IBM Apptio vs. Tableau Desktop

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM Apptio
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
The IBM Apptio platform is a technology business management solution that enables organizations to make better decisions about technology investments. It connects technology spend to business value so organizations can adapt to changing market conditions.N/A
Tableau Desktop
Score 8.1 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.
$75
per month per user
Pricing
IBM ApptioTableau Desktop
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Tableau
$75
per month per user
Tableau Enterprise
$115
per month per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM ApptioTableau Desktop
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional DetailsAll pricing plans are billed annually.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
IBM ApptioTableau Desktop
Features
IBM ApptioTableau Desktop
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
IBM Apptio
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.3
Ratings
2% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Customizable dashboards00 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
IBM Apptio
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.7
Ratings
8% above category average
Drill-down analysis00 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Formatting capabilities00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
IBM Apptio
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.1
Ratings
2% below category average
Publish to Web00 Ratings7.40 Ratings
Publish to PDF00 Ratings7.90 Ratings
Report Versioning00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
IBM Apptio
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.4
Ratings
5% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Predictive Analytics00 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
IBM Apptio
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.7
Ratings
3% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
IBM Apptio
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.0
Ratings
2% above category average
Responsive Design for Web Access00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Mobile Application00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
IBM Apptio
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
9.0
Ratings
14% above category average
REST API00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings8.50 Ratings
User Ratings
IBM ApptioTableau Desktop
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(0 ratings)
8.7
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.5
(0 ratings)
8.9
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.8
(0 ratings)
8.6
(0 ratings)
Availability
8.0
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Performance
3.0
(0 ratings)
6.1
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.4
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
9.1
(0 ratings)
9.4
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.1
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.1
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
8.1
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.0
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM ApptioTableau Desktop
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM Apptio: 1. Track and Allocate cloud and on-premise costs across departments. 2. Compare planned budgets versus actuals spend in real time. 3. Provide Business leaders with transparent insights into how IT Investment drive business outcomes. 4. Enable show back models to ensure accountability and optimize resource usage. 5. Report Usage, where we can see the actual data regarding the users information and activity and track.
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The best scenario is definitely to collect data from several sources and create dedicated dashboards for specific recipients. However, I miss the possibility of explaining these reports in more detail. Sometimes, we order a report, and after half a year, we don't remember the meaning of some data (I know it's our fault as an organization, but the tool could force better practices).
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Pros
  • Does very well at handling complex allocations and automation. Also great at bringing in data automatically, manipulating that data, and allowing you to feed that data into a complex model. So all the behind-the-scenes stuff works really well. It's also pretty good at visualization. It has some similar capabilities like a Power BI and Tableau, but generally provides most of the visualization technology that somebody would need with the tool.
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  • The Visualizations graphics are really good and the color options help in designing attractive charts. They help to convey more information and can be made interactive.
  • You can add filters with offer you to plug and play with values and understand different outcomes.
  • You can drag and drop options while creating charts and dashboards. also it is a very fluid layout.
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Cons
  • The CCM module does not always calculate cloud RI usage correctly.
  • Would like better functionality to switch between cloud usage metrics and cost data. Discount rate on cloud recently increased, resulting in lower cost, but with higher utilization.
  • Continue investing in the CCM product, we like it, feels like we are being pushed to cloudability.
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  • 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
It is hands down the most innovative SaaS on the market today. In my humble opinion it will be just as big or bigger than Salesforce, Workday and all of the greats. I would advise any big company to take advantage of Apptio and renew on an annual basis with their support team!
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Because right now its the best option out there (disclosure: I haven't used Qlikview or some of the other direct competitors of Tableau). The big investment is in Tableau Server not desktop. For the cost of the license of Tableau desktop, its a pretty good deal. You can hook it up to pretty much any data source easily. You can easily share the visualizations with your team/colleagues easily. Tableau Desktop is generally easy to use for business users. But the more advanced stuff is better suited for a analyst or someone with a IT/CS background.
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Usability
We use this currently where I work and we have the consultant Maryville helping us with our Apptio reports and data. I originally used Apptio a few years back and since then I have switched employment, and I was able to talk to the leadership team about what we did at my previous job, and now we are building the reports here at my new place of employment
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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
Excellent, so far. SaaS-based...assuming effective data links and connectivity
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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
Excellent, so far.
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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
I have not been directly involved with the post sales support team. However, that team has provided training materials and recommended practices that have been very helpful in coming up to speed on how to more fully use the product. My understanding from both vendor management and our upline stakeholders is that our relationship with Apptio is strong.
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The Tableau Desktop's support team has been very helpful and tend to response very quickly. After all you have paid very premium price for the product and it goes to the services. This makes using the tool much easier for these who doesn't have such experience to get help quickly.
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In-Person Training
Was awesome to have been taught by legendary Debbie Hagan for Cost Transparency in person. Her knowledge is extensive and she is an excellent trainer. Her years of experience really shined.
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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
The all talented training organization crosses all the T's and dots all the I's. I am constantly learning and often refer to training documentation for post training real life issues.
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I think the training was good overall, but it was maybe stating the obvious things that a tech savvy young engineer would be able to pick up themselves too. However, the example work books were good and Tableau web community has helped me with many problems
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Implementation Rating
Well, so far. Apptio Consulting covered specific model architecting areas particularly. Most of the heavy lifting is being done in-house with support from Apptio as it relates to tool impacts and needs. Some administrative tasks were redundant
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Time needs to be spent ahead of implementation to make sure data sources are set up and ready. Consultants need to understand the data sources and the goals before setting foot on-site. Installation is easy, learning to use it takes time. The training resources available are great.
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Alternatives Considered
I personally have not used or evaluated any other product similar to Apptio. I can say that this is a great service and we use it often and we are growing how we use it. We are planning on expanding the way we use this database. We are excited to hear about more of the apptio products/modules that would benefit our agency
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Tableau Desktop is clearly one of the best in the business. It has incredible capabilities, and many features are extremely useful. The intuitiveness of the dashboards and the graphical nature of the visualizations are widely used features and super helpful. One of the other benefits is that both programmers and non-programmers can equally explore and create their own opportunities, and seamless integration is possible.
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Scalability
No answers on this topic
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
  • Has saved hours on time in comparing budget expenditures of departments to their actuals
  • Has helped optimize the ability to analyze data and compare yearly financials
  • However, does not decrease time in comparing budgets of different departments or agencies as can't view both side by side
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  • Easy to share and manage viewer access on a different level to help identify fraud.
  • Faster report generation, increased revenue, better decision-making, and data storytelling.
  • One-click access to business health and the ability to build/maintain more effective and efficient reports.
  • It's easy to share and even manage access to viewers on a different level, and reports are done in a more visual and storytelling manner.
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ScreenShots

IBM Apptio Screenshots

Screenshot of Industry BenchmarksScreenshot of Planning OverviewScreenshot of Billing - Main ViewScreenshot of Costing - Control OpEx and Cut CostsScreenshot of Spend Analytics