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SAS Visual Analytics vs Tableau comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

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

SAS Visual Analytics
Ranking in Data Visualization
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
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
295
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (2nd), Reporting (2nd), Embedded BI (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Data Visualization category, the mindshare of SAS Visual Analytics is 4.6%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tableau is 27.6%, down from 32.1% 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

Renato Vazamin - PeerSpot reviewer
Single environment for multiple phases saves us time, and has good visualizations
We had that solution installed previously in another solution, Selvaya, but I don't think we used it at the time. We are now using SAS Detect Investigation as a complementary solution, in which we have part of the process, use a gene, SAS collects information and identifies some business situations, and the business guys use Visual Analytics to explore the results of the process. We previously used the FICO platform, but we switched because FICO's pricing was not scalable. Bringing more data or workloads to the platform required a significant investment in order to scale. We needed to change because we have a lot of data to process every day. FICO was also a little more complicated than SAS Visual Analytics.
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 alert generation feature also helps in sending out ad hoc messages to the business users if business thresholds have been crossed."
"It's quite easy to learn and to progress with SAS from an end-user perspective."
"It integrates well with SAS, making it simple and quick for developers."
"The visualization capabilities and the email functionality are most beneficial."
"It's relatively simple to create basic dashboards and reports."
"It's a stable, reliable product."
"I use Visual Analytics for enterprise reporting."
"Data handling is one of the best features of SAS Visual Analytics."
"It is very easy to create dashboards, charts, and graphs."
"All features are valuable. It is very user-friendly, and it is mostly drag-and-drop. If we have the dataset available, then we can develop any dashboard very quickly."
"It most valuable feature is its ease of developing visualizations, not just charts and graphs."
"Tableau's most valuable features are user-friendliness and have a connection between multiple source systems. You can publish a report by using Tableau Public and there you can make your data online, not only batches of data, you can use it as an online analytical tool."
"Tableau's visualization features let you present information insights quickly and practically. So it's something which I prefer with Tableau. In terms of reporting, I have to point out the sheer quality and function of the Tableau server, but the first impression is that it's a great visualization tool."
"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."
"I really like the interactivity of the dashboards."
"The solution has great features which nobody can beat, you can do a lot of customizations, such as use different dimensions and colorize them. Additionally, you can use the numeric values for the customization, which is an exceptional feature."
 

Cons

"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."
"The solution is a little weak at the front end."
"The integration aspects of the solution could be improved."
"The product is expensive and needs the integration of more languages."
"The licensing ends up being more expensive than other options."
"SAS Visual Analytics could improve by making it more accessible for users outside the organization."
"Colours used on report objects"
"There are certain shortcomings in the tool's support services, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The setup was easy but we are having some problems with the configuration that is taking a long time. We have done some initial tests and some of the delays could be from bandwidth issues. However, the whole installation process should be simplified."
"Provide additional enhancements in any business process: Operations, Marketing and Sales, Finance, Human Resources, Logistics, etc."
"It should offer better features for customization."
"It would be nice if we could export more raw data. Currently, there is a limit as to how much data you can export."
"Tableau is difficult to scale because of the cost, which makes it difficult to scale."
"I would like Tableau to handle geospatial data better in terms of multiple layers and shapefiles."
"The charts need to be improved. The drawings and the visualization need to be more accurate."
"Tableau could be improved by introducing a data manipulation layer within the tool itself. Currently, data manipulations require using additional tools like Alteryx. If Tableau included these capabilities, it would reduce the need for external dependencies. The tool gets slower when we feed huge amounts of data."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I work with the tool's free version...The tool's corporate version is very expensive and requires a monthly hire."
"The product is expensive."
"It's approximately $114,000 US dollars per year."
"SAS Visual Analytics is expensive, as is the rest of the platform."
"It was licensed for corporate use, and its licensing was on a yearly basis."
"The cost of the solution can be expensive. There is an additional cost for users."
"The product is quite expensive."
"Licensing is simple."
"I'm using Tableau Public, which is free."
"The cost is high."
"Paying for users you never setup or buying expensive desktop licenses for users who can solve their users with web editing on the server are the two biggest expenses."
"Buy 50 at a time. Project your use base every three months, and project your requirements forward."
"It's an annual fee with everything included but it's quite expensive."
"The price could be higher for the quality of software, so they revised the pricing in this version, and I agree with the price for top version. The top version costs about $70 per month, and the price is cheap for the quality."
"It is reasonable and cheap as compared to other major tools. It has a good price, and people go for it because of its pricing."
"We are on an annual license which costs us $1,400 which is very expensive. Microsft BI is less expensive."
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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
21%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
University
8%
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 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
 

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: March 2025.
842,145 professionals have used our research since 2012.