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SAS Visual Analytics vs Tableau comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

SAS Visual Analytics
Ranking in Data Visualization
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Tableau
Ranking in Data Visualization
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
294
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (2nd), Reporting (2nd), Embedded BI (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Data Visualization category, the mindshare of SAS Visual Analytics is 5.2%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tableau is 30.3%, down from 32.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Visualization
 

Q&A Highlights

KN
Aug 07, 2020
 

Featured Reviews

Robert Heck - PeerSpot reviewer
A great solution for big organizations, complex business requirements, and highly sophisticated and specialized statistics
There are a few little things that are predefined and can be done out of the box immediately. There is no business intelligence application that is predefined, which is something some customers or prospects would love to have. Small and mid-sized companies would struggle with it because they prefer something standard that has been predefined by somebody else. For instance the system does not come with a pre-defined accounting, budgeting or planning model for a particular industry. Some competitors come with such a model (e.g. for retail companies) which makes the implementation of course easier if the customer can comproise with this predefined model. SAS does not provide such models but does not demand customers to comply with a foreign business model.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool's most valuable features are its ease of use and advanced data visualization capabilities."
"It is a very stable solution."
"The flexibility of the configuration is valuable to me."
"The alert generation feature also helps in sending out ad hoc messages to the business users if business thresholds have been crossed."
"It provided the capability to visualize a bunch of data in an organized way."
"It's relatively simple to create basic dashboards and reports."
"The product is stable, reliable, and scalable."
"Data handling is one of the best features of SAS Visual Analytics."
"It's the ease of use. It is also a self-service tool so it decreases the burden on having centralized IT-type teams or developers."
"This solution has transformed us from an Excel reporting environment to one of visual exploration."
"Tableau has comprehensive, insightful charts, which allow you to build stunning dashboards and enrich your support decision-making."
"It is very easy to implement and to use."
"Its visualizations are good, and its features make the development process a little less time-consuming. It has an in-memory extract feature that allows us to extract data and keep it on the server, and then our users can use it quickly."
"It provides business users with a tool, so they are not dependent on IT."
"It has a shallow learning curve and so you can go to market very, very, very quickly."
"The solution offers very good reporting."
 

Cons

"Better connectivity with other data origins, better visualization, and the ability to create KPIs directly would all help."
"The integration aspects of the solution could be improved."
"The deployment isn't smooth. Deploying Visual Analytics on the cloud takes a lot of work, or you can use some providers that give you SAS as a service. For example, there is a provider called SaasNow. They host SAS Visual Analytics and the license. You can buy the license and deploy it there without the hassle of installation because deploying the software isn't easy."
"SAS Visual Analytics could improve by making it more accessible for users outside the organization."
"There are scalability issues. It depends on the data volume and number of end-users. VA requires a lot of hardware resources to move volumes of data."
"Some capabilities are missing compared to Power BI, especially when working with spreadsheet types."
"SAS Visual Analytics could be more user-friendly."
"There are certain shortcomings in the tool's support services, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The charts need to be improved. The drawings and the visualization need to be more accurate."
"The process of embedding the dashboards on external portals and websites could be improved."
"If they could add global filters in the stories, more chart types, and default colours, it would help."
"When you're working on a dashboard, you can't select multiple components at a time and align them, so you have to go one by one. This is very cumbersome."
"Improvements in schema security and row/column security need to be made."
"I would like the solution to have certain features allowing the delivery of reports to the email."
"Lacks machine learning algorithms that you can implement using R, SPSS Modeler, and Python."
"Tableau has so many functions, so sometimes it's hard to find the right solution quickly. I have to search multiple menu bars to find the right command."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive."
"$10,000 per annum for an enterprise license."
"The product is quite expensive."
"I work with the tool's free version...The tool's corporate version is very expensive and requires a monthly hire."
"Visual Analytics is expensive for a small company like mine. You also need to deploy it on a server or cloud, so you pay for the license as well as the cost of the cloud or the server that you will deploy on."
"It was licensed for corporate use, and its licensing was on a yearly basis."
"Licensing is simple."
"It's approximately $114,000 US dollars per year."
"The professional version of Tableau is quite expensive."
"There is a license required, we pay an annual license which is priced fair."
"The licensing model of Tableau has changed since we initially purchased it three years ago and it is more complicated, and I have found it to be more expensive. They have lost market shares to Microsoft BI. My company will probably change solutions this year because of the increased pricing model."
"The pricing is $70 per month. You have to pay about $800 or something in that ballpark annually for one license."
"The license is very expensive."
"There is a license for the use of this solution and it is on a per-user basis. The server is free but the users you have to pay for."
"This solution is a bit expensive. The pricing options have become more difficult over the years. I think they are bordering on pricing themselves out of the market. They need different pricing options for various-sized businesses. Where my organization is a large organization, we are happy to pay a higher price because we can leverage the products very extensively. For smaller enterprises, different pricing options would be good."
"At $70 per month, I think the price is a bit scary. I have a small consulting firm in Ghana, working in about 15 different African countries, and when it comes to our part of the world, $70 a month is a lot of money for software."
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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…
 

Answers from the Community

KN
Aug 7, 2020
Aug 7, 2020
There are platforms available that enable bridge between technologies. Tableau/Qlik is great visualization from performance and user interface as compared to SAS - #askginie.ai
2 out of 4 answers
RL
Apr 20, 2020
Tableau is a great tool for visual analytics but when it comes to statistical analysis, it has limited features. You can find basic descriptive statistics like mean, median, mode, SD, Skewness, Kurtosis, etc but for advanced statistical analysis, you can have machine learning models too along with advanced forecasting. If your work does not involve advanced statistical analysis then Tableau is a great tool for basic statistical analysis. In case you have further doubts, please feel free to ask.
reviewer1268517 - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 20, 2020
These products all do more or less the same things but often in a very different way. The differences that I am able to report are mainly: -Look and feel and here Tableau is definitely superior. -Usability, both on the user and developer side and here the products are not very far apart, I would say Tableau a little better. -Managed data volumes and here SAS is unmatched (in Unicredit I have seen an installation that serves about 11000 users).
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Government
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
University
7%
Educational Organization
40%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about SAS Visual Analytics?
The most solution's notable aspect, in my view, is the ability to integrate various data sources and harness advanced technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. This helps w...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAS Visual Analytics?
It's about an average of five. It's easy to scale, but it comes with cost.
What needs improvement with SAS Visual Analytics?
Some capabilities are missing compared to Power BI, especially when working with spreadsheet types. Furthermore, Excel is more customizable compared to SAS Visual Analytics, which can be quite rigi...
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 ...
 

Also Known As

SAS BI
Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online
 

Learn More

Video not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Staples, Ausgrid, Scotiabank, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Oklahoma Gas & Electric, Xcel Energy, and Triad Analytics Solutions.
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 SAS Visual Analytics vs. Tableau and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,562 professionals have used our research since 2012.