Tableau vs. Microsoft Power BI
Data-driven organizations choose Tableau because they want to grow their revenue and lower costs—not because it's part of a product bundle.
Why you should choose Tableau.
You want to control your IT strategy.
While Power BI forces you into Windows and Azure, Tableau offers the flexibility to deploy on Windows or Linux, wherever you need — on-premises or in any public or private cloud.
You want to act on data, not question it.
Provide your teams with accurate and trusted data with advanced governance and content management capabilities that you don’t get with Power BI.
You can't afford to miss the Agent revolution.
Tableau is integrated with Agentforce, empowering humans with agents — not outdated copilots — to drive success together, from data to decisions.
You need intelligent insights for key metrics.
Insights get lost in Power BI, but Tableau Pulse delivers AI-powered insights anywhere so you get the metrics that matter.
You need everyone to be data-driven.
Power BI is for developers. Tableau is for everyone. Tableau's intuitive drag-and-drop interface makes data accessible to all—no coding needed, unlike Power BI.
You deserve support on your journey.
Join the DataFam. Unlike Microsoft, Tableau has a supportive community and free resources no matter where you are in your analytics and AI journey.
You need to act on data where you work.
Stay on top of your data with Tableau. Access AI-powered insights within your workflow, including Slack and Microsoft Teams.
Your workforce uses Macs and PCs.
Tableau is committed to Apple devices. Unlike Power BI, Tableau Desktop and Tableau Prep run on both Windows and Mac. Include all your teams in your data culture, not just those running a PC.
You want to integrate with Salesforce.
Tableau offers unmatched integration with the Salesforce platform, including pre-built dashboards, data models, no-code embedding, and more.
Customers who chose Tableau report:
33%↑
Increase in insights-driven decision making.
32%↑
Increase in business user productivity.
27%↑
Increase in agility and flexibility of IT systems & platforms.
Results based on 2023 survey conducted by a 3rd party vendor of 706 Tableau customers on behalf of Salesforce.
Tableau empowers some of the world's top organizations.
Power BI is free like a puppy is free. To do what we wanted it to do, we discovered we needed to upgrade to Power BI Pro or Power BI Premium, and it happened everywhere we turned.
Tableau vs. Power BI: what's so different?
| Data: Connect to all your information architecture | Tableau | Power BI | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Data: Connect to all your information architecture |
Deeply integrated with Microsoft Azure and Office 365 |
|
|
|
Connects to data via extract, copy or live query |
|
|
|
|
Federated live query with AWS, GCP, Databricks, Snowflake |
|
||
|
Connect to your data from a PC or a Mac |
|
||
|
Deploys to anywhere (on premise or any private or public cloud) |
|
||
| Insights: Transform your data into insights you can trust | Tableau | Power BI | |
|
Insights: Transform your data into insights you can trust |
Data modeling including shared dimensions |
|
|
|
Row-level security to restrict data access |
|
|
|
|
Visual interface for all your data preparation |
|
||
|
Semantic capabilities that make modeling simple |
|
||
|
Advanced permissions & content management |
|
||
|
VizQL-powered drag & drop data self-exploration |
|
||
| Action: Realize the value of your insights through action | Tableau | Power BI | |
|
Action: Realize the value of your insights through action |
Online tools, resources & AI agents/co-pilots |
|
|
|
Rich library of visualizations |
|
|
|
|
Largest partner & customer success ecosystem |
|
||
|
Extensibility to engage in the flow of work |
|
||
|
Proactive AI-powered insights (Pulse) |
|
FAQs
Yes! In fact, most of Tableau's largest customers also have an Office 365 bundle that includes Power BI. Tableau makes the perfect complement to Power BI’s basic visualizations for organizations looking to give their teams powerful data, analytics, and AI capabilities.
Yes! Tableau integrates across many of the core applications offered within Office 365, including Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, PowerPoint, Excel, Azure AD, and more. Organizations looking to take advantage of AI-powered insights in their flow of work choose to use Tableau with Office 365.
Tableau offers a Tableau App for Microsoft Teams that empowers collaboration and data-driven decision making in the flow of work. To get started, end users and Tableau Admins can simply install the Tableau Cloud App from the Teams Store.
Yes! While Tableau delivers business value to every organization, using Tableau with the Salesforce platform unlocks unique opportunities otherwise not possible. Learn why Tableau is the only real choice for Salesforce customers.