Tableau Software Reviews

“Great for BI developers”

Pros

Tableau is an excellent fit for dedicated IT BI and analytics developers. It offers strong functionality for coders and data warehouse teams who need reliable tools to work with data effectively.

Cons

Business super-users have a hard time creating and sharing even basic reports. It feels like the product designers may have overlooked this part of the market, even though it's actually one of the most active and fastest-growing segments.

“Strong analytics for experts”

Pros

It is an excellent fit for data professionals who work with analytics every day and need a highly capable tool.

Cons

That said, the wide range of features can feel a little overwhelming at first especially for beginners.

“Helpful tutorials with awesome maps”

Pros

I find it pretty easy to use because the official 30 minute tutorial gives a great overview of the software and helps users understand how the different functions work. The ability to display data geographically, when it applies, is really awesome.

Cons

One thing that really bothers me is that the equation and R-square do not automatically appear next to the trendline.

“Simple setup for creating charts”

Pros

Tableau is very user friendly as you connect your database and can begin building data charts right away. It's especially helpful for non-technical users who want to work with data without a steep learning curve.

Cons

The pricing is on the high side since the cost applies to each individual user. It works well for a small data team but for a larger company the total expense can add up quickly.

“All your data in one place but might be overkill”

Pros

Having all the data in one place is definitely useful. It integrates with a wide range of software tools and pulls everything together which is a nice benefit.

Cons

The price is way too high. A lot of software already gives you the data and information you need if you know how to use it so this ends up feeling pretty unnecessary and excessive.

“Great visuals right from the start”

Pros

Within about an hour of learning the basics, I was already putting together data visualizations and was honestly surprised by how much the software could do with so little prior experience. It's very user friendly for building charts quickly and the layout and presentation suggestions show up almost right away which helps a lot. As I keep generating more data in my studies and prepare for conference presentations, I can definitely see myself using this more.

Cons

My only real complaint is that my university doesn't regularly use or teach it. Given the work being done in the school of public health and other data science areas at Emory, this feels like a tool that would be very relevant and worthwhile to introduce to students.

“Collaborate with great visuals”

Pros

Getting to all my data sources in one place is very convenient. The visualizations are strong and sharing dashboards with others makes collaboration much better.

Cons

It still doesn't connect to every database I need and it falls short for more advanced analytics such as spatial analysis or highly precise forecasting.

“Turn Excel data into strong dashboards”

Pros

Pulling data in from Excel is really easy and it helps me turn it into meaningful visuals like dashboards and stories without much hassle.

Cons

One thing that could be improved is the cost of its certification since lowering it would give more people a chance to get hands-on experience.

“Get creative with mapping and visuals”

Pros

Tableau really shines when it comes to data visualization. The range and quality of charts you can build is impressive and that's easily its strongest advantage in my view. I use it regularly in the visualization stage of my data analytics work and the results look excellent. The graphics are highly customizable and flexible which gives a lot of room to present data the way I want. It also offers more specialized capabilities, like displaying a distribution directly on a country map which adds a lot of creativity to the analysis.

Cons

While the visualization side is excellent, the data pre processing side is much harder to deal with. It does include tools to prepare data before building visuals but they can be difficult to work with and occasionally feel buggy. Because of that, I usually end up doing the pre-processing in Python with Pandas and sometimes even in Excel, before bringing the data into it.

“A reliable weekly reporting tool”

Pros

Every week I relied on this software to monitor company metrics. Loading the data was easy and the way everything was displayed made it really convenient to review the information in this format.

Cons

It can feel a bit confusing at first but once you understand how it works, it becomes very manageable and works really well.

“Blend data with strong reporting”

Pros

Pulling together data from different sources in Tableau works really well and combining that information is very convenient. It's also really helpful that key reports can be scheduled and sent by email on a regular basis.

Cons

Getting around the platform and learning where everything is can be challenging at first. It definitely takes some training before you can comfortably use it on your own and start building your own reports.

“Strong dashboards with nice visuals”

Pros

Working with Tableau has been really enjoyable for data visualization and reporting. Importing data into the platform is very easy and building dashboards is engaging rather than tedious. Also it makes it possible for almost anyone to create interactive dashboards without much hassle.

Cons

The biggest downside is the price since it can be quite expensive for organizations. It also doesn't integrate with every Microsoft tool which can be limiting in some environments.

“Visuals that make data feel alive”

Pros

Tableau is a very powerful platform that lets users turn data into clear, professional visuals that are simple to read and really make the information come alive.

Cons

The only downside for me was the learning curve. Getting started was pretty difficult and I had to do a lot of self-teaching before things clicked. I didn't really get the most out of it until I bought a book and used that to understand how to maximize the software.

“Great dashboards for telling stories”

Pros

It is one of the best tools to use when you want to turn data into a story through dashboards. It really helps a lot when presenting data in a clear and engaging way.

Cons

In future updates, I'd love to see a feature similar to what Alteryx offers for data mining, where you can build flowcharts and apply specific algorithms to the data as part of the process.

“Nice charts for business insights”

Pros

Tableau works really well for business users who want to present trends or progress through graphs and charts. The visual output looks professional and creating it is very easy.

Cons

At the same time it is not the tool to rely on for highly complex tasks. It is built more for simple analysis and when you compare it with Excel, the feature set feels more limited.

“Let users explore data on their own”

Pros

One thing I really appreciated about Tableau is how interactive it is when building BI models and that makes it accessible for almost anyone to use. It's especially well suited for self-service analytics.

Cons

The part I wasn't happy with is that the desktop version isn't free to use the way Power BI and QlikSense are which makes adoption and even trying it out more difficult especially with only a 15-day trial. The licensing rules around minimum user counts also make it less appealing for companies that want to test the product in a real working environment.

“Endless visuals with no limits”

Pros

It stands out to me for how powerful and virtually limitless it feels. For report visualization, it has been the best tool I have used.

Cons

One downside is that there are multiple ways to accomplish the same task which can make the interface feel overcrowded and some captions are hard to see.

“Easy to access but privacy is a concern”

Pros

Tableau Public is widely available and anyone can access it which makes it very convenient. Installation is quick and the drag and drop interface makes it easy to use and build visualizations. Another big plus is that the software is free.

Cons

Because the free version is open to everyone, the visualizations you create can be viewed by anyone as well which means there is very little privacy and no real data confidentiality. On top of that it comes with a fairly steep learning curve.

“Strong storage capabilities”

Pros

It can handle a large volume of data which means there's no need to rely on several different systems.

Cons

It's not user friendly at all. Even though I can see how useful the system is, it's still one I'd rather avoid using.

“A great tool for mining data”

Pros

Using it for data mining has been really valuable. I have worked with corporate data in Tableau to help improve performance and it made a big difference.

Cons

It can be somewhat challenging at first especially for someone who is just getting started with business intelligence.