Visual Analytics is the union of Data Analytics and Visualisations. This problem-solving approach is concerned with effectively facilitating high-level, complex activities such as reasoning and data-driven decision making by integrating interactive visual representations with underlying analytical processes. Tableau is a Visual Analytics Engine that simplifies the creation of interactive visual analytics in the form of dashboards. These dashboards facilitate the conversion of data into intelligible, interactive visualizations for non-technical analysts and end-users.
In this article, you will gain information about Tableau Competitors. You will also gain a holistic understanding of Tableau, its key features, top 5 Tableau Competitors and the similarities between them and Tableau. Read along to find out in-depth information about Tableau Competitors.
Table of Contents
What is Tableau?
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Tableau is a modern Data Analytics and Business Intelligence platform. It is an easy-to-use tool, hence, it offers a smooth experience to its users. Some of Its amazing features include real-time analytics, quick responsiveness, and interactive dashboards.
It also offers simple yet appealing graphics/visualizations that you can use to present your data pictorially. It comes with all the features needed for data extraction, data processing, and generating reports and dashboards.
It also offers a drag-and-drop functionality that makes it faster than other BI tools. It is also a very scalable tool, which gives it the capability to adapt to both individual and enterprise needs. You can also connect it to multiple data sources without the need to purchase a license. It is mobile compatible and it comes with an online version.
It can be used by all kinds of users and no specific skill or knowledge is needed to work with the tool. Users from any department in your company can use it for Data Analysis and Data Visualization.
Key Features of Tableau
Tableau is a powerful tool and is widely used by a lot of industries. To understand Tableau better let’s look at some of its key features:
1) Supports Multiple Data Sources
Since every task is performed on data in Tableau, it allows you to integrate your data from a large variety of data sources like:
- Microsoft Excel
- CSV files
- MS SQL Server
- Oracle
- IBM DB2
- Google BigQuery
- Windows Azure
- ODBC/JDBC, etc
You can make use of these integrations to stream your data to Tableau and analyze it seamlessly.
2) Houses a Wide Range of Visualizations
Tableau also provides a large number of simple tools for its users (both for technical and non-technical people) and empowers them to create different types of visualizations using their data. You can use these tools and create simple or complex visualizations using Tableau. Its key visualizations include:
- Scatter plot
- Line plot
- Pie Chart
- Bar Chart
- Bullet Chart
- Highlight Tables
- Gantt Chart
- Boxplot, etc.
Tableau’s Map features allow you to visualize your data on a geographical map. It is very useful if your data needs to be categorized region-wise or across various countries to help you analyze the performance of each region.
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3) Allows Data Filtering
With the help of Tableau, you can filter data from a single source or multiple sources. But the only condition that needs to be satisfied for filtering data from multiple Data Sources is that the data must have the same dimensions. Once this is satisfied, Tableau automatically updates the required changes to all your worksheets using the same Data Sources and the same filters that you set previously.
4) Dynamic and Real-time Dashboards
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You can build dynamic and interactive Dashboards using Tableau. Building Reports and Dashboards is made very simple by Tableau. You can make them more informative by adding colorful charts and diagrams. Using these real-time Dashboards, you can monitor everything in absolute depth for your organization. Tableau also houses a feature that allows you to share your Dashboards and Reports with other employees in the organization.
5) Powerful Collaboration
Every person can work a lot more efficiently if they understand their data and make informed decisions which are critical to success in any organization. Tableau was initially built to enable collaboration among employees. Using Tableau, all the members in a team can share their work, make follow-up queries with fellow peers, and share visualizations with any employee in the organization, allowing them to gain valuable insights easily.
Tableau gives its users the ability to work and understand the data they need from web editing and authoring to Data Source recommendations. You can easily publish your Dashboard to Tableau Server or Tableau Online within seconds and as a result, everyone in your organization can see your insights, ask various questions, and make the right decisions.
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Its strong integration with umpteenth sources allows users to bring in data of different kinds in a smooth fashion without having to code a single line.
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- Connectors: Hevo supports 100+ Integrations to SaaS platforms, Files, Databases, BI tools such as Tableau, and Native REST API & Webhooks Connectors. It supports various destinations including Google BigQuery, Amazon Redshift, Snowflake Data Warehouses; Amazon S3 Data Lakes; Databricks (Connector Live Soon!); and MySQL, SQL Server, TokuDB, DynamoDB, PostgreSQL Databases to name a few.
- Real-Time Data Transfer: Hevo provides real-time data migration, so you can have analysis-ready data always.
- 100% Complete & Accurate Data Transfer: Hevo’s robust infrastructure ensures reliable data transfer with zero data loss.
- Scalable Infrastructure: Hevo has in-built integrations for 100+ sources (Including 40+ Free Sources) such as Tableau that can help you scale your data infrastructure as required.
- 24/7 Live Support: The Hevo team is available round the clock to extend exceptional support to you through chat, email, and support calls.
- Schema Management: Hevo takes away the tedious task of schema management & automatically detects the schema of incoming data and maps it to the destination schema.
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Top 5 Tableau Competitors
The following is a list of some of the best Business Intelligence tools that are the top Tableau Competitors.
1)MicroStrategy
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MicroStrategy is a Data Analytics platform that provides actionable intelligence to organisations of all sizes through a powerful suite of Business Intelligence tools and services. It enables users to customise data visualisations and create personalised real-time dashboards using drag-and-drop feature, combining the functionality of multiple applications. It makes use of data connectivity, machine learning, and mobile access to provide users with complete control over their insights.
MicroStrategy connects big data, cloud data, and the contents of relational databases, then visualises that data and provides users with a comprehensive picture of information. MicroStrategy improves database performance by optimising resource usage and limiting demanding tasks. It stands out as a leader in the Enterprise Analytics field due to its ease of use and scalability.
2) Qlik Sense
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Qlik Sense is a Cloud-based Data Visualisation and Discovery tool that aids decision-making by compiling and analysing enterprise data and applying artificial intelligence to it. Associative Engine, Qlik Sense’s key differentiator, is a powerful in-memory data engine that provides powerful calculation and aggregation, indexing and highlighting all plausible relationships in the data. The Qlik Sense associative model allows users to freely explore their data, analyze and discover connections, patterns, and outliers in data without having to model those relationships in advance, allowing them to learn and gain insights at each step along the way.
Qlik Sense is simple to use, but some prior knowledge is required to get the most out of it. Qlik Sense has a gesture-based user interface and interaction model that supports advanced gestures such as tap, hold-tap, swipe, pinch, and lasso, as well as gestures for objects, tiles, menus, and other elements. It has a plethora of customization options as well as dashboards. Unfortunately, Qlik Sense can only be installed on Windows Operating Systems, despite the fact that its native mobile app is compatible with both Android and iOS.
3) Oracle Analytics Cloud
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Oracle Analytics Cloud is a scalable and secure Self-service Cloud-based Analytics tool that can perform data preparation, visualisation, enterprise reporting, and other tasks, all while being enhanced by several augmented analytics capabilities. Its AI-powered platform empowers business users and consumers through enriched data preparation, natural language processing, and personalised analytics, all from the convenience and constant accessibility of the cloud.
Oracle Analytics Cloud also provides flexible service management capabilities, such as quick setup, easy scaling and patching, and automated lifecycle management. It supports natural language queries for 28 languages in both text and voice formats, making it a universal tool.
4) Power BI
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Power BI is a set of software services, apps, and connectors that work together to transform disparate data sources into coherent, visually immersive, and interactive insights. MS Power BI offers interactive dashboards, customizable reports, and powerful data analysis, all in a simple and intuitive platform that encourages data exploration. Power BI makes it simple to connect to your data sources, visualise and discover what’s important, and share it with whomever or whomever you want.
The ultimate strength of Power BI is its native integration with the entire Microsoft platform, which includes, of course, Excel, Office, Azure, Dynamics, and hundreds of other apps. Text-based and voice-based queries are also supported by Power BI. Microsoft The dashboards in Power BI are colourful, visually appealing, and ready for distribution. Power BI provides excellent report generation and a wide range of customization options for cloud-ready reports that are pixel-perfect for publishing and distribution.
5) Metabase
Metabase is a Data Analytics tool that is available to both tech-savvy and non-tech-savvy users. It enables the creation of charts and dashboards as well as the execution of queries. It is an open-source tool, but the paid version has far more features than the free version. Self-hosted deployment, unlimited charts and dashboards, and support for over 20 types of databases are among the free features.
Metabase also provides more than 15 visualisation options, as well as the ability to schedule updates via email or Slack. It’s also extremely user-friendly, with an easy-to-use interface and features like quick summarization and a notebook editor. Its dashboards also include drill-down analysis filters, and users can receive event alerts via email and Slack, but with a branded watermark. Metabase is cross-platform and can be installed on both desktop and mobile devices, allowing you to access your data from anywhere.
Similarities among Tableau & its Competitors
The similarities between Tableau and the top 5 Tableau Competitors include:
1) MicroStrategy
The similarities between Tableau and MicroStrategy includes:
- Drag-and-Drop Interface: Users can create data discovery documentation and data visualisations by dragging and dropping grids, graphs, charts, and maps.
- Collaboration: Through a comments panel within the platform’s interface, users can interact directly with one another. They can start discussion threads, tag colleagues, share direct links via email or chat, or directly invite others to a personalised view, allowing them to see things from their point of view.
- Data Connectivity: Using a library of native gateways and drivers, MicroStrategy can connect to a wide range of resources, including databases, enterprise directories, cloud applications, and more.
- Data Preparation: MicroStrategy includes data wrangling and parsing capabilities that allow users to transform and modify data. It provides automatic data preparation recommendations without the need to export data to a spreadsheet.
- Geospatial Analytics: It provides tools through geospatial services that enable users to see the overall picture. Users can make informed business decisions that include geographical factors by visualising massive amounts of location data on a map.
2) Qlik Sense
The similarities between Tableau and Qlik Sense includes:
- Drag-and-Drop Visualizations: Qlik Sense allows users to load data and build analytics with drag-and-drop. Every chart, table, and object is interactive and updates in real time with each action.
- Native Mobile Application: Both platforms provide a native mobile application for both iOS and Android systems, which incorporates responsive design to optimise reports for a user’s device’s screen size. The mobile apps for both platforms allow access to dashboards even when the device is not connected to the internet.
- Recommended Visualizations: Based on an analysis of a data set and factors such as user feedback and industry knowledge, Qlik Sense’s Insight Advisor can recommend specific visualisation types. Tableau can also make data visualisation recommendations based on datasets.
- Conversational Analytics: Both Qlik Sense and Tableau have NLP-powered features which helps users ask questions and discover insights.
3) Oracle Analytics Cloud
The similarities between Tableau and Oracle Analytics Cloud includes:
- Dashboards: Oracle Analytics Cloud users can create and manage dashboards that centralise content from various data sources and systems. Like Tableau, it allows users to apply filters or drag-and-drop visualisations and objects onto the dashboard canvas.
- Data Preparation: Both systems include rigorous data cleaning and preparation prior to analysis. OAC goes a step further by recommending the best way to cleanse, enrich, and combine data in order to eliminate outliers and generate cohesive recommended visualisations.
- Data Connectors: OAC users can select from over 45 data connectors to draw data from a wide variety of data warehouses, databases, and big data sources into a single centralised interface.
- Collaboration: OAC users can collaborate in real-time with one another via a variety of interfaces and means, including prompts for collaboration opportunities, allowing discussions to be captured alongside analysis.
- Conversational Analytics: Both Tableau and OAC support natural language processing, which allows users to ask their data questions in natural language and automatically generate answers in natural language explanations of visualisations and patterns. Both solutions aid in guiding users through the data discovery process, thereby improving data literacy.
4) Power BI
The similarities between Tableau and Power BI includes:
- Data Connectors: Both Power BI and Tableau include many pre-built connectors to other enterprise software and services such as Dynamics 365, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Salesforce.com, Excel, and SharePoint; both platforms also provide the ability to build custom data connectors, ensuring that users can import all of their data, regardless of where it is.
- Collaboration: Both solutions enable users to collaborate on-the-go through team commenting and sharing, increasing collaboration among members, teams, and departments.
- Drag-and-Drop Canvas: With a drag-and-drop canvas and hundreds of pre-built data visualisations, users of Tableau and Power BI can create interactive data visualisations. Both solutions also support custom formatting, theming, layouts, and other features.
- Data Preparation: Both Power BI’s Power Query Editor and Tableau’s Prep tool assist analysts in ingesting, transforming, and enriching big data without the need for additional specialised skills.
- Publishing to Web: Both Power BI and Tableau allow users to create interactive data stories and then publish them to the web for easy access and sharing.
- Personalized Mobile App: Power BI’s mobile app, with personalised notifications and visualisation panes, gives users exactly what they need at a glance, with real-time updates. The native mobile app from Tableau also provides users with a curated, consistent view of their most important metrics.
- NLP Queries: Both platforms allow users to create data queries by asking conversational questions.
5) Metabase
The similarities between Tableau and Metabase includes:
- Visual Analytics: Both the platforms support the usage of sophisticated tools and processes to analyse datasets using visual representations of the data.
- Key Performance Indicators: Both the platform shows KPIs which can help in measuring effectiveness of any Business objective from the dataset.
- Dashboard: Users of both the platforms can create intuitive dashboards for analysing the datasets.
- Customization: Users of both the platforms can customize the charts directly from the dashboard.
Conclusion
In this article, you have learned about the top 5 Tableau Competitors. This article also provided information on Tableau, its key features, and similarities between top 5 Tableau Competitors and Tableau.
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Hevo Data with its strong integration with 100+ Data Sources (including 40+ Free Sources) such as Tableau allows you to not only export data from your desired data sources & load it to the destination of your choice but also transform & enrich your data to make it analysis-ready. Hevo also allows integrating data from non-native sources using Hevo’s in-built REST API & Webhooks Connector. You can then focus on your key business needs and perform insightful analysis using BI tools.
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