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Tableau vs Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services: What are the differences?
What is Tableau? Tableau helps people see and understand data. Tableau can help anyone see and understand their data. Connect to almost any database, drag and drop to create visualizations, and share with a click.
What is Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services? A set of on-premises tools and services that create, deploy, and manage mobile and paginated reports. It provides a set of on-premises tools and services that create, deploy, and manage mobile and paginated reports. It delivers the right information to the right users.
Tableau and Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services can be primarily classified as "Business Intelligence" tools.
Some of the features offered by Tableau are:
- Connect to data on prem or in the cloud—whether it’s big data, a SQL database, a spreadsheet, or cloud apps like Google Analytics and Salesforce. Access and combine disparate data without writing code. Power users can pivot, split, and manage metadata to optimize data sources. Analysis begins with data. Get more from yours with Tableau.
- Exceptional analytics demand more than a pretty dashboard. Quickly build powerful calculations from existing data, drag and drop reference lines and forecasts, and review statistical summaries. Make your point with trend analyses, regressions, and correlations for tried and true statistical understanding. Ask new questions, spot trends, identify opportunities, and make data-driven decisions with confidence.
- Answer the “where” as well as the “why.” Create interactive maps automatically. Built-in postal codes mean lightning-fast mapping for more than 50 countries worldwide. Use custom geocodes and territories for personalized regions, like sales areas. We designed Tableau maps specifically to help your data stand out.
On the other hand, Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services provides the following key features:
- "Traditional" paginated reports
- New mobile reports
- A modern web portal
Delivery Hero SE, Durstexpress GmbH, and Rent the Runway are some of the popular companies that use Tableau, whereas Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is used by Workhub, Getinge IT Solutions ApS, and Business Logic. Tableau has a broader approval, being mentioned in 139 company stacks & 354 developers stacks; compared to Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services, which is listed in 10 company stacks and 10 developer stacks.
Very easy-to-use UI. Good way to make data available inside the company for analysis.
Has some built-in visualizations and can be easily integrated with other JS visualization libraries such as D3.
Can be embedded into product to provide reporting functions.
Support team are helpful.
The only complain I have is lack of API support. Hard to track changes as codes and automate report deployment.
Power BI is really easy to start with. If you have just several Excel sheets or CSV files, or you build your first automated pipeline, it is actually quite intuitive to build your first reports.
And as we have kept growing, all the additional features and tools were just there within the Azure platform and/or Office 365.
Since we started building Mews, we have already passed several milestones in becoming start up, later also a scale up company and now getting ready to grow even further, and during all these phases Power BI was just the right tool for us.
Pros of Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services
Pros of Tableau
- Capable of visualising billions of rows6
- Intuitive and easy to learn1
- Responsive1
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Cons of Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services
Cons of Tableau
- Very expensive for small companies3
