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MicroStrategy vs Tableau comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.7
MicroStrategy boosts business efficiency with robust features, reducing development time and costs, enhancing reporting and accelerating market readiness.
Sentiment score
7.1
Tableau offers rapid insights and cost reductions, enabling users to recoup investments quickly despite some viewing it as costly.
This saves a significant amount of time, particularly for reports that would have needed around fifty people.
The ROI of using Tableau extends to its seamless integration across various platforms, as it's from Salesforce and thus not limited to any specific cloud provider.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.1
MicroStrategy's customer service is generally well-regarded, but satisfaction varies due to mixed technical support and regional differences.
Sentiment score
7.0
Tableau's customer service is responsive and professional, with praised technical support, though some note wait time concerns.
They provide quick email and phone responses and have Thai-speaking personnel.
The technical support for Tableau is quite good.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
MicroStrategy is scalable and handles large data, but performance may depend on architecture and associated costs.
Sentiment score
6.7
Tableau effectively scales with optimized configurations, but performance may decline with extremely large datasets, impacting scalability and cost.
Tableau is easy to use across various dimensions, whether on-premises or on the cloud.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
MicroStrategy is generally stable and reliable, with recent updates improving issues; infrastructure setup can affect stability.
Sentiment score
7.3
Tableau is generally stable, efficient with varying data sizes, but may struggle with complex datasets or insufficient infrastructure.
I rate the stability a five or six because Tableau updates very often with new versions or patches.
 

Room For Improvement

MicroStrategy needs better dashboards, simpler tools, improved support, flexible layouts, easier customization, and cost-effective options.
Tableau users seek faster data processing, better customization, machine learning integration, and affordable pricing, plus enhanced support and training.
MicroStrategy could learn from Power BI's user-friendly interface.
It sometimes requires extensive investigation to determine why the data does not appear correctly.
We cannot send the entire Excel file reports via email within Tableau.
The product owner should enhance its benefits or clarify its role.
 

Setup Cost

MicroStrategy's high upfront costs offer licensing flexibility; evaluate needs, negotiate discounts, and explore cost-saving for better scalability.
Tableau's licensing is costly but offers valuable functionality, yet smaller firms find its pricing prohibitive and complex based on roles.
Tableau is rated an eight because it is pretty expensive compared to alternatives like Power BI.
The cost for viewer rights is around $60, but it can vary based on the business and is usually for a year.
 

Valuable Features

MicroStrategy provides scalable BI solutions with advanced features including mobile BI, data visualization, robust security, and performance.
Tableau excels with interactive visuals, diverse data connections, and user-friendly interface, driving efficiency and insights alongside strong community support.
The MicroStrategy interface is not as good as Power BI, especially concerning the user-friendly aspects.
The real-time data processing eliminates the lack of timely reports or dashboards, allowing for hour-by-hour updates instead of monthly or weekly ones.
The platform supports live connections and real-time data processing, which is crucial for our reconciliations that need frequent updates.
Tableau is extremely good at dashboard creation, providing clear and concise visual presentations.
 

Categories and Ranking

MicroStrategy
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
9th
Ranking in Embedded BI
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
160
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Tableau
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
2nd
Ranking in Embedded BI
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
298
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (2nd), Data Visualization (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of MicroStrategy is 3.2%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tableau is 17.5%, down from 19.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

AJIN S L - PeerSpot reviewer
Experience has shown effective features for analysis, but needs interface improvements
The most effective features of MicroStrategy for data analysis are those that cater to user needs. However, I find Power BI to be more useful when comparing some features, but my company does not choose Power BI due to certain code restrictions. The MicroStrategy interface is not as good as Power BI, especially concerning the user-friendly aspects.
ROMIL SHAH - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides fast data access with in-memory extracts, makes it easy to create visualizations, and saves time
When it comes to visualizations, Tableau has a limitation as compared to Power BI. It has a limited set of visualizations. Power BI has the entire marketplace, so you can connect and import many visualizations and use them, whereas Tableau has only 10 or 15 visualizations. There should be more visualizations, and there should also be data integration with more cloud providers. Tableau has recently launched a paid version for the documentation. So, documentation has become a little bit challenging when it comes to Tableau development because we do not have any tool to export the data out of it. It is a license-based feature that you need to purchase to prepare documentation. So, on the documentation front, for preparing clear documentation for any dashboard, it would help if we get an embedded option, rather than buying a license for each user for the documentation. To document anything, if I have to connect to each workbook and see what has been written as a formula and then document in the Word document, it is pretty time-consuming. We have the Microsoft stack, and we are currently evaluating Power BI because Tableau has a limitation of 50 columns for a drill-down report. If we want more than 50 columns, we have found a hack, but there is no ready-made option for doing it. So, we have to use another tool in case we need a drilled report with more than 50 columns. There are many instances where users need 80 or 90 columns for their analysis, and switching between two technologies becomes a challenge. It is not a cost-effective approach for us. Their support should be improved. We are not happy with their support. Whenever we raised queries, we were pointed to a few blogs, and we didn't get a proper solution from them. Their licensing should also be improved. They want us to purchase a Tableau Creator license for business users, whereas Power BI Desktop is free for business users. They should come up with a basic license with one or two connectors that our business users can use for preparing their visualizations. Tableau also charges us per user for users who want the data only through email.
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Comparison Review

it_user6330 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 2, 2013
MicroStrategy vs. Tableau
After a recent presentation, several attendees asked me about the applications of Visual Insights and Tableau. Many companies are investing in both tools and are trying to figure out the right tool for specific applications Tableau has found its sweet-spot as an agile discovery tool that analysts…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Retailer
8%
Insurance Company
7%
Educational Organization
44%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about MicroStrategy?
The stability of the product is good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MicroStrategy?
For larger businesses, I think the pricing is logical, but for smaller companies, it can be a bit costly.
What needs improvement with MicroStrategy?
MicroStrategy could learn from Power BI's user-friendly interface. I find the user interface lacking when compared to Power BI. Additionally, their hyperintelligence could be improved in certain as...
Seeking lightweight open source BI software
It depends on the Data architecture and the complexity of your requirement. Some great tools in the market are Qlik Sense, Power BI, OBIEE, Tableau, etc. I have recently started using Cognos Enter...
Tableau vs. Business Objects - Which is a better solution for visualization and analysis?
Both tools have their positives and negatives. First, I should mention that I am relatively new to Tableau. I have been working on and off Tableau for about a year, but getting to work on it consta...
Which would you choose - Tableau or SAP Analytics Cloud?
Tableau is easy to set up and maintain. In about a day it is possible for the entire platform to be deployed for use. This relatively short amount of time can make all the difference for companies ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Allstate Insurance, Barneys New York, Boston Children's Hospital, Buenos Aires Department of the Treasury, Campbell Soup Company, DHL, eBay, eHarmony, Facebook, Four Seasons Hotels Inc., Godiva, Hard Rock International, LinkedIn, Netflix, Pfizer, SECO (Swiss Government Unemployment Agency), Starbucks, Texas A&M University, Thomson Reuters Markets, US House of Representatives, and the US Postal Service.
Accenture, Adobe, Amazon.com, Bank of America, Charles Schwab Corp, Citigroup, Coca-Cola Company, Cornell University, Dell, Deloitte, Duke University, eBay, Exxon Mobil, Fannie Mae, Ferrari, French Red Cross, Goldman Sachs, Google, Government of Canada, HP, Intel, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Macy's, Merck, The New York Times, PayPal, Pfizer, US Army, US Air Force, Skype, and Walmart.
Find out what your peers are saying about MicroStrategy vs. Tableau and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
847,772 professionals have used our research since 2012.