Power BI vs Tableau - Best BI Tool

In this video, I share the key differences (and similarities) between these two top business intelligence (BI) solutions, as I've been working with both these business intelligence solutions routinely over the past few years in my job as a data analyst. I try to take a holistic approach to analyze the entire service offerings from each of these solutions and don't just limit my findings to the desktop apps only.

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00:00 Intro
00:49 Solution Overviews
04:03 Costs
06:30 System Requirements
07:45 App Comparison
11:17 Final Products
11:56 Connecting to Data
13:35 Sharing / Collaborating
14:49 Getting Help
17:31 Outro

#powerbi #tableau #datanerd

[LukeBarousse]

Which tool is your favorite? Tableau or Power BI?

[awert]

This is probably THE ONLY video on youtube which actually does meaningfully compare these two tools.

[John-elsv]

I've not used Tableau, but for Power BI, I think it is especially better for those who have experience with Power Query, database relationship management and Pivot Charts, since basically Power BI runs on these 3 concepts mainly.

For me, Power BI basically a more advanced Pivot Chart which can link multiple tables together through relationships, something you can't do in Excel, since Excel's Pivot Charts require a single Pivot Table to work with. Also, the cross-filter options and drilldown, drillthrough, bookmark etc. features are great improvements over Pivot Charts.

Edit on 18/6/21: I've learnt Tableau, and here are my thoughts on Tableau vs Power BI:
1) Tableau is better in some areas, such as the customisation of charts, like using of the colors and tooltips cards to show more details, which is definitely an edge over Power BI. It also comes with more features such as the page pane and stories function, which Power BI does not have. In fact, Tableau uses a more tiered way of worksheet -> dashboard -> story, while Power BI only has dashboard. However, all of the charts in Tableau are interconnected so it might be a good idea to make all of them the same size, or else a change in a dashboard can mess up your chart in the worksheet, for example.

2) Tableau's style of organising its data pane is more aesthetically pleasing and intuitive than Power BI, since it organises table columns into dimensions and measures, and color codes them, you can even switch a measure into dimension and vice-versa for different purposes. Generally I find that this makes Tableau easier to use, especially for people who have not used Pivot Tables and Pivot Charts previously.

3) Power BI is better in more areas than I imagined, however. For a first, I can't really figure out how to explore and clean data effectively in Tableau, whereas Power BI is integrated with Power Query, an excellent tool for handling small to mid-sized databases. It also makes exploring and cleaning data easy. And for the data modelling, Power BI follows SQL's style of listing by table names and columns, while Tableau only lists the table names. So yea, I feel that Power BI is much better in fine-tuning the data before data visualisation, while for Tableau it's a good idea to do the fine-tuning somewhere else first, not that you can't, but it's harder to and less useful imo. But Tableau has data blending, though that has its own caveats as well.

4) I find Power BI easier to use while I'm creating my first visualization, and here's why. Power BI has cross-filtration and chart syncing automatically activated, while Tableau's default is that they are not activated, and you need to activate them chart by chart, which is tedious. In fact, an issue I had with Excel dashboards is the non-automatic syncing of slicers (filters). Also, I can't find a way to clear all applied filters using one button in Tableau, while in Power BI I used a workaround involving Bookmarks (not in Tableau). So sometimes I'm not sure if I have accidentally activated multiple filters when I only want one activated. And also, the parameters don't seem to have a "return to default" function.

5) Speaking of filters in Tableau, it is a nightmare to distinguish between the different types, which are filters, sets, highlighters and parameters, since they have different functions and options. And not differentiated that well in the filter pane. But of course, they add to the customizability in Tableau as well, whereas in Power BI I recall a filter is a filter with different functions that you can play with. For example, Tableau's set + parameter can give you Top N, something Power BI's Top N function can achieve. Of course, the customizability is different.

6) One huge difference between the 2 is that Power BI offers nearly the full package for free (other than publishing it online and using its store, from what I know), while Tableau Public (its free version) requires all datasets and visualizations to only be available online. So here's the main difference: for free versions, Power BI only offers offline use, while Tableau only offers online use. The problem though, is that if you are handling confidential or sensitive info, you would definitely not want to use Tableau Public since everything, especially the datasets, would be exposed to... the public.

In conclusion, Tableau is better for very customizable visualizations, while Power BI is a more complete package that needs more expertise to make good visualizations. If you are using free versions only for sensitive information, Power BI is your only feasible solution.

[joaogabrieloliveira]

Luke, can you talk about Google Data Studio ?
For someone who is beginning in BI but also from a organizational perspective

[bobvape]

Actually when combining sql-server with powerbi it comes extremely useful. Also when automating some stuff with powershell. I did most of the modeling on the Sql server as dwh. Tableau is ridiculously overpriced for me and no to intuitive for. When compared with big data Elasticsearch and Kibana does the Work. Kafka integration etc 😬

[RohitSingh-mlzb]

Hi Luke,

Thank you for your informative videos—they've been really helpful! As a data analyst, I’m curious to know if, in 2024, we can now download and use Power BI directly on a MacBook. Or do we still need to use Parallels to run it?

I’d appreciate it if you could create a video on this topic!

[Adam_harrison]

If you have a background as an Excel whizz who’s comfortable with the Power Query / Power Pivot add-on’s, transitioning to Power BI should be quite straightforward, even DAX shares a similar logic to excel formulas in a way in how they are structured

I personally am in the Microsoft camp, really like how it integrates with a SQL / Azure backend and Power Apps / Power Automate

[noohinaaz]

Luke, when I typed 'PowerBI or Tableau' on YouTube search bar, I already knew I was gonna watch multiple videos but trust me after watching this video everything has become crystal clear for me. Thank you so much for detailed comparison.

[vpnath]

My organization uses Tableau as our Enterprise BI solution so most of my experience has been with it. We don't use Tableau prep but instead create our data-model in SQL server. Each dashboard gets its own customized SQL-view as its datasource. We do have access to PowerBI though and I've started playing around with it but still prefer Tableau.

[jcobr]

I have been using Tableau since 2015. I have a degree in Mathematics so at first it was a daunting technology to learn. I actually went back to school and took some programing classes to help me with the logic with creating formulas and data structure. It really is an amazing tool. I was concerned when Salesforce bought them. Although they are efficient with their dashboards, they are very limited in creating & displaying them. Tableau is almost like a data art book. And I am glad Salesforce didn’t make Tableau conform. Thank you for your videos, just recently discovered your YouTube page and I have been watching your videos on my free time. I’ve actually grabbed a few Udemy classes because of your videos. Just recently grabbed a Power BI class to learn what it’s about. Thank you and look forward to learning more.

[DookyButter]

Definitely a fair video of the two platforms. The self-help portion is so accurate. I always have trouble finding specific answers to my Tableau problems because the documentation, while good, is too generalizable, whereas I can usually find a forum with the specific issue I'm having in Power BI.

Also, I'd add to your recommendation section. If anyone is thinking of working in the public sector, I would highly recommend Power BI. The public sector seems to be overwhelmingly choosing Power BI. I would guess because most of them are already on a Microsoft environment.

[Xsessive]

Great video but I would add that you should weigh in the interoperability of power bi with power platform like power automate and power apps, these were the reasons we pivoted from tableau to power bi as they offer a layer compatibility that's just not available in tableau

[parvelinho]

Hi Luka, i have used both of these tools including Qlik (sense) and its by far the strongest of all 3 in all categories you can imagine, give Qlik sometime and you will see the difference aswerll :)

[TTV]

I feel like this is a fairly well-kept secret, but Metabase is open-source (meaning, free if you can host it yourself), and an extremely good BI tool. My favorite, for sure.

[miguelbenito]

Thanks Luke. I didn´t find you in Twitter. I´m here though from now on / I´ve been working with PowerBI but I feel like starting with Tableu as well. NIce video to have a good start. Thanks again

[ValamiDaniel]

Thanks Luke. Very informative as usual. How much math do you really need to know for data science/data analyst?

[mimsy]

Great video, I'm transitioning into a new role using Power BI after previously exclusively using Tableau so this was a good watch

[wayne]

Been using excel for many many years and just last week, I dove into power BI. In 3 days I have already encountered several limitations but at the same time, I was able to find workarounds via some ingenious tricks. It’s been a blast creating that dashboard which was surprisingly well received. Will definitely be using it more in the future.

[paulanthonylake]

Good video Luke, one reason I favour Tableau over PowerBi is the ease at which I can analyse/interrogate the larger volumes of data (100m+ rows).

[PeterKontogeorgis]

Not a single mention of DAX, which is probably power bi’s greatest strength.

Having worked with both, tableau allows for some nicer visuals but I think the gap has closed and you can recreate most styles in power bi now. The modelling and calculations are extremely limited however.

Power BI modelling is fantastic and DAX lets you create pretty much any measure you could ever conceive.