Sigma vs Tableau comparison

Sigma Computing and Salesforce are both solutions in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category. Sigma Computing is ranked #17 with an average rating of 7.0, while Salesforce is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.5. Sigma Computing holds a 1.2% mindshare in BIT, compared to Salesforce’s 17.5% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Sigma Computing users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of Salesforce users who would recommend it.

Sigma

Read 6 Sigma reviews

1,348 Views
647 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Tableau

Read 296 Tableau reviews

17,456 Views
14,743 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Sigma

Tableau

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Tableau and Sigma compete in the analytics and business intelligence market. Sigma often has the upper hand in features and ease of deployment, making it a compelling choice for many users.

Features: Tableau offers powerful data visualization capabilities, extensive third-party integrations, and a comprehensive dashboard experience. Sigma provides an intuitive spreadsheet-like interface for data exploration, real-time collaboration features, and seamless cloud integration. Key differences include Tableau's advanced visualization tools versus Sigma's flexibility and ease of collaboration.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Tableau follows a traditional deployment model with comprehensive customer support known for responsiveness. Sigma's cloud-based approach simplifies deployment and provides proactive service with quick responses, offering a cloud-first solution for faster updates and deployment.

Pricing and ROI: Tableau typically involves higher initial costs due to licensing fees and setup, leading to a more gradual ROI driven by its extensive features. Sigma offers lower upfront costs with a cloud subscription model, resulting in quicker ROI, especially concerning ongoing operational efficiencies. The contrast lies in the immediate value and lower initial investment that Sigma offers compared to Tableau's feature-rich but costlier solution.

To learn more, read our detailed Sigma vs. Tableau Report (Updated: February 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Sigma vs. Tableau

February 2025

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Helped 845,406 peers since 2012

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

Sigma

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

17th

Ranking in Data Visualization

13th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

8.5

Number of Reviews

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 Sigma is 1.2%, up from 0.6% 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

Russell Rothstein

Founder and CEO at PeerSpot

Modern dashboards and reports enhance decision-making and presentations

I would love to be able to create my own reports in Sigma, as I can do in Salesforce. Either we are not using it properly, or the software is too complicated. It would be great if there was a way for me to create reports without relying on a data analyst. I'm interested in the upcoming AI co-pilot to enable natural language generation of visualizations and reports. Also, the marketing materials did not match what I feel we've received. Regarding pricing, Sigma's pricing doesn't allow more people to have the ability to create their own reports. We have very few admin or report creator licenses, while everyone else is on a view-only mode.

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ROMIL SHAH

Deputy General Manger - Information Technology at Nayara Energy

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool's interface is easy to use. The functions listed as a part of the menu items are easy to use."

"The most valuable aspect for me is having real-time data."

"Sigma serves as the visualization and reporting front end."

"The most valuable feature of Sigma is the detailed reports."

"I find the collaborative features, such as commenting, to be very valuable."

"Sigma is a great software for non-technical business users. If someone's familiar with pivot tables or Excel or Google Sheets, they should be able to pick up Sigma pretty quickly. There is a very low bar for onboarding."

"The most valuable feature of Sigma is the detailed reports."

"Tableau has many different connectors for different databases. It's very easy to connect to MySQL, SQL Server, Amazon EMR, Presto, Redshift, BigQuery, and so on."

"Tableau has improved my organization in a variety of ways, one of its uses being that of data analysis. A feature I have found most valuable is the ease of use and straightforwardness, in addition to the flexibility of Tableau."

"It gives us a new dimension to the way that we analyse our data."

"The data blending capabilities is a huge factor for our team."

"The Web Editing capabilities allow us to grant end users enough capabilities for them to do self-serve discovery without the added cost of needing to get everyone desktop licenses."

"The geospatial maps representation and the visualizations are nice."

"The solution is easy to use, flexible, our clients enjoy seeing the data on maps, and you do not need to be an expert in SQL to use it."

"It has made the reporting stage simple and enabled us to focus mainly on the ETL part"

More Tableau pros

Cons

"The only minor area for improvement lies in handling highly complex visualizations."

"I would like to see better visualization options. That would allow me to build out more visually pleasing dashboarding in Sigma."

"The product's roadmap regarding introducing new features in the solution or new versions of the tool can be made better in the future."

"Either we are not using it properly, or the software is too complicated. It would be great if there was a way for me to create reports without relying on a data analyst."

"Sigma could have better reports."

"Sigma lacks a versioning feature to track changes. There is a need for better structuring, like a folder system, to organize diagrams efficiently."

"It would be nice to include more features on each dashboard."

"If I have to develop any, for example, pie charts, I can develop them just fine. However, if I have to develop a donut chart, that I cannot do it in a simple way. There are tricks that I need to use if I have to design a donut chart. It should be more flexible and provide more visualization options."

"The solution needs to improve its integration capabilities."

"I would like to be able to set the parameters in a more specific manner."

"With Tableau, there is a gap in its ability to handle very large-scale data."

"Some of our clients are looking for better UI when using Tableau as they often work with this solution directly."

"I would like them to include the Italian language, as I can see there are other foreign language in the product."

"The pricing is a bit higher than the competition. They'll need to lower it to stay competitive."

More Tableau cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The retail price is set at one thousand dollars per creator per year."

"Tableau's licensing is pretty straightforward and simple."

"It is expensive when you compare it with Power BI. It should be cheaper."

"Paying for users you never setup or buying expensive desktop licenses for users who can solve their users with web editing on the server are the two biggest expenses."

"Best advice on pricing is to anticipate the desire for more licenses once the results of this product are acknowledged in other parts of your company."

"Tableau's prices are relatively high for our market. I am from Serbia, so many companies in this market don't have the ability to pay for expensive software. My clients are quite satisfied with a lot of Tableau's qualities except for the prices."

"It is a bit overpriced."

"Tableau is a little cheaper as compared to Power BI and other technologies that we have used in the past. However, if the business users in our organization want to make presentations, Tableau has been asking us to purchase a Tableau Creator license, and $35 per month is expensive for business users. Power BI is giving a free desktop version for business users to connect to any data source and build their own dashboards. That's why we have proposed to use Power BI for most of the business users in our organization."

"The price could be higher for the quality of software, so they revised the pricing in this version, and I agree with the price for top version. The top version costs about $70 per month, and the price is cheap for the quality."

More Tableau pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user6330

Product Manager at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

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…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Healthcare Company

Educational Organization

44%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Sigma?

The tool's interface is easy to use. The functions listed as a part of the menu items are easy to use.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sigma?

The viewer license is free, and the available licenses are for creators. The retail price is set at one thousand dollars per creator per year. Additionally, there is a platform fee of thirty thousa...

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What needs improvement with Sigma?

There is room for improvement in Figma's versioning capabilities. I feel there is a lack of change tracking, which affects clarity in collaborative environments. Implementing version history simila...

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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...

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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...

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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 ...

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Comparisons

Hex vs Sigma

Compared 38% of the time

Apache Superset vs Sigma

Compared 18% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Sigma

Compared 10% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs Sigma

Compared 8% of the time

Domo vs Sigma

Compared 5% of the time

More Sigma Competitors

Microsoft Power BI vs Tableau

Compared 19% of the time

Domo vs Tableau

Compared 13% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs Tableau

Compared 7% of the time

Databricks vs Tableau

Compared 6% of the time

SAP Analytics Cloud vs Tableau

Compared 5% of the time

More Tableau Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Sigma

March 2025

Download Sigma product report

Buyer's Guide

Tableau

March 2025

Download Tableau product report

Also Known As

No data available

Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online

Overview

Sigma is the next-generation of analytics for cloud data warehouses with a familiar spreadsheet-like interface that gives business experts the power to ask any question of their data no matter the query.

Sigma Computing

Tableau is a tool for data visualization and business intelligence that allows businesses to report insights through easy-to-use, customizable visualizations and dashboards. Tableau makes it exceedingly simple for its customers to organize, manage, visualize, and comprehend data. It enables users to dig deep into the data so that they can see patterns and gain meaningful insights.

Make data-driven decisions with confidence thanks to Tableau’s assistance in providing faster answers to queries, solving harder problems more easily, and offering new insights more frequently. Tableau integrates directly to hundreds of data sources, both in the cloud and on premises, making it simpler to begin research. People of various skill levels can quickly find actionable information using Tableau’s natural language queries, interactive dashboards, and drag-and-drop capabilities. By quickly creating strong calculations, adding trend lines to examine statistical summaries, or clustering data to identify relationships, users can ask more in-depth inquiries.

Tableau has many valuable key features:

Tableau dashboards provide a complete view of your data through visualizations, visual objects, text, and more.
Tableau provides convenient, real-time options to collaborate with other users and instantly share data in the form of visualizations, sheets, and dashboards.
Tableau ensures connectivity to both live data sources and data extraction from external data sources as in-memory data. This gives users the flexibility to use data from more than one source without any restrictions.
Tableau gives many data source option, ranging from spreadsheets, big data, on-premise files, relational databases, non-relational databases, data warehouses, and big data, to on-cloud data.
Tableau has a lot of pre-installed information on maps, such as cities, postal codes, and administrative boundaries.
Tableau has a foolproof security system based on authentication and permission systems for data connections and user access. Tableau also gives you the freedom to integrate with other security protocols.

Tableau stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Some of these include its fast data access, easy creation of visualizations, and its stability. PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features in their reviews:

Romil S., Deputy General Manager of IT at Nayara Energy, notes, "Its visualizations are good, and its features make the development process a little less time-consuming. It has an in-memory extract feature that allows us to extract data and keep it on the server, and then our users can use it quickly.

Ariful M., Consulting Practice Partner of Data, Analytics & AI at FH, writes, “Tableau is very flexible and easy to learn. It has drag-and-drop function analytics, and its design is very good.”

Salesforce

Sample Customers

Snowflake, Fivetran ,Autodesk, Flowspace, Super League Gaming, Zumper, Clover, Volta, Olivela

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.

Buyer's Guide

Sigma vs. Tableau

February 2025

Free Report: Sigma vs. Tableau

Find out what your peers are saying about Sigma vs. Tableau and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.

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