The world has seen huge advancements in technology. Over the years, businesses have adopted several means to enhance the mode of operation and increase productivity with minimal downtime. With the implementation of artificial intelligence and machine learning, one might think that business intelligence might have lost its sheen. It is not so, businesses have started employing data science with business intelligence in carrying out major decision-making processes in a workforce.
With the current COVID-19 pandemic, almost every industry has moved the digital way. When it comes to business tools, Tableau is the leading tool in the market used by most businesses. However, Power BI from Microsoft is as reliable and has garnered its fan base. There are other business tools as well, but none are as efficient and reliable as these two.
Before getting to know how similar Tableau and Power BI are, here’s a small intro of the popular brands. Do give this article a read to find out which ones the best and also get to know how useful they are in the data science domain.
Tableau: Everything you need to know
Tableau came to limelight in the year 2003. Since then, there’s no turning back. It has been by far the best business intelligence tool in terms of user preference, reviews, and performance. Tableau was successful in carving a place for itself, and it just seems to rise high on the charts. In 2019, Salesforce took over Tableau in a deal worth 15 million dollars, and this was only stocks-based.
What is Tableau?
Tableau is a business intelligence and data analysis tool used for generating a company’s data visualizations and analysis reports. It converts the data generated into desired formats. It is quite easy to operate, making it more reliable, and you don’t have to be a data analyst to generate results.
Based on the type of business, Tableau has come up with different versions. It has a free public version as well. For education institutes and other non-profit organizations, Tableau has come with a less tedious and simple version.
Features:
- The best thing about Tableau is that it does not require any special skill. Almost anyone can use the business tool and generate results for the desired input.
- Tableau gives you the option of sharing the results with your teammates. It creates a virtual agile environment by allowing you to work together on a single platform.
- It offers features like data blending and data viewing.
- You can customize your dashboard based on working style and comfort.
- Data viewing has never been that easy than viewing it through Tableau.
- It allows you to cleanse your data and ensure that all your information is safe.
Cons: Though the public version is free, it does not offer that much freedom to generate the desired results. The paid version is quite expensive, and only large enterprises and organizations prefer using Tableau.
Power BI: Know-it all
Power BI is a product of Microsoft. It was in 2015 that Microsoft launched Power BI as a stand-alone product before which it bundled a few of Power BI’s analytics features and visualizations in MS Excel. It became an instant success. There was a great response from the users as they found it easy to use it as it was integrated into Microsoft Excel. It is quite obvious of the kind of impact Excel created over the past two decades. Almost every industry used Excel for their business purpose, and Power BI was launched as a part of Excel, therefore, making it preferable for most industries.
What is Power BI?
Power BI is a business intelligence tool used for carrying out data analytics and deriving insights. As it is a product of Microsoft, it is quite compatible with Excel, Azure and other Microsoft systems. So, if you are well-versed with excel, you’ll find Power BI quite easy to use. Power BI gathers information from different sources and converts them into reliable BI reports. You can also generate Ad Hoc reports using Power BI. Power BI has been able to garner an immense fan following within a short period.
Features:
- Power BI can get integrated with Excel, making it quite easy to operate. Most workforces use excel, thereby making it simple and reliable for employees to use Power BI.
- The business intelligence tool uses multiple sources to gather information.
- The results can be generated in interactive reports which are quite readable and self-explanatory.
- Power BI uses an online analytical processing system to ensure reliable and precise results.
- Power BI gives you the option of sharing the results with your teammates. It creates a virtual agile environment by allowing you to work together on a single platform.
- Power BI gives you the freedom to customize your dashboard.
Cons:
- Though Power BI is said to operate with large amounts of data, it does not accept files that are greater than 1GB in size.
- Unlike Tableau, you can share data with your team only if everyone shares the same domain as you.
- Without having a basic knowledge of data science and Python, it is a bit difficult to get results using Power BI.
Tableau Vs Power BI
If you’ve come this far, you might have got a clear insight into what Tableau and Power BI are. So without further ado, here are some of the significant differences between Tableau and Power BI.
Setup
Both Tableau and Power BI offer cloud and desktop services. For Tableau users, there is Tableau Desktop, Tableau Desktop Personnel, and Tableau Desktop Professional. For users who prefer cloud, they can use Tableau Public, which is free. However, it does not allow you to operate it with maximum features. Tableau Server gets used by enterprises as it can be customized based on their requirement. The mobile version of Tableau is as effective and reliable as it allows to access all your files and helps you view reports.
On the other hand, when it comes to Power BI users, the desktop users can opt for Power BI Desktop and Power BI service. Enterprises can make use of Power BI Server and Power BI Gateway. Power BI users can access their files through the cloud on their phones. When it comes to Setup and products, Tableau and Power BI are on the same level and their offerings are quite similar.
Supported Data
When it comes to supporting data, Power BI does not give a tough fight. Though Power BI is said to operate with large amounts of data, it does not accept files that are greater than 1GB in size. This is not the case with Tableau, it offers an immense amount of data storage, and it also gives you the freedom to work with unstructured data.
Visualization
When you talk about visualization and business intelligence, the first tool that pops out is Tableau as it has built its popularity around it. Though Power BI does justice in producing similar visualizations, it still lacks in some places. So Tableau is a clear winner here.
How Tableau and Power BI used in the data science domain?
By now, you might have figured out the significance of Tableau and Power BI. Nonetheless, these business tools are majorly employed for making strategic decisions. These tools deal with warehouses of data, which gets scrutinized most reliably and minutely to generate results. With the help of business tools, it is easy to measure the performance of a workforce, which in turn helps in enhancing productivity and reducing downtime to a considerable extent.
One of the key roles and responsibilities of a data scientist is developing a predictive model for forecasting future events. This is where business tools come into the picture. They assist data scientists in formulating strategies and help them in taking the right decision. There are many such phases where business intelligence tools and data science work hand in hand to produce better results.
Closing Thoughts
In this article, you saw how similar Tableau and Power BI are to each other. It is a pretty tough task choosing the best one from the two. At the end of the day, it all depends on your requirement and preference. However, before opting for any business intelligence tool, make sure that you have some knowledge of data science. It is always better to be well equipped with the latest trend.
Great Learning can help you learn data science. The data science courses are excellent learning sources and designed to provide you with a holistic learning experience. You can take our free data science courses and if you want to be more specific, you always take a Python tutorial for beginners course just to know how business intelligence tools work. Contact us today to know more about our data science certification courses and data science online courses.
