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Power BI Embedded vs Tableau: What are the differences?
Introduction
This markdown code compares Power BI Embedded and Tableau based on their key differences.
Data Source Connectivity: Power BI Embedded offers limited data source connectivity options compared to Tableau. While Power BI Embedded supports various data sources, including Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, and Azure Analysis Services, Tableau provides extensive connectivity options, including relational databases, cloud data sources, and big data sources.
Scalability: Power BI Embedded is designed for scalable cloud-based deployments, making it suitable for large-scale enterprise solutions. On the other hand, Tableau is not specifically designed for scalability and may face limitations in handling large datasets or high user concurrency.
Visualization Features: Tableau has a broader set of visualization options and capabilities compared to Power BI Embedded. Tableau offers advanced features like custom visualizations, storytelling, geographic mapping, and more. Power BI Embedded presents a more streamlined set of visualization features, suitable for most standard reporting and dashboarding needs.
Embedding Capabilities: Power BI Embedded is primarily focused on embedding reports and dashboards within external applications, whereas Tableau provides more comprehensive embedding capabilities, including embedded analytics, data-driven applications, and interactive visualizations. This makes Tableau a better choice for developing highly customized solutions or applications.
Pricing Model: Power BI Embedded has a consumption-based pricing model, allowing users to pay for actual usage. On the other hand, Tableau follows a per-user licensing model, where the cost increases with the number of users accessing the platform. This makes Power BI Embedded more cost-effective for scenarios with fluctuating or unpredictable user loads.
Deployment Options: Power BI Embedded is tightly integrated with Microsoft Azure, offering seamless deployment in Azure cloud environments. Tableau, on the other hand, provides more flexible deployment options, including cloud, on-premises, and hybrid deployments. This flexibility allows organizations to choose the deployment model that best suits their requirements.
In Summary, Power BI Embedded provides limited data source connectivity, enhanced scalability, streamlined visualization features, and focuses on embedded reporting, whereas Tableau offers broader data source connectivity, more comprehensive visualization options, and versatile embedding capabilities, with a per-user licensing model. Depending on specific requirements, organizations can choose between the two based on factors such as scalability, flexibility, customization needs, and cost considerations.
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 Power BI Embedded
Pros of Tableau
- Capable of visualising billions of rows6
- Intuitive and easy to learn1
- Responsive1
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Cons of Power BI Embedded
Cons of Tableau
- Very expensive for small companies2