Tableau vs Yellowfin BI

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Our analysts compared Tableau vs Yellowfin BI 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.

Yellowfin BI Software Tool

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.

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Yellowfin BI is an integrated platform that helps users transform their business through data by combining automated data analysis, interactive dashboards and storytelling. It also enables intuitive filtering of large amounts of data in real time. It facilitates organization-wide understanding through data sharing and collaborative action. It has a customizable architecture and has the ability to add an organization’s branding, such as its logo.

It offers either enterprise or embedded analytics and is deployable in the cloud or on-premise.
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$15/User, Monthly
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$50/User, Monthly, Freemium
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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.
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  • End-to-End BI Stack: Its complete BI suite provides solutions to multiple data analytics problems. Businesses are equipped with critical tools such as automated insights, action-based dashboards and collaborative BI tools. Its robust enterprise governance tool allows businesses to integrate their platform with existing security features. 
  • Convenient Adoption: Its single, integrated platform is user-friendly and easy to adopt. It is deployable either on the cloud or on-premise. 
  • Engaging Data Stories: Users can share their data insights with dynamic, compelling reports and storyboards. 
  • Data Transparency: Yellowfin BI can present data in multiple ways and assimilate into business operations. It's built with various dashboards, including analytical, operational and strategic setups, that link interactive data, allowing users to understand information in real time and allow for the monitoring of crucial metrics. It also ensures data accuracy and can create timelines. 
  • Automated Insights: It combines machine learning with human insights to make use of the company’s data effectively. Its algorithms automatically scan through the company’s data and provide strategically relevant results. 
  • Explore Data With Ease: Its smart visualizations enable easy data discovery and exploration. It has over 50 chart types built-in, which helps users understand their businesses better. It also helps in spotting patterns, trends and outliers. 
  • Open Source Freedom: As a 100% open platform, it has no proprietary lock-in, which allows analysts to use their existing skills and knowledge to develop their own capabilities within the platform. It is open-source in nature, which makes the Yellowfin Marketplace, a digital catalog of many free or low-cost plug-ins, extend the suite’s capabilities even further. 
  • Scalability: It offers a scalable architecture that can adapt according to the growth of a business. Users can scale their data usage, without compromising on performance aspects. 
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  • 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.
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  • Automated Data Monitoring: Yellowfin Signals provides machine-based automated monitoring of live data. It highlights anomalies and data outliers, and its proactive warning systems keep business owners informed of changes as they happen and deliver insights faster.  
  • Data Storytelling: Yellowfin Stories and Yellowfin Present help users create data stories and presentations that add context to numbers. These presentations enable clear and concise understanding throughout the organization with accessible insights sourced from one centralized, automatically refreshed database. Data stories can be authored in blog format and supplemented with external media and attachments. 
  • Connectivity to Various Data Sources: It facilitates connection with numerous data sources, including Web APIs, spreadsheets and relational databases as either on-premise or hosted in the cloud. Data is then transformed and merged so that it is accessible by any analytics platform without proprietary lockouts. 
  • Data Analysis: It helps businesses accelerate the analysis of large chunks of data using databases, spreadsheets or online applications. 
  • Data Discovery: The Insight Wizard feature is a unique inclusion that helps users cut down on discovery times with the help of assisted insights. It comes packed with features that provide automated answers with the use of algorithms. 
  • Dashboards: Its customizable, interactive dashboards enable users to keep track of key performance indicators in real time. They drive action and let users make data-driven decisions for their companies. They can be customized with the company’s branding and their open-source code lets users create their own application experience. 
  • Embeddable Workflows: Out-of-the-box, Yellowfin action buttons allow users to integrate workflows to third-party applications, or develop their own custom workflows that allow users to take direct action from their dashboards. 
  • Mobile App: It comes with a mobile application that helps users track changes to their data on-the-go. The app is curated for a mobile-specific experience, which allows users to track changes and respond to them from internet-enabled devices. 
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Product Ranking

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Analyst Rating Summary

84
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95
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100
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Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

Tableau
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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 0 25 50 75 100
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Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

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User Sentiment Summary

Great User Sentiment 10554 reviews
Great User Sentiment 182 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.

85%
of users recommend this product

Yellowfin BI has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 85% when considering 182 user reviews from 6 recognized software review sites.

4.5 (18)
4.2 (14)
4.4 (2083)
4.4 (90)
n/a
4.59 (17)
4.5 (2284)
4.6 (16)
4.4 (3909)
4.1 (10)
4.2 (2260)
3.5 (35)

Awards

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

Advanced Analytics Award

we're gathering data

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.
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Intuitive Interface: Users praise Yellowfin for its user-friendly design, making it easy to navigate and build reports without extensive training.
Powerful Data Visualization: Yellowfin offers a wide array of charting and visualization options, allowing users to present data in a clear and compelling way.
Strong Customer Support: Users appreciate the responsive and helpful customer support provided by Yellowfin, ensuring they can get assistance when needed.
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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.
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Difficult to Learn: Some users find the platform's interface and features difficult to learn and navigate, especially compared to other BI tools.
Limited Customer Support: Users have reported experiencing slow or unhelpful customer support, making it challenging to resolve issues quickly.
Data Visualization Limitations: While Yellowfin offers data visualization capabilities, some users find them less intuitive and flexible compared to other BI tools, limiting their ability to create compelling reports and dashboards.
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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.

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Is Yellowfin BI the "gold standard" for your business intelligence needs? Recent user reviews suggest that Yellowfin BI is a capable business intelligence platform that shines in its user-friendly interface and robust feature set, making it a good fit for businesses of all sizes. Users praise its intuitive design, which allows even non-technical users to easily navigate and utilize the software. The platform's comprehensive suite of features, including data visualization, reporting, and automated insights, empowers businesses to gain a holistic understanding of their data. However, users also point out some drawbacks. A common gripe is the cost, which can be a barrier for smaller businesses or those with limited budgets. Some users find the software's learning curve steeper than expected, particularly when it comes to advanced features. Despite these weaknesses, Yellowfin BI differentiates itself through its focus on data storytelling and its ability to seamlessly integrate with a wide range of data sources. The platform's storytelling feature allows users to present data insights in a compelling and engaging way, facilitating better decision-making. Its broad data source compatibility ensures that businesses can connect and analyze data from various sources, providing a unified view of their operations. Overall, Yellowfin BI is best suited for businesses that prioritize user-friendliness and a comprehensive feature set in their business intelligence solution. Its intuitive interface and robust capabilities make it a valuable tool for organizations looking to leverage data for informed decision-making. However, businesses with budget constraints or those seeking a platform with a shallower learning curve may need to consider alternative options.

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