Microsoft BI (MSBI) vs. Tableau Desktop

Microsoft BI (MSBI)

934 Reviews and Ratings

Tableau Desktop

2,288 Reviews and Ratings

Overview
Product	Rating	Most Used By	Product Summary	Starting Price
Microsoft BI (MSBI)	Score7.1 out of 10	N/A	Microsoft BI is a business intelligence product used for data analysis and generating reports on server-based data. It features unlimited data analysis capacity with its reporting engine, SQL Server Reporting Services alongside ETL, master data management, and data cleansing.	$14 per month per user
Tableau Desktop	Score8.1 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

Pricing

Microsoft BI (MSBI)

Tableau Desktop

Power BI Pro: $14
per month per user
Power BI Premium: $24
per month per user

Tableau: $75
per month per user
Tableau Enterprise: $115
per month per user

Pricing Offerings
Microsoft BI (MSBI)	Tableau Desktop
Free Trial
No	No
Free/Freemium Version
Yes	No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No	Yes

No setup fee

No setup fee

—

All pricing plans are billed annually.

Community Pulse
Key User Insights
	Microsoft BI (MSBI)	Tableau Desktop
Considered Both Products	Microsoft Aniket Sawant Product Manager in Product Management at Massey Services Inc (Environmental Services, 1001-5000 employees) Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI) The biggest player against Microsoft BI (MSBI) was Tableau, which was acquired by Salesforce. Recently there have been other standalone software/applications that provide similar functionality to Microsoft BI (MSBI). Because my company is a Microsoft shop, we have not explored … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI) Tableau's feature set is comparable to Microsoft BI at a potentially lower cost, however, Microsoft provides better integration into a Microsoft Environment and more flexible deployment options. Microsoft also provides better enterprise support than Tableau (although this may … Incentivized Helpful? Ashutosh Gaikwad Revenue Assurance and Fraud Managment in Information Technology at Reliance INFOCOMM Limited (Telecommunications, 10,001+ employees) Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI) Tableau is very slow, and it's very complicated to use, whereas Microsoft BI is faster and more efficient. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI) Unlike Oracle Business Intelligence Cloud Service (OBICS), Microsoft BI offers a good range of visualisation options. However, it falls behind in terms of data management capabilities. If your requirements are more data intensive and less reporting intensive, then Microsoft BI … Incentivized Helpful? Charles Saulnier Conseiller à l'implantation, Solutions de performance et gestion de l'information in Professional Services at Logibec (Health, Wellness and Fitness, 201-500 employees) Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI) For analysis and visualization, Power BI is aiming to take a large chunk of Tableau's market share. The rhythm of iterations at this time has in my opinion given the momentum to Power BI. The added functionalities in Excel also make it possible for intermediate users to get … Incentivized Helpful? Jasmeet S Babra Marketing Data Analyst in Marketing at Brandify (Information Technology and Services, 11-50 employees) Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI) Microsoft BI is very well suited to implement reporting and visualization within departments. Choosing Microsoft BI over tools like Tableau is the variety of third party apps it extracts data from. This functionality is limited in Tableau as it digests data from large data … Incentivized Helpful? Micah Jones Chief Information Officer in Corporate at Phoenix Ortho (Computer Software, 11-50 employees) Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI) Microsoft BI seems very comparable to Tableau. They seem to both do the same things. Tableau appeared to have more support and documentation. Incentivized Helpful? Alexander Lubyansky Technical Leader for Modeling and Simulation in Research & Development at MITRE (Management Consulting, 5001-10,000 employees) Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI) Looking at the visualization portion of BI, there are three types of tools. Programming packages. Free and powerful, they let you make any diagram, at the cost of difficulty of use. Specialist software like Tableau and Microsoft BI. This is the best choice in most cases due to … Incentivized Helpful? Ved Mishra SharePoint/MS Project Server Engineer in Information Technology at Merck (Pharmaceuticals, 10,001+ employees) Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI) Microsoft BI is a great tool when it comes to various integration with line of business applications and its own ecosystem which contains office applications widely used all over the world. Hence, it is well suited for organizations that are complex and have global foot-print. … Incentivized Helpful? Jerome Lambert, PhD Business Analyst \| Digital Analytics in Professional Services at Anametrix Inc, an Ensighten Company (Computer Software, 51-200 employees) Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI) Microsoft BI stacks up against Tableau because Tableau cannot blend various data sources easily. Tableau produces nice reports with a single data source. Today, it's not what we need. We need to easily combine multiple data sources. I would recommend either Microsoft BI or … Helpful? Mashhood Syed Business Intelligence Specialist in Information Technology at Kaiser Foundation Health Plan (Transportation/Trucking/Railroad, 501-1000 employees) Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI) -Tableau is clearly more cutting edge when it comes to data visualization and connecting to multiple data sources (support for MongoDB, Hadoop, etc). -Assuming your data is not that sophisticated, Microsoft BI is a great product. I would say its a good "all around" BI tool. It … Helpful? Al Mubassir Muin Software Engineer in Information Technology at Prime Tech Solutions Ltd. (Information Technology & Services, 51-200 employees) Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI) Better integration with Microsoft products is one of the advantages of using Business Intelligence (BI). It's simple to understand, and plenty of resources are available to outsource it. Many of our existing clients have Microsoft licensing agreements. It's an obvious path when … Incentivized Helpful? Aononna Tazin Customer Relationship Management Specialist in Information Technology at Green Light Ltd (Information Technology & Services, 51-200 employees) Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI) Outsourcing work is easy to understand, and there are plenty of resources available in the marketplace. It is expensive, but it is still significantly less costly than the alternatives. Results from Microsoft BI (MSBI) are dependable; therefore, there is no problem with trust. … Incentivized Helpful? Nilufa Hossain IT Specialist in Research & Development at Lamda I-TECH (Information Technology & Services, 11-50 employees) Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI) MSBI is great for data collection and reporting, but it lacks the visual appeal and features of Power BI. Even though it's still useful, it falls short of Power BI in terms of features. There's no reason to doubt MSBI's findings. MSBI has a proactive customer service team that … Incentivized Helpful? Hrishikesh Kardile Logistics Analyst in Corporate at Jack Cooper Transport & Logistics (Logistics and Supply Chain, 1001-5000 employees) Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI) Microsoft BI is much cheaper. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI) A lot of our existing client base has licensing agreements in place with Microsoft, couple that with decision-makers wanting to achieve the outcome with the least amount of additional licensing costs added, and it becomes an obvious path, however, it is very crucial to first … Incentivized Helpful? Shelby Bowden Graduate Research Assistant in Research & Development at Western Kentucky University (Higher Education, 1001-5000 employees) Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI) Specific data displays are some of the strongest aspects of Microsoft BI when compared to alternate programs. It also does a superior job in compatibility with many programs, especially those from Microsoft. Since my company primarily uses Office 365 and other Microsoft … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI) The other programs listed are excellent. I have always been a fan of Google products because they are user-friendly and easily accessible by most. They also produce excellent data outputs. Google is still great for companies of any size but I believe Microsoft BI is an even … Incentivized Helpful? Yemsi Pino Planificador Territorial II in Research & Development at MPPP (Environmental Services, 501-1000 employees) Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI) The software stacks [well] because it has more graphics resolution and the colors are fresh and actualized. On the other hand, there is the Microsoft family software and this is an advantage. Microsoft has a lot of users around the world and it's like everyone knows how to do … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI) Microsoft BI is ideal for proficient Excel users, and it is the best choice in terms of visualizations. We decided to use Microsoft BI for these reasons. Incentivized Helpful? Haibo Yang BI Reporting Specialist in Professional Services at Impac Services - Risk & Safety Management Solutions (Professional Training & Coaching, 51-200 employees) Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI) I'd rather not say to avoid unnecessary arguments. Thanks. Incentivized Helpful? Julia Gusman BI Consultant at Altis Consulting (Information Technology and Services, 51-200 employees) Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI) I have been using the open source open standards BI tool 'Pentaho' before moving into the Microsoft space and I must admit I was surprised how much more difficult it is to do development in Microsoft. Having said that the cubes (SSAS) and reporting (SSRS) side does seem more … Incentivized Helpful? Sean Warren CIO (Chief Information Officer) in Information Technology at Mountain Medical (Hospital & Health Care, 201-500 employees) Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI) Microsoft is a distant me too in a world that is crowded and drowning in BI Me too products. Visualizations 5/10. Micro Strategy, ClickView, Domo, BOBJ etc will kill this product. The issue is cost and speed to implementation. The cost is far less than any of the previously … Helpful? Chris Utter Regional BI Practice Director in Information Technology at Neudesic (Information Technology and Services, 201-500 employees) Chose Microsoft BI (MSBI) With over 20 years in IT, I have experienced a full range of relational and non-relational data solutions, from Oracle and Informix to MongoDB and Hadoop. In my opinion, the Microsoft BI stack is the most complete, well-rounded, high performing data management system on the … Incentivized Helpful?	Tableau Verified User Chose Tableau Desktop Tableau is so much better for data visualization and analysis than Microsoft Reporting Services, but lacks the other functionalities that are included on Microsoft BI (MBI). That's why we use MBI to extract and consolidate our data and Tableau to create some advanced reports. Incentivized Helpful? Jake Lanier Marketing Analyst in Marketing at Craftworks Restaurants & Breweries, Inc. (Restaurants, 501-1000 employees) Chose Tableau Desktop While I haven't done a lot of work in Microsoft BI, I do think they are on the right road to being a great product but they definitely lag behind Tableau in the number of features available. Obviously, it does integrate well with Microsoft products, but it remains to be seen … Incentivized Helpful? Akshaya Bhardwaj Consultant in Information Technology at WNS Global Services (Outsourcing/Offshoring, 10,001+ employees) Chose Tableau Desktop It is very easy to use, we can create numbers of charts through it which I think other tools lack in. Lots of online communities are there which have provided solutions to the basic issues. Its ODS(output delivery system) is also very effective. We can use SQL in it for … Incentivized Helpful? John Rome Deputy CIO and BI Strategist in Information Technology at Arizona State University (Higher Education, 10,001+ employees) Chose Tableau Desktop Tableau supports more data sources that both Amazon QuickSight and Microsoft Power BI. It also created a much more sophisticated dashboard which is important for leadership and others who use it. However, we use other products like Toad Data Point and Alteryx and tools that … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Tableau Desktop Tableau has a great community engagement, and it's really great to find and connect with other Tableau users. I think that really sets them apart from other tools, where Tableau has invested in empowering local user groups and supporting users online through the Tableau … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Tableau Desktop Good drill down capabilities Intuitive and friendly GUI Less dependency on IT Incentivized Helpful? Abanish Mishra Business Intelligence Analyst in Information Technology at Match.com (Internet, 201-500 employees) Chose Tableau Desktop My current work environment uses both Tableau Online, MicroStrategy & SSRS in parallel. Tableau is much closer to the SSRS in terms of visualization tool where as MicroStrategy is an enterprise data modeling and reporting tool. Based on the use case we use different tools. Here … Incentivized Helpful? Jasmeet S Babra Marketing Data Analyst in Marketing at Brandify (Information Technology and Services, 11-50 employees) Chose Tableau Desktop Excel, Google Analytics, Google Charts Incentivized Helpful? Alexander Lubyansky Technical Leader for Modeling and Simulation in Research & Development at MITRE (Management Consulting, 5001-10,000 employees) Chose Tableau Desktop Excel is almost as good as Tableau. If you have a few thousand floating around just spring for the Tableau. QlikView is an abomination. Not much else to say there. SAS and friends are like ye olde-timey versions of Tableau in terms of their visualization abilities. Python, R, … Incentivized Helpful? David Barrymore IMS Cloud CEO and Director of Business Intelligence Services in Corporate at IMS Cloud, Inc. (Market Research, 1-10 employees) Chose Tableau Desktop Tableau Desktop is at the bottom of the stack (right next to QlikCloud). Incentivized Helpful?
	Would buy again
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Delivers good value for the price
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Happy with the feature set
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Lived up to sales and marketing promises
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Implementation went as expected
No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic

Features

Microsoft BI (MSBI)

Tableau Desktop

Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Tableau Desktop
Feature	Microsoft BI (MSBI) 8.7 48 Ratings	Tableau Desktop 8.3 167 Ratings
Pixel Perfect reports	9.041 Ratings	8.8139 Ratings
Customizable dashboards	8.048 Ratings	8.4166 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates	9.046 Ratings	7.8145 Ratings

Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Tableau Desktop
Feature	Microsoft BI (MSBI) 8.8 48 Ratings	Tableau Desktop 8.7 164 Ratings
Drill-down analysis	9.043 Ratings	8.6159 Ratings
Formatting capabilities	8.048 Ratings	9.2162 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages	9.038 Ratings	7.7122 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration	9.048 Ratings	9.2157 Ratings

Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Tableau Desktop
Feature	Microsoft BI (MSBI) 9.0 47 Ratings	Tableau Desktop 8.1 158 Ratings
Publish to Web	9.043 Ratings	7.3149 Ratings
Publish to PDF	9.043 Ratings	7.9149 Ratings
Report Versioning	9.039 Ratings	8.2116 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling	9.042 Ratings	9.2123 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers	9.023 Ratings	8.073 Ratings

Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Tableau Desktop
Feature	Microsoft BI (MSBI) 9.0 47 Ratings	Tableau Desktop 8.4 156 Ratings
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)	9.046 Ratings	9.0154 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization	9.043 Ratings	8.2149 Ratings
Predictive Analytics	9.041 Ratings	8.6126 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining	9.01 Ratings	8.02 Ratings

Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Tableau Desktop
Feature	Microsoft BI (MSBI) 9.0 48 Ratings	Tableau Desktop 8.7 142 Ratings
Multi-User Support (named login)	9.045 Ratings	9.0139 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model	9.042 Ratings	8.0119 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)	9.045 Ratings	8.8129 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control	9.01 Ratings	9.03 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)	9.027 Ratings	8.877 Ratings

Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Tableau Desktop
Feature	Microsoft BI (MSBI) 8.5 38 Ratings	Tableau Desktop 8.0 135 Ratings
Responsive Design for Web Access	8.035 Ratings	8.2124 Ratings
Mobile Application	8.026 Ratings	7.097 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile	10.035 Ratings	8.8117 Ratings

Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Microsoft BI (MSBI) and Tableau Desktop
Feature	Microsoft BI (MSBI) 8.8 20 Ratings	Tableau Desktop 9.0 64 Ratings
REST API	9.018 Ratings	9.256 Ratings
Javascript API	9.018 Ratings	9.051 Ratings
iFrames	9.017 Ratings	9.249 Ratings
Java API	9.016 Ratings	10.046 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)	9.017 Ratings	8.453 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)	8.016 Ratings	8.446 Ratings

User Ratings
	Microsoft BI (MSBI)	Tableau Desktop
Likelihood to Recommend	9.0 (72 ratings)	8.7 (194 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew	8.0 (25 ratings)	8.9 (39 ratings)
Usability	8.9 (14 ratings)	8.6 (63 ratings)
Availability	9.5 (2 ratings)	8.0 (10 ratings)
Performance	7.0 (2 ratings)	6.1 (9 ratings)
Support Rating	8.9 (15 ratings)	7.0 (56 ratings)
In-Person Training	6.9 (3 ratings)	9.4 (4 ratings)
Online Training	8.5 (2 ratings)	8.0 (4 ratings)
Implementation Rating	9.6 (7 ratings)	8.0 (34 ratings)
Configurability	10.0 (2 ratings)	8.1 (2 ratings)
Data Sharing and Collaboration	8.5 (42 ratings)	8.4 (115 ratings)
Data Sources	8.4 (41 ratings)	7.9 (115 ratings)
Ease of integration	- (0 ratings)	10.0 (1 ratings)
Product Scalability	- (0 ratings)	7.0 (3 ratings)
Vendor post-sale	- (0 ratings)	10.0 (1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale	- (0 ratings)	10.0 (1 ratings)