Spotfire vs. Tableau Cloud

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Spotfire
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Spotfire, formerly known as TIBCO Spotfire, is a visual data science platform that combines visual analytics, data science, and data wrangling, so users can analyze data at-rest and at-scale to solve complex industry-specific problems.N/A
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
SpotfireTableau 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
SpotfireTableau Cloud
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsFor Enterprise engagements, contact Spotfire directly for a custom price quote.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
SpotfireTableau Cloud
Considered Both Products
Spotfire
Chose Spotfire
Although Spotfire has a longer learning curve, it has proven to be more practical and impactful than Tableau. We had only evaluated other tools at a high level initially, and were surprised to hear the success stories of companies moving from Tableau to Spotfire. We have found …
Chose Spotfire
We also use Tableau in our organization. The advantage we see in Spotfire is that customizations are better. Both the tools are suitable for business users. Devart Excel Add-ins also don't have the level of customizations and visuals compared to Spotfire. Spotfire has better …
Chose Spotfire
One of the best features in Spotfire is the capability to export the analysis to make it run in a web browser without losing the core interactive and filtering functionality making it available to anyone without having to install any software. This characteristic can represent …
Chose Spotfire
  • More user friendly Interface.
  • Easier to configure the access to data bases and other data types.
  • Easier to build aggregations within the graphs.
Chose Spotfire
Spotfire is good for Engineering apps, but not a good tool when doing financial data. Spotfire was selected because my company uses more engineering tools for reporting.
Chose Spotfire
Simpler platform administration and execution. Due to cloud deliverable there was not a need for viewer for end users; superior predictive modeling.
Tableau Cloud
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
Tableau Online is much simpler than other Business Intelligence tools such as SAS and SAP Lumira. While SAS allows you to create algorithms to display a set, Tableau Online provides a more friendly user interface for ease of access. Although it does not stack up too well with …
Features
SpotfireTableau Cloud
Platform Connectivity
Comparison of Platform Connectivity features of Product A and Product B
Spotfire
7.2
8 Ratings
15% below category average
Tableau Cloud
-
Ratings
Connect to Multiple Data Sources7.88 Ratings00 Ratings
Extend Existing Data Sources7.48 Ratings00 Ratings
Automatic Data Format Detection7.88 Ratings00 Ratings
MDM Integration6.05 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Exploration
Comparison of Data Exploration features of Product A and Product B
Spotfire
9.1
8 Ratings
8% above category average
Tableau Cloud
-
Ratings
Visualization9.08 Ratings00 Ratings
Interactive Data Analysis9.28 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Preparation
Comparison of Data Preparation features of Product A and Product B
Spotfire
7.4
8 Ratings
9% below category average
Tableau Cloud
-
Ratings
Interactive Data Cleaning and Enrichment7.28 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Transformations8.08 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Encryption7.05 Ratings00 Ratings
Built-in Processors7.55 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform Data Modeling
Comparison of Platform Data Modeling features of Product A and Product B
Spotfire
7.6
8 Ratings
10% below category average
Tableau Cloud
-
Ratings
Multiple Model Development Languages and Tools7.57 Ratings00 Ratings
Automated Machine Learning8.55 Ratings00 Ratings
Single platform for multiple model development7.68 Ratings00 Ratings
Self-Service Model Delivery6.76 Ratings00 Ratings
Model Deployment
Comparison of Model Deployment features of Product A and Product B
Spotfire
7.4
7 Ratings
14% below category average
Tableau Cloud
-
Ratings
Flexible Model Publishing Options7.87 Ratings00 Ratings
Security, Governance, and Cost Controls7.07 Ratings00 Ratings
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Spotfire
-
Ratings
Tableau Cloud
7.7
75 Ratings
6% below category average
Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings7.957 Ratings
Customizable dashboards00 Ratings8.875 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings6.564 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Spotfire
-
Ratings
Tableau Cloud
7.7
75 Ratings
4% below category average
Drill-down analysis00 Ratings8.575 Ratings
Formatting capabilities00 Ratings7.271 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings6.548 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration00 Ratings8.573 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Spotfire
-
Ratings
Tableau Cloud
7.6
73 Ratings
8% below category average
Publish to Web00 Ratings8.469 Ratings
Publish to PDF00 Ratings7.667 Ratings
Report Versioning00 Ratings7.656 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings8.160 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings6.339 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Spotfire
-
Ratings
Tableau Cloud
7.8
71 Ratings
2% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)00 Ratings8.168 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings8.367 Ratings
Predictive Analytics00 Ratings7.758 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
Spotfire
-
Ratings
Tableau Cloud
8.2
70 Ratings
4% below category average
Multi-User Support (named login)00 Ratings8.064 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model00 Ratings7.657 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)00 Ratings8.460 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings8.48 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings8.555 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Spotfire
-
Ratings
Tableau Cloud
7.6
60 Ratings
2% below category average
Responsive Design for Web Access00 Ratings7.558 Ratings
Mobile Application00 Ratings7.745 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile00 Ratings7.952 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Spotfire
-
Ratings
Tableau Cloud
7.0
42 Ratings
10% below category average
REST API00 Ratings7.837 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings7.335 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings7.034 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings6.030 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings6.736 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings7.333 Ratings
Best Alternatives
SpotfireTableau Cloud
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Jupyter Notebook
Jupyter Notebook
Score 8.5 out of 10
BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Posit
Posit
Score 10.0 out of 10
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Posit
Posit
Score 10.0 out of 10
Kyvos Semantic Layer
Kyvos Semantic Layer
Score 9.5 out of 10
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User Ratings
SpotfireTableau Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(351 ratings)
9.3
(76 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.6
(30 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(27 ratings)
8.6
(29 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(14 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.1
(14 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.7
(27 ratings)
8.0
(21 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.3
(52 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(55 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.4
(17 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Configurability
7.1
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.0
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
5.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
5.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
SpotfireTableau Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
Spotfire
A high level of data integration is available here it supports various data sources and so on. Collaborating features allow users to give access to the dashboard and merge data analytics with other team members. It can meet the demands of both small and large size business enterprises. A customized dashboard and reports are provided to meet the specific needs and get support of extensibility through APIs and customized scripts.
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
Spotfire
  • It has the best coding integration (python, R) of any BI product
  • The ability to work with very large datasets (10 mil+) is better than competitors
  • Export options are more complete and have better functionality
  • The data canvas is the best tool to join and transform data vs. competitors
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
Spotfire
  • The donut chart is I guess a powerful illustrations but I hope it should be done quite simple in Spotfire. But in Spotfire there are lots of steps involve just to build a simple donut chart.
  • Table calculation (like Row or Column Differences) should be made simple or there should be drag and drop function for Table Calculation. No need for scripting.
  • Information Link should be changed. If new columns are added to the table just refreshing the data should be able to capture the new column. No need extra step to add column
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
Spotfire
-Easy to distribute information throughout the enterprise using the webplayer. -Ad hoc analysis is possible throughout the enterprise using business author in the webplayer or the thick client. -Low level of support needed by IT team. Access interfaces with LDAP and numerous other authentication methods. -Possible to continually extend the platform with JavaScript, R scripts, HTML, and custom extensions. -Ability to standardize data logic through pre-built queries in the Information Designer. Everyone in the enterprise is using the same logic -Tagging and bookmarking data allows for quick sharing of insights. -Integration with numerous data sources... flat files, data bases, big data, images, etc. -Much improved mapping capability. Also includes the ability to apply data points over any image.
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Tableau
The tool's capacity to handle complex data sources.
Read full review
Usability
Spotfire
Basic tasks like generating meaningful information from large sets of raw data are very easy. The next step of linking to multiple live data sources and linking those tables and performing on the fly analysis of the imported data is understandably more difficult.
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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Reliability and Availability
Spotfire
Even though, it's a rather stable and predictable tool that's also fast, it does have some bugs and inconsistencies that shut down the system. Depending on the details, it could happen as often as 2-3 times a week, especially during the development period.
Read full review
Tableau
No answers on this topic
Performance
Spotfire
Generally, the Spotfire client runs with very good performance. There are factors that could affect performance, but normally has to do with loading large analysis files from the library if the database is located some distance away and your global network is not optimal. Once you have your data table(s) loaded in the client application, usually the application is quite good performance-wise.
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Tableau
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Spotfire
Support has been helpful with issues. Support seems to know their product and its capabilities. It would also seem that they have a good sense of the context of the problem; where we are going with this issue and what we want the end outcome to be.
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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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In-Person Training
Spotfire
The instructor was very in depth and provided relevant training to business users on how to create visualizations. They showed us how to alter settings and filter views, and provided resources for future questions. However, the instructor failed to cover data sources, connecting to data, etc. While it was helpful to see how users can use the data to create reports, they failed to properly instruct us on how to get the dataset in to begin with. We are still trying to figure out connections to certain databases (we have multiple different types).
Read full review
Tableau
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Spotfire
The online training is good, provides a good base of knowledge. The video demonstrations were well-done and easy to follow along. Provided exercises are good as well, but I think there could be more challenging exercises. The training has also gone up in price significantly in the last 3 years (in USD, which hurts us even more in Canada), and I'm not sure it is worth the money it now costs (it is worth how much it cost 3 years ago, but not double that.)
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Tableau
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Spotfire
The original architecture I created for our implementation had only a particular set of internal business units in mind. Over the years, Spotfire gained in popularity in our company and was being utilized across many more business units. Soon, its usage went beyond what the original architectural implementation could provide. We've since learned about how the product is used by the different teams and are currently in the middle of rolling out a new architecture. I suggest:
  • Have clearly defined service level agreements with all the teams that will use Spotfire. Your business intelligence group might only need availability during normal working hours, but your production support group might need 24/7 availability. If these groups share one Spotfire server, maintenance of that server might be a problem.
  • Know the different types of data you will be working with. One group might be working with "public" data while another group might work with sensitive data. Design your Library accordingly and with the proper permissions.
  • Know the roles of the users of Spotfire. Will there only be a small set of report writers or does everyone have write access to the Library?
  • ALWAYS add a timestamp prompt to your reports. You don't want multiple users opening a report that will try and pull down millions of rows of data to their local workstations. Another option, of course, is to just hard code a time range in the backing database view (i.e. where activity_date >= sysdate - 90, etc.), but I'd rather educate/train the user base if possible.
  • This probably goes without saying, but if possible, point to a separate reporting database or a logical standby database. You don't want the company pounding on your primaries and take down your order system.
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Tableau
I wasn't part of the implementation team
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Spotfire
Spotfire is significantly ahead of both products from an ETL and data ingestion capability. Spotfire also has substantially better visualizations than Power BI, and although the native visualizations aren't as flexible in Tableau, Spotfire enables users to create completely custom javascript visaualizations, which neither Tableau or Power BI has. Tableau and Power BI are likely only superior to Spotfire with respect to embedded analysis on a website.
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
Scalability
Spotfire
In an enterprise architecture, if Spotfire Advanced Data services(Composite Studio),data marts can be managed optimally and scalability in a data perspective is great. As the web player/consumer is directly proportional to RAM, if the enterprise can handle RAM requirement accomodating fail over mechanisms appropraitely, it is definitely scalable,
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Tableau
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Spotfire
  • It is costly, so not suitable for small scale implementations.
  • Dashboards are as good as the developer, so need experience to get most out of it
  • You need to be on Spotfire 11 at least to implement out of the box visualizations
  • Integration with Python and R is a game changer, it comes very handy to onboard data scientists without much hassle
  • performance is exceptionally well.
  • Secure
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

Spotfire Screenshots

Screenshot of Smart Visual AnalyticsScreenshot of Geospatial AnalyticsScreenshot of Intelligent Data WranglingScreenshot of Point-and-click Data ScienceScreenshot of Real-time Streaming Analytics