Tableau vs Sisense

Last Updated:

Our analysts compared Tableau vs Sisense based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Business Intelligence Tools, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Product Basics

Tableau is a data visualization and analytics solution for enterprises and individuals. A rich library of connectors helps you pull data from files, cloud sources and servers. A separate data management module, Tableau Prep, ensures your data is ready to transform when it comes into the platform.

Its latest features include AI with Tableau Pulse and the Einstein CoPilot.

Software, healthcare, manufacturing, banking and financial services, and retail companies will find it helpful. Whatever your domain, chart, plot and map data will give you a clear picture of business performance.

Besides, you can track daily operations and support line-of-business decisions with hardcore data. At the higher level, it boosts planning by giving senior management the freedom to dig deeper.

A Tableau Creator license costs $70 per user and includes Tableau Desktop and Tableau Cloud. Alternatively, you can deploy it on-premise and connect to the cloud using a bridge. A free trial of Tableau Desktop is available, and Tableau Public is always free to use.

Though it's a user favorite for data visualization, many users find it expensive and slow when handling large datasets.

read more...
Sisense is an end-to-end data analytics platform that makes data discovery and analytics accessible to customers and employees alike via an embeddable, scalable architecture. With a back-end powered by in-chip technology, it allows analysts to blend large datasets from a variety of sources into a single cohesive database for the entire company. On the front-end, users of all technical skill levels can craft visualizations, reports and dashboards to explore and share insights that drive businesses forward. Its AI-driven, cloud-native analytics offering, Fusion, embeds into business workspaces and empowers teams to view key metrics and data insights where they work.

Designed for companies of all sizes, it can be deployed on-premises, as a private cloud-hosted SaaS, as a fully managed SaaS or via a hybrid strategy. It is available via annual subscription pricing and offered in three packages: its main offering BI & Analytics Teams, its embedded analytics component Product Teams and code-driven cloud analytics through Cloud Data Teams.
read more...
$15/User, Monthly
Get a free price quote
Tailored to your specific needs
$1,500 Monthly, Freemium
Free Trial is unavailable →
Get a free price quote
Tailored to your specific needs
Small 
i
Medium 
i
Large 
i
Small 
i
Medium 
i
Large 
i
Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile

Product Assistance

Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support

Product Insights

  • Include Location Insights: Tableau scored a perfect 100 in our rankings with full support for geographical searches, geocoding and in-and-out zoom actions in maps. It stores the names of cities, countries, airports and zip codes, converting them to latitudes and longitudes. Already a user favorite for visual analysis, it wins the award for Best Geospatial Visualization and Analysis in our BI product directory.
  • Handle Data Queries: According to our analysis, Tableau got a top score of 99 and our best-in-class award for data querying. It allows automatic batch updates, while Power BI must rely on the bulk operations feature to update its underlying data, and Oracle Analytics doesn’t support batch updates at all.
  • Prepare Data: Tableau got a score of 100 in our assessment for its robust Tableau Prep module. It cleans and shapes data, allows forecasting models with R and Python scripts and accepts unstructured content, provided you convert it into a standard format first.
  • Manage Access: The Tableau Blueprint involves assessing if your organization’s data architecture is ready to adopt the platform. As part of this exercise, you can opt for one of three governance models — centralized, delegated or self-governing — with varied access permissions for different roles. Such a level of detail gets Tableau a top score of 100 in our analysis.
  • Visualize Your Metrics: Tableau earns the top score of 100 in our rankings and wins our analyst award for dashboarding and data visualization. It surpasses Power BI with dashboard starters, animations and auto-refresh capabilities. Plus, it can switch to use extracts when live connections aren’t necessary.
  • Track License Usage: View license information in detail, such as the number of active licenses and the last used date/time. Once you’ve configured the registry key on every computer with a Tableau Desktop instance, it’ll start sending usage reports to the Tableau Server.
read more...
  • Brings Intelligence to Every User: Empower every user with data literacy via access to an intuitive data workflow. Leverage self-service BI to connect, mash up, blend and analyze data in a user-friendly, visual framework that is easy to manipulate. 
  • Optimizes Data Prep: Eliminate barriers between analysts and the data they need to reach answers through single-stack technology. Reduce the time needed for data prep and clean data within the interface without changing any of the original data in its source. Perform error-free analysis with better quality assurance. Incorporate everything from a database to ETL to analysis to visualizations within a single architecture in an end-to-end BI system.
  • Delivers Analysis Quickly: Through its proprietary AI-powered in-chip technology, perform thousands of queries on massive amounts of data and return results at faster speeds with in-memory processing, allowing for more efficient decision making.
  • Keeps Data Secure: Leverage advanced machine learning, detect anomalies in the data and send alerts instantly. Set role-based access restrictions, safeguard sensitive data from users who shouldn’t have access to it, and maintain greater oversight and transparency. Offer scalable data security protocols at the process level, system level, object level and data level to ensure tight security. Incorporate built-in recovery and audit strategies to prevent data loss as well as protect the organization’s audit trails.
  • Uncovers Actionable Insights: Make predictions and business decisions based on facts by analyzing data trends and identifying patterns. Improve business practices, reduce oversight errors, boost ROI and streamline general business efficiency. Utilize smart suggestions to best-match visualizations, uncover patterns and highlight trends in data. Build narratives that facilitate deeper interaction with data, and keep a digital assistant analyst at the ready.
  • Promotes Collaboration: Collaborate with others to share reports and insights on KPIs and goals, while ensuring data security compliance by keeping users on a secure network.
  • Offers Customization: Customize the platform to meet users’ needs via an open API framework. Only pay for features they’ll use and get exactly what they want out of a BI tool.
  • Scalable: Agilely adapt to users’ needs. Minimize costs via reasonable pricing and grow with business. Scale to tens of thousands of users and terabytes of data, while powering complex analysis with in-chip machine learning technology.
  • Provides Insights On-the-Go: Stay connected to data that fuels business decisions even while on the move. Access dashboards on any device and elect to receive notifications and real-time updates.
  • Try Before You Buy: Test it hands-on through a 14-day free trial. 
read more...
  • Connectors: Combine data from various sources by choosing from a wide range of connectors — no need to spend on expensive third-party data integration tools. Tableau Bridge connects private networks to live data sources via Tableau Cloud.
  • AI: Tableau now offers AI capabilities thanks to Einstein Analytics.
    • Tableau Pulse: Explore data independently and ask questions with AI analytics. Tableau Pulse is available with Tableau Cloud and Embedded Analytics.
    • Explain Data: Understand the displayed insights with natural language explanations of data points.
    • Einstein CoPilot (Beta): Close the gap in understanding data with AI insights. Discover hidden trends by asking follow-up questions without losing context, thanks to generative AI. Einstein CoPilot is available with a Tableau Cloud subscription.
  • Tableau Prep: Clean and transform data of all types, including survey results, feedback data and social media posts. Shape and combine it with Tableau Prep, which is available with the paid edition only.
  • Data Stories: Convey your message with compelling narratives to get stakeholder buy-in. Drag and drop sheets onto the storyboard to show the growth, decline or stability of critical metrics.
  • Animations: Explain how data changes over time with animated charts and customize them to include graphics, labels and colors.
  • Filtering: Focus on the data that matters; it’s as easy as dragging and dropping desired fields to the Filter shelf. Specify a value range, set a condition or choose the top values to display.
  • User-Based Licenses: Explore cost-effective license combinations that work for your team.
    • Creators can build dashboards, permissions, and governance rules, and establish connections to new sources. They’re content authors who transform and analyze data. This license is available at $70 per user monthly, billed annually. However, they can’t control the Tableau Server or Desktop environment.
    • Explorer licenses are suitable for line-of-business users whose role requires independent data exploration. They can author content but within a governed ecosystem. Each Explorer license costs $42 monthly, billed annually. They can’t connect to new sources, modify data, or use the Tableau desktop or custom SQL.
    • Viewers can interact with data, apply filters and follow pre-decided workflows. This license is available for $15 per user monthly, billed annually. Viewers have limited rights and can’t create and edit visualizations and the underlying data.
read more...
  • In-Chip Analytics: Free up processing power for other tasks, improve the speed of processing and reduce downtime caused by overworked RAM or disks. Combine a columnar database with smart algorithms in an in-chip cache. Choose between either disk or RAM, rather than solely disk or RAM, as an alternative to in-memory processing.
  • Data Connectivity: Draw from many different data sources and formats with hundreds of built-in connectors with cloud applications such as Zendesk and Salesforce. Drag and drop to import from databases and spreadsheets. Pull directly from CRMs or embed the BI interface into the CRM, providing versatility in workflow options.
  • Data Blending: Blend huge datasets from a range of sources instantly into one centralized location, and receive a holistic view of all data. Investigate further through slicing, dicing and exploration of data via a simple, accessible interface.
  • Data Visualizations: Organize user data into easy-to-understand visualizations like bar charts, scattergrams, pie charts, line graphs, interactive maps, etc. Access a rich library of prebuilt graphics and widgets or open source designs, and easily manipulate them from within an intuitive UI. 
  • Interactive Dashboards: Drag-and-drop to build interactive dashboards that encourage deeper data exploration. Help users to build widgets and filters, and leverage AI-assisted exploration and automatic analysis to provide further insight. 
  • Real-Time Insights: Set up and maintain live connections to data and monitor dashboards in real time. Establish push notification alerts to receive automatic updates when changes to KPIs occur. 
  • Single-Stack System: Perform a range of data preparation tasks, such as exploration, analysis, visualization and collaboration, without needing to switch to other platforms.
  • Publish and Share: Enable everyone in an organization to access and filter information with web-based dashboards. Publish a dashboard with one click and open it to the entire company for easy access without needing to download files.
  • Augmented Intelligence: Leverage Sisense Pulse, powered by machine learning algorithms, to continually monitor KPIs and receive proactive alerts when anomalies and variations are detected. Automate previously manual tasks and data-driven workflows, personalize the BI experience with a tailored command center and deliver a dynamically updated feed that keeps users up to date.
  • Embedded Analytics: Turn data into data products that deliver BI to clients with a white label solution in Product Teams.
  • R Integration: Perform predictive analysis and access better BI reporting and decision-making through R programming language.
  • Add-Ons: Extend the functionality of the platform by downloading and equipping any number of free and premium native and third party extensions from the marketplace.
  • Natural Language Processing: Empower users of all data literacy levels to derive the full value of their insights through natural language generation with Sisense Narratives. Simplify into everyday language the complexities of data analysis for accessibility and easier understanding through AI-generated text-based insights.
  • Mobile BI: Access BI on-the-go directly from iOS and Android phones with a native app that renders mobile-optimized responsive dashboards with touchscreen integration. Alternatively, access the platform through a browser from any laptop, tablet or smartphone, no downloads or installation required.
read more...

Product Ranking

#1

among all
Business Intelligence Tools

#11

among all
Business Intelligence Tools

Find out who the leaders are

Analyst Rating Summary

84
80
95
82
32
49
100
100
Show More Show More
Availability and Scalability
Data Management
Data Visualization
Platform Compliance
Reporting
Availability and Scalability
Data Management
Data Pre-processing
Data Transformation
Integrations and Extensibility

Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

Tableau
Sisense
+ Add Product + Add Product
Advanced Analytics Augmented Analytics Data Management Data Pre-processing Data Transformation Data Visualization Embedded Analytics Capabilities Geospatial Visualizations And Analysis Mobile Capabilities Platform Capabilities Reporting 95 32 100 95 90 100 93 96 95 96 100 82 49 100 100 97 87 93 68 47 83 87 0 25 50 75 100
92%
8%
0%
77%
0%
23%
31%
0%
69%
46%
0%
54%
100%
0%
0%
100%
0%
0%
88%
13%
-1%
100%
0%
0%
90%
0%
10%
90%
10%
0%
100%
0%
0%
77%
0%
23%
86%
0%
14%
86%
0%
14%
88%
13%
-1%
50%
13%
37%
86%
0%
14%
43%
0%
57%
89%
0%
11%
78%
0%
22%
100%
0%
0%
75%
13%
12%

Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

100%
0%
0%
100%
0%
0%
76%
0%
24%
96%
0%
4%
100%
0%
0%
86%
0%
14%
88%
0%
12%
88%
13%
-1%

User Sentiment Summary

Great User Sentiment 10554 reviews
Great User Sentiment 1979 reviews
88%
of users recommend this product

Tableau has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 88% when considering 10554 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

88%
of users recommend this product

Sisense has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 88% when considering 1979 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

4.5 (18)
5.0 (22)
4.4 (2083)
4.3 (720)
4.5 (2284)
4.5 (357)
4.4 (3909)
4.4 (765)
4.2 (2260)
4.4 (115)

Awards

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated Tableau and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Advanced Analytics.

Advanced Analytics Award

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated Sisense and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Data Pre-processing.

Data Pre-processing Award

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Data Visualization: Almost 98% of users who reviewed its visual capabilities praised the platform for its dashboards and the freedom to play around with data and modify charts as desired.
User-Friendly: According to 93% of users who mentioned ease of use, it makes data accessible with its easy user actions and handy tooltips.
Data Connectivity: About 92% of users who discussed data sourcing praised its ability to pull data from disparate systems.
Show more
Customer Service and Support : More than 92% of users mentioning customer support said that responses to their queries were prompt and informative, and that there’s good access to online user communities.
Data Integration: Approximately 92% of users who mention data source integrations express satisfaction with its ability to import, blend and streamline data from multiple sources into a cohesive database.
Data Visualization: Citing stunning dashboards with a range of visually powerful visual tools like widgets, graphs and scattergrams, 85% of users who mention data visualization say it’s a strong feature of Sisense.
Ease of Use: More than 93% of users mentioning the platform’s ease of use praise it as user-friendly, citing self-service BI features such as interactive dashboards and data visualizations.
Cost: Among users who comment on its pricing, more than 85% said that Sisense offers great value for its cost, with some reviews coming from long-time customers.
Show more
Pricing: Around 90% of the users citing cost found it expensive.
Speed: About 71% of the users who discussed performance found it slow when processing large data volumes.
Onboarding Woes: Approximately 67% of the users who reviewed the platform's adoption said there was a steep learning curve.
Show more
Data Preparation and Modeling: About 50% of users who mentioned data modeling say that it is not as intuitive for non-technical staff, requiring strong IT support.
Training: More than 60% of users who write about learning how to use the platform say that with frequent new releases, a lack of sufficient documentation, coupled with the difficulty of using a programming language make this a tricky tool to master.
Show more

Tableau Desktop is a BI solution for data visualization, dashboarding and location analysis. In online reviews, users said they found its drag-and-drop charting a boon for creating charts and maps. Regarding customization, many users praised the platform for its various labeling and design options.I recently tried the Tableau Desktop 2024.1.3 version. The trial is only for 14 days and is enough for a sneak peek into Tableau’s dashboarding and data storytelling capabilities. For more straightforward use cases, Tableau is incredibly user-friendly and fast. Creating a new sheet gives you a canvas to create a visualization. Once you have the required sheets, combining them into a dashboard view is straightforward — select and add.My dataset included healthcare data, including details of patients, their hospital visits and insurance payer details. One use case was to find the total claim settlement amount. I dragged the Total Claims Cost and Payer fields to the column and row shelves, and Tableau gave me a bar graph. The toolbar had single-click options for sorting data from increasing to decreasing values or the other way around.To view the number of encounters by payer, I dragged the Payer field to the row shelf and used the SUM(ROW_COUNT()) function on the column shelf. The chart popped up with more visualization and layout options.I wanted an interactive filter to view the average claim cost by birthdate. I dragged the Birthdate field to the Filters shelf and right-clicked on it to set the end date as October 22, 1961. Selecting Show Filter added a slider conveniently to the right of my visualization. I could see the data for people born before October 22, 1961, and if required, I could change the end date.Another use case would be viewing the data by the type of hospital visits — how many people were inpatients, outpatients or those who needed emergency care. I dragged and dropped the Total Claims Cost and Payer fields into columns and rows, respectively. Similarly, I dropped Encounterclass into the Filters shelf and clicked on Show Filter to enable a checkbox on the screen. It had all the categories of visits, giving users the option to select the desired views.One-fourth of the users discussing adoption said there was a steep learning curve. Tableau relies on Python and R scripts for statistics in its visualizations. It's where the named licenses can prove to be a blessing, as you can opt to train upcoming Creators and Explorers. We recommend factoring in training if you want to hit the ground running.Some reviewers felt discounted packages for business editions should be available, similar to the free student licenses. At $70 per user, the Creator license can seem costly when compared to Power BI ($9.99 per user) and Qlik Sense ($30 per user).Here's the good news, though. Its built-in user management acts as a permissions layer for your organization - users can only access the relevant content. Plus, an organization will have very few Creators and a greater number of Viewers and Explorers, and the license fee reduces from Creator to Explorer to Viewer.We recommend opting for a wise license combination to get the most out of the product.On the upside, the vendor constantly releases new features, the latest one being Einstein CoPilot in beta.Overall, Tableau is a competitive BI solution, but if the pricing seems inflexible, quite a few other solutions offer live insights and advanced analytics out of the box.

Show more

Users appreciate how Sisense creates large datasets from constantly evolving data sources to be seamlessly streamlined into actionable data, and presented easily in the form of graphs, bar and pie charts, scattergrams, line graphs, interactive maps and many more visualization types. Regarding customer support, users praise their prompt and informative responses - from implementation to handling subsequent queries — as high quality customer service that comes neatly packaged with pricing plans. Users mention that the implementation of this solution, though easy for basic setup, can be quite demanding in terms of scripting and configuration setup, especially for advanced analytics. Non-technical users might find it challenging to set up the data objects - ElastiCubes - without strong IT support. On the front-end, dashboard customization and formatting of visualizations can be tricky as these require basic knowledge of CSS, Javascript and development. Though a large number of users find this solution to be cost-effective, smaller businesses and startups that only need a limited number of licenses might find it expensive. Overall, Sisense is a strong BI solution with strong data capabilities, and its drill-down functionality empowers users to glean insightful and actionable analytics that drive business strategy by aiding in decision-making processes. To maximize its potential, businesses may require strong IT support for implementation and formatting of visualizations. It is certainly worth considering for enterprise BI needs, if the price is right!

Show more

Screenshots

Top Alternatives in Business Intelligence Tools


Cognos Analytics

Domo

GoodData

Grow

Logi Symphony

Looker Studio

MicroStrategy

Oracle Analytics Cloud

Power BI

Qlik Sense

QuickSight

SAP Analytics Cloud

SAS Visual Analytics

Sisense

Spotfire

Related Categories

Head-to-Head Comparison

WE DISTILL IT INTO REAL REQUIREMENTS, COMPARISON REPORTS, PRICE GUIDES and more...

Compare products
Comparison Report
Just drag this link to the bookmark bar.
?
Table settings