Board vs ThoughtSpot comparison

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Board

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Board and ThoughtSpot compete in the business intelligence and analytics market. ThoughtSpot is favored for its innovative features and ease of use, while Board has an edge in strategic planning functionalities.

Features: Board is valued for its comprehensive planning, budgeting, and forecasting capabilities, integrating smoothly into business processes. It excels in performance management and simulative scenarios. ThoughtSpot is known for advanced analytics, offering search-driven insights and rapid data exploration and visualization.

Room for Improvement: Board could enhance its interface to improve user experience and make data analysis more intuitive. Increased customization might provide more flexible report generation. Additionally, simpler integration with non-standard systems could be beneficial. ThoughtSpot might improve its cost-effectiveness for smaller companies and expand its offering to include more robust strategic planning features. Enhancement of its data modeling capabilities could increase efficiency and user control.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: ThoughtSpot offers a cloud-based deployment model that streamlines implementation, enabling quick scaling and updates with a robust onboarding process. Board provides flexible deployment options, supporting both on-premise and cloud setups, and is recognized for strong customer service designed to assist with complex integrations.

Pricing and ROI: Board offers a predictable pricing model, aligning well with long-term strategic planning, potentially contributing to steady ROI. ThoughtSpot is perceived as a premium solution, and while the cost is higher, it justifies it through advanced analytics and rapid insights, supporting business agility. The investment in ThoughtSpot can result in notable operational improvements, seen as valuable despite the initial expense.

To learn more, read our detailed Board vs. ThoughtSpot Report (Updated: April 2025).

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Board vs. ThoughtSpot

April 2025

Helped 847,625 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Board

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

23rd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Performance Management (10th), Reporting (20th)

ThoughtSpot

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

18th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Visualization (14th), Embedded BI (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Board is 0.5%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ThoughtSpot is 1.4%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Featured Reviews

Wiboon Thabsuwan

Senior Consultant at IMD Company Limited

Easy to use and requires less time to learn or understand its features

I think the product is good in terms of ease of use. The interface looks really nice and very easy to use. Every command appears in the icon. It looks like you don't have to understand everything about the command. You do not necessarily have to know more, or I would say that there is less time for our study about the products. Functionality-wise, it is quite easy to use and requires less time to understand or learn about the product. I am a software vendor, so I do not use the tool myself. I use it for my clients. My clients mostly use it for budgeting and timing purposes. I would say that's really less maintenance at all because they can do everything by themselves. It is good in terms of ease of use.

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Sushma Polavarapu

Sr Data Analytics Consultant at Capgemini

Creates user-friendly analysis environments for large datasets

The tool is user-friendly for the end users. It is primarily a search-based tool. Users do not need a technical background to work directly on the dataset. Its compatibility with most databases, including the latest from FlexMovely and Redshift, allows users to create joins and worksheets easily. ThoughtSpot is fast, even with one to ten terabytes of data.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"It allows people to quickly create dashboards with reports."

"We have better reporting and have been able to better track performance."

"The aesthetics of it are really nice. That is what attracted us to BOARD: the ease and functionality of it."

"A lot of flexibility from the data modeling standpoint. It can add specific line items into our budget, for example, or if we want to make changes to the data model itself, we have that flexibility."

"All the reports are prepared automatically."

"By using Board we can do a lot of free analysis. We can change the layout of a table and even the end-user can change the layout of a table. And in Board 11.2 you can save the layout. That's very useful for the customer, it's a very good function."

"All staff can now see their relevant scorecards online."

"I think the product is good in terms of ease of use."

More Board pros

"I like ThoughtSpot's search capabilities. You can also create custom analytics even if you aren't an experienced data analyst. We have users with no data analytics experience making some of the dashboards we've created, copying components, and customizing them to their specific use cases."

"It is easy to set up the solution."

"It's easy to drill down or expand data to get more details right out of the box."

"The self-service analytics capabilities are unrivaled, making it a top-notch solution."

"The tool is user-friendly for the end users."

"The main core of ThoughtSpot is to create models, connect data pipelines, and create business models and dashboards on top of them."

"I would say the return on investment is good. Whatever we invested, we got results. We have been finding it easy to use and onboard new use cases."

"The initial setup was very straightforward."

More ThoughtSpot pros

Cons

"It can have more functionality for narrative reporting. They should also improve their training courses, which are currently very lightweight. When you get into more complex things, it is quite difficult to figure out what you're supposed to do, and you have to look at a lot of videos before you actually understand, which is a bit frustrating. Their training can be more comprehensive."

"Sometimes, the data disappears from the product."

"The setup was a bit complex."

"We are looking at ways to improve how we deal with security in BOARD and other similar things. "

"It would be nice to have more connectors for other data sources. BOARD is a great tool to become the single source of the truth. Making it easier to connect data sources for niche software tools will make it easier to keep everything in one place."

"Building similar models entirely from scratch could be made quicker with transfer abilities between databases and capsules."

"I would like to see a better Web client, where the controls work the same way as in the Windows client. I do think that the focus is now on the Web, so it should be improved upon."

"One thing that I personally would like to see is additional visualization tools for visuals."

More Board cons

"In terms of features, I'd like to be able to pivot data - for example, going from rows to columns. It's not easy to do."

"ThoughtSpot is a fairly new product, so some usability aspects aren't as mature as we'd like them to be. One example is their organizational methodology, like how objects are organized in their dashboards inside the product. They're all on a flat list, which works if you've got five or 10 dashboards. However, it's insufficient when you're a large enterprise with multiple groups looking at the same dashboards. It isn't organized well."

"Some areas for improvement include the pixel-perfect dashboards, which are not as refined as those in Tableau."

"The one area of the solution that I do hear needs improvement is on the visualization front."

"I encountered limitations mainly around UI and dashboard configuration."

"I would like to see more flexibility in adding the pins. Currently, we have four different sizes in which I can add pins, but I would like to be able to resize my pins."

"A crucial feature we needed is missing, which involves restricting views of certain KPIs when users select conflicting parameters. We had to create a workaround, which impacted performance by loading pinboards slowly."

"If I want to order columns, this feature is not there."

More ThoughtSpot cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Find a partner who will take responsibility for the implementation, and be available for support."

"In terms of the pricing, it was reasonable. BOARD is not the lowest in the market, but it was reasonable for us."

"The solution is quite expensive, if it is made cheaper then we can have more clients. I rate it four out of ten."

"The tool's price is a bit high compared to other solutions."

"It is not the cheapest product on earth, but you get so much. It provides good value for money."

"I give the pricing a six out of ten."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

22%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Is Board better than Anaplan as a Business Intelligence (BI) solution?

We've had several FP&A departments include Anaplan in their analytics discussions, and while BI information IS generated, the focus is generally on compiling input from various sources and simu...

What do you like most about Board?

All the reports are prepared automatically.

What needs improvement with Board?

Some of my company's customers are interested to see the predictive analytics part of the tool. Some customers would like to leverage or prioritize predictive analytics as the main feature, but som...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ThoughtSpot?

ThoughtSpot is expensive. When compared with Tableau and Sisense, it is around seven or eight on the expense scale.

What needs improvement with ThoughtSpot?

The visualization customization needs improvement. Currently, it is not as customizable as the options available on Power BI or Tableau. It mainly offers basic chart options.

What is your primary use case for ThoughtSpot?

I use ThoughtSpot as one of the visualization tools. I mainly create some live boards and provide access to the data sources and worksheets to users so they can create their own analyses and answer...

SAP Analytics Cloud vs Board

Comparisons

Anaplan vs Board

Compared 31% of the time

Pigment vs Board

Compared 13% of the time

Compared 10% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Board

Compared 9% of the time

Oracle Hyperion vs Board

Compared 9% of the time

More Board Competitors

Microsoft Power BI vs ThoughtSpot

Compared 23% of the time

Tableau vs ThoughtSpot

Compared 19% of the time

Databricks vs ThoughtSpot

Compared 15% of the time

Looker vs ThoughtSpot

Compared 9% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs ThoughtSpot

Compared 8% of the time

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Product Reports

Download Board product report

Board

April 2025

Download ThoughtSpot product report

March 2025

Overview

BOARD International - headquartered in Switzerland - is a leading global provider of software for improving business results through better decision making. By unifying Business Intelligence and Corporate Performance Management into a single product, BOARD enables companies to achieve a shared vision of their performance across the entire organization, and thus a single version of the truth.

BOARD provides seamless solutions for • Reporting & Analysis • Budgeting, Planning & Forecasting • Profitability Modelling & Optimization • Simulation & What-if-Analysis • Scorecarding & Strategy Management • Financial Consolidation. Based on visual modelling, BOARD has enabled global companies to deploy BI and CPM applications without a single line of code in a fraction of the time and cost associated with traditional solutions.

Board International

ThoughtSpot is a powerful business intelligence tool that allows easy searching and drilling into data. Its ad hoc exploration and query-based search features are highly valued, and it is easy to set up, stable, and scalable.

The solution is used for reporting purposes, self-service BI, and embedding into other applications for customers to do self-service analytics. It helps businesses with metrics, KPIs, and important insights by sourcing data from various sources into one golden source and visualizing it in an easy way for the business to consume. The pricing model is ideal, charging for data rather than the number of users.

Sample Customers

Coca-Cola, Puma, Desigual, Ricoh, KPMG, H&M, Groupe SEB

Primary Capital Mortgage, Sterling Backcheck, RichRelevance, Rambus, Batteries Plus Bulbs