Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Pyramid Analytics 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

Pyramid Analytics
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
16th
Ranking in Data Visualization
12th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Tableau
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
2nd
Ranking in Data Visualization
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
296
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (2nd), Embedded BI (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Pyramid Analytics is 0.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tableau is 17.5%, down from 19.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Shyam Pendyala - PeerSpot reviewer
A comprehensive and user-friendly business intelligence for enhanced data insight
When developing multidimensional IMDS models in Pyramid Analytics, there is a need for better features to maintain and analyze data. The application currently lacks the ability to easily track the original physical table and field names, making it challenging to relate them to business names. It would be desirable to have the possibility to generate a data dictionary, detailing the original physical tables, renamed fields, and derived fields. Such features would simplify documentation, facilitate understanding of how calculations depend on physical fields and aid in explaining the development process to others. Having this lineage and easy-to-generate data dictionary would greatly enhance the usability of Pyramid Analytics for developers.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It offers a wide range of analytics options including statistics and visualizations, as well as prediction capabilities, allowing users to make forecasts based on the latest data."
"The on-premise version has quite good scalability."
"It seems quite performant in analyzing multi-dimensional information sets and presenting them."
"I think the most valuable Pyramid Analytics feature is the solution's ability to drill down and dice in the loop. I think it is better than InExcel or Power BI."
"The features I find most valuable are 'Discover,' 'Formulate,' and 'Model.' I use them regularly to build logic and create reports for my job."
"It proved to be a very powerful and useful tool due to its breakdown capabilities, easy reporting features, flexibility in building custom calculations, and the ability to integrate them into reports."
"Pyramid has a wide level of uses, as it's a complete ETL process and has a good level of connecting to a lot of data sources."
"The most valuable feature of Pyramid Analytics, outshining even top-tier platforms like Power BI, is its robust support for DAX queries."
"Technical support has been responsive."
"It has a shallow learning curve and so you can go to market very, very, very quickly."
"One of the most valuable features of Tableau is that it's a visual analytics solution, not just a dashboarding solution. Compared to Power BI, which is a dashboarding solution, there are no limitations with Tableau. For example, when you add a chart or a map to Power BI, it has a 3,000-point limitation. When you try to track your whole vehicle on the map, you only see the first 3,000 rows on the map, and Power BI doesn't tell you which part of the data is shown on the map. But Tableau doesn't have any limitations, which means that you can see five million data points on a map. It starts the project by creating the visuals that directly converts to SQLs. In that way, all the components have no limitations. When we compared Tableau to Power BI, we also found Tableau to be more fancy. Fancy means you can create more visual graphics and more visual dashboards. With Power BI, this isn't so—it's just some tables and some simple charts together. Tableau is more for business users who want to analyze data. Tableau can directly connect the analytics systems, like R or Titan, and get the results in screen, so it's a good solution for analytics scientists. It has some predefined capabilities to understand the data."
"Tableau's performance is really good, and it is adding new features."
"Since Tableau is on the cloud, we haven't faced any challenges around scalability."
"The most valuable feature is that we can integrate with our own database, and it will displays the KPIs. This is highly required from the business side."
"I have found many of the self-service features valuable."
"Data Interpreter: Which can identify issues or potential errors with your imported data."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in terms of documentation and examples, especially for newcomers like me who are learning both business intelligence and Pyramid."
"Even though the solution has a functionality for every step, it's not so well- defined. That needs to be improved."
"It would be desirable to have the possibility to generate a data dictionary, detailing the original physical tables, renamed fields, and derived fields."
"I find that this is quite a heavy, time-consuming tool for developers."
"The general amount of negative comments that I am hearing from my team makes me very wary."
"There is room for improvement in terms of the user interface, particularly when it comes to modifying connections between filters and visual components in a dashboard."
"I think the graphic number of charts and components could be higher, at least comparable to Brain Power BI."
"Pyramid Analytics could improve by speeding up data refresh, especially for large datasets."
"I also work as an SME on the platform side. Tableau is very nice and jazzy for the end-users, but there are pain points for the admins. Performance is something about which we hear a lot of complaints, such as the dashboard doesn't open in time. It performs well on the desktop but not on the server. I know that there is always a limitation when it comes to a huge amount of data or the complexity of the calculations, but we often hear from end-users about the performance on the server side. It is easy to drag and drop all the columns and do what we want, but if it is not going to load better on the server, users are not going to like it."
"What is happening, with so many tools coming up in the market, is that people have to continuously get educated in order to use some of the more advanced features."
"The charting is overly complex in comparison with Power BI's"
"Creating empty extracts is not easy."
"The customization requires a lot of effort and should be simplified. The performance could be better."
"I don't have the ability in Tableau to create a tooltip and see the picture of a piece of jewelry or watch that is a best seller."
"With Tableau, when you're dealing with very large datasets, it can be slow so the performance is an area that can be improved."
"It would be nice if we could export more raw data. Currently, there is a limit as to how much data you can export."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing cost is not excessively expensive, but it does increase with the addition of new features and modules."
"The value for money is definitely there."
"The initial cost that is set according to CPU cores is expensive."
"We pay for the enterprise license for Tableau. The licensing could be cheaper and more flexible."
"ROI is very high, but it requires a data preparation/blending tool."
"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 for the use of this solution and it is on a per-user basis. The server is free but the users you have to pay for."
"This license is on a yearly basis."
"The cost is high."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which BI (Business Intelligence) Tools solutions are best for your needs.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
11%
Insurance Company
7%
Educational Organization
44%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pyramid Analytics?
The most valuable feature of Pyramid Analytics, outshining even top-tier platforms like Power BI, is its robust support for DAX queries.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pyramid Analytics?
I find the price of Pyramid Analytics to be quite reasonable, especially when compared to other tools in the industry. It is a cost-effective choice, particularly for mid-sized or larger companies ...
What needs improvement with Pyramid Analytics?
Pyramid Analytics could improve by speeding up data refresh, especially for large datasets. While it is currently an in-memory tool, efforts are underway to enhance direct connections to source sys...
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 ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

US Department of Veterans Affair, Volkswagen, Siemens, Blackboard, Hallmark, Orange, CDW, LA Fitness, Atelier GS, Memorial Healthcare, Acadia Insurance, BancoBic, Advanced Learning, Microsoft, Drake University
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.
Find out what your peers are saying about Pyramid Analytics vs. Tableau and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.