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TIBCO Spotfire 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

Tableau
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
296
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (2nd), Data Visualization (1st), Embedded BI (1st)
TIBCO Spotfire
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
14th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Tableau is 17.5%, down from 19.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TIBCO Spotfire is 1.1%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Q&A Highlights

MR
May 08, 2015
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Mohsin Pathan - PeerSpot reviewer
Flexible, offers a single pane of glass, and is highly customizable
There's one area I see that specifically needs improvement. That is when you do the data loading. It is slow. For historical data, when you talk about gigabytes of data, terabytes of data, then it becomes prolonged. Loading could be improved. That's one part. That is actually there with every tool. I would not say that this is a specific problem with Spotfire. However, it is a problem with all the BI tools. That is one area which can be improved. When you are doing analytics, you see that the value has to come perfect. There was a missing feature of alerting out of the box within Spotfire. However, they have released this in version 12.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Tableau is easy to use. That's the first and most important thing. I not only provide consulting but I also train people to use it, so with its ease-of-use it's not as difficult for me to train executives and management staff, because they don't have the IT background, unlike when I'm using Python."
"The UI part is the best. The end-users can easily get started with Tableau Desktop or Tableau Online because of its user-friendliness."
"The solution is being delivered to our customer, who appreciates the insights generated from the reports. It is easy for them to drill into the details and use interactive charts."
"The best part about Tableau is the visualization."
"Compared to other products, visualization features are really good."
"It is very good for data visualization. It has very powerful visualizations and is easy to use."
"I like the visualization component."
"The solution has a lot of customization when comparing to Microsoft BI."
"I appreciate Spotfire's range of visualization options, advanced analytics features, and seamless integration with other TIBCO products."
"It's scalable."
"This solution allows us to integrate data from across all client departments, for effective reporting via a single dashboard."
"It’s stable and straightforward."
"The solution is an affordable one."
"The ability to connect to many different data sources is one of the key features. The other would then be the different ways in which that data can be visualized."
"One of the main features is integrated statistical analysis."
"We particularly like the data angling feature of this solution. This gives us the ability to work on data transformations, join files, and carry out other data preparation tasks all in a single tool."
 

Cons

"The interface can be improved, in part because there is no indication that something is running or that it's processing."
"The cost of owning the solutions from Tableau is much higher compared to any other analytical solutions."
"The ability to use it on MAC machines. As far as I know, this is not possible."
"Its integration with Microsoft products such as Teams should be improved."
"I am not a frequent user of this solution, so I am not sure what they've been doing recently. The last time when I used it, I had to use other tools with it for data extraction and cleansing. Its price should also be improved. It is more expensive than Power BI. In terms of training, there is generally better online training for Power BI, but I am not sure of that. It would be helpful to know from where to access its training."
"When we put more information on a single screen, it gets compressed and superimposed in many places while scrolling."
"Requires a lot of user training."
"The pricing is a bit expensive."
"I would like more easy-to-implement analytical algorithms. At the moment they include things like forecasts and regressions. They need to add a lot more of these types of things to the product because not everyone is a data scientist."
"We would like to see some development in the visualization aspect of this solution, as they can currently only be configured in the cloud, which limits us to one endpoint. It would be helpful if this could be integrated with other tools."
"When it comes to data manipulation, there are features which are good, but one of the features which has really been missing in Spotfire is an offline ability for data manipulation."
"The initial setup of TIBCO Spotfire is in the middle range of difficulty. The initial setup of Power BI is easier."
"The layered features within Spotfire can make it a bit complicated sometimes as compared to Power BI."
"The solution might be generic."
"The initial setup can be difficult."
"Print capability and trigger-based events."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is fairly expensive. I have no idea what they paid. We were on an enterprise license, so whatever it is they licensed at the enterprise level is what we paid."
"This license is on a yearly basis."
"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."
"I'm using Tableau Public, which is free."
"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."
"There is a license required, we pay an annual license which is priced fair."
"ROI is very high, but it requires a data preparation/blending tool."
"Be careful with the Tableau Viewer's licenses, and stay with the right number of users."
"The ROI is nearly impossible to calculate."
"The cost of TIBCO Spotfire could improve. It should be less expensive. It's the most expensive visualization tool in our company."
"The pricing seems competitive and reasonable. The value delivered by the product far exceeds the cost."
"The cost is a few hundred dollars per user per year."
"This product carries a monthly licensing charge, with the amount depending on the features that are to be included. This costs also covers the use of technical support."
"In comparison to other solutions such as IBM Cognos, TIBCO Spotfire is more affordable."
"The price-point for this solution is negotiable depending on usage levels."
"I would describe TIBCO Spotfire as an averagely-priced product."
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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

MR
May 8, 2015
May 8, 2015
If you want real world proof. Have a bake off or POC with a real world set of criteria: 4 or more data sources, 100M or more records and mobile, etc. You'll be glad that you did!
2 out of 26 answers
Mar 5, 2015
Each of these DV providers have a strong offering but subltle differentiators: Tableau is your general purpose BI tool-great visuals and user friendly UI. Spotfire is geared more towards the data scientist and incorporates more statistical analysis functions. Qlik excels at reporting and their data association model. Excuse the shameless self-promotion but If you are interested in unique capabilities like connecting to real time streaming data sources and/or semi/un structured data for more sophisticated analysis, I’d recommend also taking a look at Datawatch.
Mar 5, 2015
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
44%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Energy/Utilities Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 ...
What do you like most about TIBCO Spotfire?
TIBCO Spotfire is easy to use. We initiated Spotfire as POC, with support from a tech team based in South Africa. While they assisted with the setup, we conducted the POC ourselves.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TIBCO Spotfire?
Compared to other tools, Spotfire's pricing is competitive, especially with its enterprise licensing.
What needs improvement with TIBCO Spotfire?
Spotfire requires better documentation. Unlike competitors like Power BI and Tableau, Spotfire lacks comprehensive metadata dictionaries. This makes it difficult to generate usage metrics, which ar...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online
Spotfire
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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.
Allergan, ASSS de Montreal, Avantium, Blue River, Bank of Montreal, Citibank, FrieslandCampina, Hellmann Logistics, Merck, Novartis
Find out what your peers are saying about TIBCO Spotfire vs. Tableau and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
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