Tableau vs ThoughtSpot comparison

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Tableau

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Tableau and ThoughtSpot compete in the BI and data analytics category, offering distinct approaches to data visualization and analysis. Tableau seems to have the upper hand in data visualization capabilities, while ThoughtSpot excels in search-driven analytics and user-friendly querying.

Features: Tableau offers extensive data visualization capabilities, easy integration with various data sources, and user-friendly drag-and-drop functionality for creating interactive dashboards. ThoughtSpot features powerful search-driven analytics, AI-driven insights, and the ability to query large datasets simply, ideal for self-service analytics within organizations.

Room for Improvement: Tableau faces challenges such as high pricing, complex licensing, and difficulty efficiently handling large datasets. Users also highlight its limited ETL capabilities and steep learning curve. ThoughtSpot could improve by expanding data connectivity, enhancing stability, and offering more visualization customization to better compete with established tools like Tableau.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Tableau provides versatile deployment options across on-premises, public, and hybrid clouds. While its support is generally praised, users sometimes find response times slow. ThoughtSpot is noted for its ease of setup, particularly in the cloud, and positive customer support, focusing on resolving user issues and enhancing satisfaction.

Pricing and ROI: Tableau's pricing can be high, especially for larger enterprises; however, its comprehensive features can quickly return investment through improved reporting efficiency. ThoughtSpot’s flexible, pay-as-you-go pricing appeals to cost-conscious organizations, potentially offering quicker ROI by focusing on data exploration and AI-driven insights.

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

Tableau vs. ThoughtSpot

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Helped 845,040 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

Tableau

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

2nd

Ranking in Data Visualization

1st

Ranking in Embedded BI

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

296

Ranking in other categories

Reporting (2nd)

ThoughtSpot

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

18th

Ranking in Data Visualization

14th

Ranking in Embedded BI

8th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Tableau is 17.5%, down from 19.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ThoughtSpot is 1.4%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Featured Reviews

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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Sushma Polavarapu

Sr Data Analytics Consultant at Capgemini

Creates user-friendly analysis environments for large datasets

The tool is user-friendly for the end users. It is primarily a search-based tool. Users do not need a technical background to work directly on the dataset. Its compatibility with most databases, including the latest from FlexMovely and Redshift, allows users to create joins and worksheets easily. ThoughtSpot is fast, even with one to ten terabytes of data.

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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 maps and colors and interface are all fantastic."

"Data handling, visualizations, and aesthetics of it are the most valuable features."

"Technical support has been responsive."

"Easy to create graphs and visualizations."

"Any feature I am looking for usually is part of the next upgrade within a few months. They have a very good dynamic evolution."

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

"It is very easy to create dashboards, charts, and graphs."

"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."

More Tableau pros

"Stability is very important, and ThoughtSpot performs well."

"ThoughtSpot excels in being self-service oriented, allowing users who aren't developers to easily create their own reports and visualizations, making it very intuitive."

"The tool is user-friendly for the end users."

"It's easy to drill down or expand data to get more details right out of the box."

"I would say the return on investment is good. Whatever we invested, we got results. We have been finding it easy to use and onboard new use cases."

"The tool is user-friendly for the end users."

"ThoughtSpot is much easier to work with and maintain than other BI solutions, and it significantly reduces costs related to manual labor."

"The scalability is good."

More ThoughtSpot pros

Cons

"There's no mature ETL tool in Tableau, which is quite a negative for them."

"There should be more GIS features, such as location analysis, which is quite limited. There are very few location-based functionalities."

"I would like the solution to have certain features allowing the delivery of reports to the email."

"The data entered into Tableau must be clean. Otherwise, it won't work properly."

"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."

"Improvements in schema security and row/column security need to be made."

"When I've done presentations in the past, I've had issues with uploading the cartography."

"Provide additional enhancements in any business process: Operations, Marketing and Sales, Finance, Human Resources, Logistics, etc."

More Tableau cons

"Some areas for improvement include the pixel-perfect dashboards, which are not as refined as those in Tableau."

"The visualization customization needs improvement."

"A crucial feature we needed is missing, which involves restricting views of certain KPIs when users select conflicting parameters. We had to create a workaround, which impacted performance by loading pinboards slowly."

"The dashboards could give you more ability to fine tune the appearance. You get a great deal more control over how something looks in Power BI than you do in ThoughtSpot."

"In terms of features, I'd like to be able to pivot data - for example, going from rows to columns. It's not easy to do."

"The one area of the solution that I do hear needs improvement is on the visualization front."

"I would like to see more flexibility in adding the pins. Currently, we have four different sizes in which I can add pins, but I would like to be able to resize my pins."

"The most difficult thing I found is that it only deals with the files and does not have direct connectivity to databases."

More ThoughtSpot cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing model of Tableau has changed since we initially purchased it three years ago and it is more complicated, and I have found it to be more expensive. They have lost market shares to Microsoft BI. My company will probably change solutions this year because of the increased pricing model."

"Tableau has core-based and user-based licensing, and it is tied to scalability. The core-based licensing is about you buying a certain number of cores, and there is no restriction on the number of users who can use Tableau. The restriction is only on the number of cores. In user-based subscription licensing, there is a restriction on the number of users. Big companies and government organizations with a lot of users typically go for core-based licensing. User-based subscription licensing is a more common model. It has user roles such as creator, explorer, and viewer. A creator is someone who does the groundwork or development work. An explorer is someone who is into middle management but is not technically savvy, such as a category head. A viewer is like a typical decision-maker in senior management. For each role, Tableau is priced differently. The viewer role has the minimum price, and the creator role has the highest price. This pricing is available on their website. Everybody can see it."

"The pricing of Tableau should be better to remain competitive in the market, especially when compared to alternatives."

"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."

"For the use and the capability of the software, it's $70 per month, and that is quite inexpensive."

"In Indian Rupees, Tableau costs about 30,000 to 40,000 per year."

"There is a license required, we pay an annual license which is priced fair."

"It is reasonable based on what it offers."

More Tableau pricing and cost advice

"I give the pricing a six out of ten."

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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

Educational Organization

44%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

22%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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 ...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ThoughtSpot?

ThoughtSpot is expensive. When compared with Tableau and Sisense, it is around seven or eight on the expense scale.

What needs improvement with ThoughtSpot?

The visualization customization needs improvement. Currently, it is not as customizable as the options available on Power BI or Tableau. It mainly offers basic chart options.

What is your primary use case for ThoughtSpot?

I use ThoughtSpot as one of the visualization tools. I mainly create some live boards and provide access to the data sources and worksheets to users so they can create their own analyses and answer...

Microsoft Power BI vs Tableau

Comparisons

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

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Microsoft Power BI vs ThoughtSpot

Compared 24% of the time

Databricks vs ThoughtSpot

Compared 15% of the time

Looker vs ThoughtSpot

Compared 9% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs ThoughtSpot

Compared 7% of the time

TIBCO Spotfire vs ThoughtSpot

Compared 6% of the time

More ThoughtSpot Competitors

Product Reports

Tableau

Download Tableau product report

Download ThoughtSpot product report

Also Known As

Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online

No data available

Overview

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

ThoughtSpot is a powerful business intelligence tool that allows easy searching and drilling into data. Its ad hoc exploration and query-based search features are highly valued, and it is easy to set up, stable, and scalable.

The solution is used for reporting purposes, self-service BI, and embedding into other applications for customers to do self-service analytics. It helps businesses with metrics, KPIs, and important insights by sourcing data from various sources into one golden source and visualizing it in an easy way for the business to consume. The pricing model is ideal, charging for data rather than the number of users.

Sample Customers

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.

Primary Capital Mortgage, Sterling Backcheck, RichRelevance, Rambus, Batteries Plus Bulbs

Tableau vs. ThoughtSpot