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Sisense 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

Sisense
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
20th
Ranking in Reporting
14th
Ranking in Data Visualization
14th
Ranking in Embedded BI
9th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Analytics (4th)
Tableau
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
2nd
Ranking in Reporting
2nd
Ranking in Data Visualization
1st
Ranking in Embedded BI
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
295
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Sisense is 1.4%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tableau is 18.2%, down from 18.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Q&A Highlights

it_user137202 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 07, 2014
 

Featured Reviews

Wiboon Thabsuwan - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps businesses save time and offers good integration features
I would say that using Sisense on Linux's platform might not be advantageous for everyone. I am more familiar with Windows than Linux. With Windows, the system performs very fast. Even if your data size consists of like 10,00,00,000 loads or whatever, it works very fast. When using Sisense, it is better to have some people with a very good understanding of Linux. I need more technical people who understand about Linux OS. Only two people would be enough to operate the tool.
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

"Support is very responsive and clearly one of the strengths of Sisense. I have always received a fast response and the staff is very helpful."
"The dashboard design interface is very intuitive and allows you to quickly and easily produce professional, innovative dashboards."
"Ability to work with very large data sources without the limitations of Excel."
"This solution is easy to learn how to use."
"​Allows users to build their own solutions without as much reliance on technology staff."
"Visually displaying data."
"Sisense has helped us gain knowledge about our customers, as well as highlighting data quality issues to correct."
"No issues with stability. It is a very stable solution."
"Tableau Prep tool for data preparation is a most valuable tool."
"I really like the interactivity of the dashboards."
"Gradual scalability from simple to complex situations"
"I like the calculation feature. I would not say it's such a good feature in Tableau, but if you have the knowledge, you can make that feature visible to everyone. It's not a feature that we can drag and drop and get the information. But whatever the data, whatever the calculation, I'm able to do. It's basically the knowledge base. Whatever knowledge I have, I can make that information public and publish it for management."
"The solution allows for the possibility for end-users to do their own reporting."
"Good data flow and management."
"It allows us to basically understand and evaluate our numbers in an expedient manner."
"The Web Editing capabilities allow us to grant end users enough capabilities for them to do self-serve discovery without the added cost of needing to get everyone desktop licenses."
 

Cons

"The initial version we purchased only ran on Windows servers, which was less than ideal for our DevOps team. I believe that has been remedied in the latest release."
"I would like to see more development and growth for the support of Knowledge Base and Community forums."
"I would love to have more customization capabilities for building dashboards, especially in creating custom widget sizes."
"Larger datasets will sometimes give a "Accumulated logs" error when trying to make minor changes. T"
"I would also like to be able to run a bursts of reports based on different field values with PDF output right in the tool, rather than filtering on each field value and generating each PDF manually."
"This solution does not have tabs. In order to have tabs, you have to download an add-on to mimic the tabs. They should be integrated to improve the solution."
"They should improve the filters to create downloaded data by moving them to the top of the dashboard."
"I would say that using Sisense on Linux's platform might not be advantageous for everyone."
"Creating empty extracts is not easy."
"More integration with Python or something related to machine learning would be a good improvement."
"People are migrating to Microsoft BI due to the speed, which is quite slow to load, and the lack of visualization options."
"The customization in the front end is a bit difficult."
"Include forecasting on table calculation fields."
"The Hyper Extract functionality is not as strong as that provided by Microsoft SQL."
"When there are millions of records, scaling up is quite difficult."
"Small multiples (a.k.a. Trellis charts) are possible only through very hacky means. Update: Still remains a challenge."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Compared to Power BI or Tableau, Sisense is much more expensive."
"This solution is more expensive than Tableau, Qlik and Dundas. It is an expensive tool. They charge $75,000 while Tableau is $45,000."
"In Korea, the tool's pricing depends on the scale of usage. For instance, it's reasonable for a department with fewer than 50 users to adopt Tableau, like sales. However, the pricing becomes an issue when considering an enterprise solution for a larger user base, say 10,000 people."
"Tableau is a little cheaper as compared to Power BI and other technologies that we have used in the past. However, if the business users in our organization want to make presentations, Tableau has been asking us to purchase a Tableau Creator license, and $35 per month is expensive for business users. Power BI is giving a free desktop version for business users to connect to any data source and build their own dashboards. That's why we have proposed to use Power BI for most of the business users in our organization."
"Its licensing cost should be improved."
"In Indian Rupees, Tableau costs about 30,000 to 40,000 per year."
"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."
"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."
"Tableau is not as cost-effective as Microsoft BI."
"The pricing is $70 per month. You have to pay about $800 or something in that ballpark annually for one license."
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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

it_user137202 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 7, 2014
Aug 7, 2014
Thanks everyone for the great input... I have zeroed down to Tableau; and will shortly post my reasons for doing so. I DO hope they will help future products selectors. Regards pete
2 out of 15 answers
it_user134976 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 30, 2014
Afraid I'm not that familiar with either of them Sent from my Windows 8 Phone ________________________________
it_user4008 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 30, 2014
Self service Visual Intelligence left the station some time ago. Tableau became the standard years ago but more importantly since going public Tableau's investment into R&D as a % of revenues is always north of industry standards thus Tableau reinvests for the future consistently. Do not base your assessment on "feeds and speeds" (read features) only. Pretend that you are the owner of the company picking a vendor and base you selection on business issues and reference calls to clients
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
16%
University
6%
Government
5%
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 Sisense?
The solution's technical support team is good.
What needs improvement with Sisense?
I would say that using Sisense on Linux's platform might not be advantageous for everyone. I am more familiar with Windows than Linux. With Windows, the system performs very fast. Even if your data...
What is your primary use case for Sisense?
For the use case, the tool is mostly used from an analytic point of view. We are focused on huge data size because the last time we worked with the tool, it was very good.
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

Ebay, WIX, Wave Accounting, ESPN.com, Magellan Luxury Hotel, Paylogic, Sony, Merck, EDA, One Hour Translation, NASA, Plastic Jungle, Philips, Yahoo
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 Sisense vs. Tableau and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.