to open source languages R, Python and Julia, SAS BI feels to be archaic in terms of feature set and integrations it allow[s]. Also, comparing it with other Business Intelligence tools like Tableau and Microsoft BI, the functionality of SAS BI is very limited and doesn't justify the pricing.
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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
SAS
When you call tech support, you are immediately routed to a person who can answer your question. Often they can answer on the spot. However, if they cannot, you are given a track number and then followed up with. There have been times when I have had multiple track numbers open and they will actually TRACK YOU DOWN to ensure that your problem has been resolved. Issues do not fall into black holes with SAS. They are also willing to do a WebEx with you to diagnose the problem by seeing your environment, which is always helpful.
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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
SAS
No answers on this topic
Tableau
I wasn't part of the implementation team
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Alternatives Considered
SAS
I have used Crystal Reports, Jaspersoft and SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). I would recommended Business Intelligence over SSRS and Crystal Reports. SSRS is very SQL-centric and Crystal Reports is more of an end-user tool. I would recommend Jaspersoft over Business Intelligence for developing a seamless web-based reporting interface but I highly recommend Business Intelligence for end-user ad-hoc reporting.
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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.
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Return on Investment
SAS
  • SAS Visual Analytics licensing cost should be reduced to enable users to use it in mass scale.
  • More statistical and mathematical equations and theories should be converted into SAS functions for reusing.
  • Because of enriched ETL and reporting capabilities SAS Visual Analytics is most preferred by business users.
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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
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ScreenShots

SAS Visual Analytics Screenshots

Screenshot of Explore your data using analytics and interactive data visualizations.