I find that with every update coming out on these products, the gap between their features is growing smaller and smaller. I prefer PowerBI only because I find the direct support my organisation gets from my Microsoft is far superior to what we had from salesforce.
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.
On 3) Good detail comparison. We do a lot of small data repeated cleaning every month which we don’t have control over. And Power Query saves a lot of time. Therefore we stick with Power BI.
@@johnreyrayala724 yes I've heard of it and seen some of its capabilities, though the company which I worked for has tableau but not tableau prep, I heard that it is a separate package so they didn't get it. Thus we did pre-processing in Excel first. This is unlike in PowerBI where it comes bundled with Power Query.
Hey Joao, yeah let me see what I can do. It's def a popular alternative option (although not as popular as the two above). Let me see if I can make a video on it in the future. Overall, I think its a great solution along with being free. My one complaint is it is limited in your ability to customize and its better if you are working in the Google (G-suite) ecosystem.
@@LukeBarousse Yes, definitely for the G-suite it's awesome, as it has "native connectors". For general use, it's still good, but you could certainly go with something else. Could you do a video for Knime?
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 😬
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
Luke, when I typed 'PowerBI or Tableau' on RU-vid 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.
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.
Thanks for sharing this, C! Yes I've seen a split of people selecting tableau or power bi, BUT i've seen novices are more inclined to choose Power BI as, like you stated, it fits well in the Microsoft environment.
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.
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
Agreed. This was primarily the reason i switched my focus to PBI. For more seamless automation of some data workflow, like refresh & publish so on. Also predict it will have tighter integration and more interactive features in future, with.Sharepoint (now my organisation's main enterprise platform)
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 :)
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 RU-vid 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.
@@theeanonymouscollector2932 Thanks. This helps amazingly. I learn best in a structured program. What would you suggest to learn Python, then SQL, then tableau. Also, should I master excel first before I jump into a programming language? I just started learning excel in my finance 101 class. Also what learning programs would you recommend? How is Coursera?
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.
@@RyanReynolds89 Power BI seems to have a lot more variety in the types of visualizations and graphics you can display. From a functionality and UI standpoint, I prefer tableau. Power BI feels a bit all over the place and less organized. I will say I use them differently…in my old company with tableau I aggregated and created KPIs within tableau using the imported dataset. Now with PBI, I do all my aggregation in SQL before pulling it in. Just a FYI that may alter my comparison of the two
@@mimsy5750 Thanks, appreciate the insight. I’ve only used Power BI thus far. You have to learn a little DAX before you can do significant aggregations & KPIs, which can be challenging, but it’s very dynamic for building re-usable data models after that.
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
Ha! I use math everyday! But its nothing you can't google! I would say I rarely use complex math beyond basic algebra. If I do have something more complex I just look it up.
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.
Tableau is for beginners. Power BI is for more advanced users that need more intricate control over their data through DAX. Also, power query is something you cannot live without once you get used to it. Tabluea prep is not the same at all, and does not follow through all the prep stages upon each refresh of data. So for me, there is only Power Bi.
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.
I totally agree with this point. I was using Power BI heavily and since I switched jobs I am required to learn Tableau, however I find that in regards to data modeling, Power BI is offering Dax as a really strong solution. In tableu the data must be prepared beforehand, so those who do not have a SQL/Programming background might be in trouble when it comes to data processing.
@@LukeBarousse And also its main weakness. I find as good as all pbix that have extensive use of DAX & PowerQuery prime examples of spaghetti code. Easy to learn for simple tasks, paved road to hell for more complex stuff. Tableau does make a cleaner distinction between data modelling and ad-hoc metrics. Similar how at Qlik, they got rid of Set Syntax (functional equivalent of DAX statements) as they found it was root cause of many customer troubles (f.e. bugtracing/maintainability, excessive system requirements).
@@karelvancamp4807 spaghetti code is developer's fault, not DAX'. There are easy solutions for maintaining a complex model in Power BI. Any self respecting developer will know and use Tabular Editor, I have models with half a thousand measures that are neatly organized and easily maintainable. All the measures must be in a separate Measures table, organized into Display Folders, annotated, commented and formatted (the latter can be fully automated). I can use Tabular Editor as an IDE for code authoring and maintenance, DAX Studio for interactive querying, testing and performance tuning, and/or Analyze in Excel for Unit Testing (automated after initial development), there simply does not exist such tooling within the Tableau eco-system. Heck, with Tabular Editor I can even build code that would automatically generate hundreds of measures for me based on csv/txt/excel inputs with parameters.
When making nice surface level raports tableau is fine. But my clients have entire algorithms and systems to implement. Somehow I'm much more able to make this in powerbi DAx
@@LukeBarousse well you havent tried loading 40 gb of data into it have you now :P again. its fine for the most part, but damn will it seize up on you and destroy whole dashboards if you aren't careful. it also doenst really enjoy when your datamodel has more than 20 tables. Again. poweruser
This is not a good review of the two products. - to summarise - PowerBI is cheaper, easier to use and better integrated into the already existing eco system (who is not integrated into MS Ecosystem?). Tableau is more expensive, less intuitive and 3rd party. also having data 'ready' before using in the application is just good BI practise. and I think you'll find PBI will also respond better to clearer already structured datasets... - having been a user of both products for the past 6 years - I much prefer PowerBI. You can make PowerBI unique - you can design your own visualisations in PBI but have not touched on that as a pro - R/Python can also be incorporated into the service.
Thank you. I am still struggling to understand how anyone who has used both power BI and Tableau would ever pick Tableau. I am new at my current job (3 months) I am begging my director to commit to Power BI because we are using it minimally and Tableau mostly and yet we are using powerapps, power automate etc and all I could say is 🤦🏿♂️🤦🏿♂️🤦🏿♂️🤦🏿♂️🤦🏿♂️
Visualizatuon is about visuals guys. Tableau report looks way better with mich less effort and that is what counts. The endnproduct is lovely, sexy, then users will like it. PowerBI is behind on this field.
Hey Luke, thank you for the video and all the content that you produce. I think that DAX plays an important difference for an advanced users. But on the other side we can’t argue that Tableau looks better. Not sure why Microsoft keeps neglecting the visual aspect.
Yes, very much agree about this. I tried not to go into too much detail about DAX (Power BI) and Tableau (Calculated Fields) because I just wanted to stay high level. But very much agree with what you are saying here!
the best comparison I've seen so far, thank you! I started with PBI and now I am learning tableau, I think both have pros and cons, but I've got the impression that people prefer this tool which they started to learn at first, so it is in my case :)
I feel out of the box, Tableau has better visualisations but I last used it in 2019. For past 2 years, I been working with Power BI and I find DAX and Power Query is good for data manipulation.
I’ve tried to learn Power BI and find it so difficult. Used Tableau for nearly 3 years now and it seems like something I could do easily in Tableau is way too complicated to replicate in PowerBI.
Thanks Luke for this amazing video, I just recently started a new job as a healthcare data analyst, I am super excited as this is my first job in analytics while I am getting my master's in DS, so I really appreciate you, you always take the time to make amazing content. Take you sooo much for this amazing channel 💙💙
Hey what all skills helped u in getting healthcare data analyst job , it will be really helpful if you guide me , btw I have taken masters in DS too!!!
I worked with Tabelau for 9 years and difference between Tableau and other tools is not feature wise but ideology that comes with it. Tableau is about exploring the data, discussion around the data and asking new questions to get insights since majority of reports answer to what question plus creativity which comes with it. In other tools you are given development tool for dashboards and modelling and it is not for business users. Most companies are not mature yet so they choose Powerbi since it is free
Tableau looks and feels like it has been designed and built by a user-hating demon. It doesn't even have a donut chart for crying out loud! I am forced to move from Power BI to Tableau and I can't believe how BAD this product is in comparison. Sure, if Tableau is all you know... you might think it's good. But Power BI surpasses Tableau in every single metric. Honestly, I can't understand how it has become the industry standard. Of course I will find my way around it, but it will definitely miss Power BI.
13:07 PowerBi offers the same ideology, you can use Direct Query instead of importing all of your data, you can SQL queries to "clean" the data before you import it. There is a ton of useful tools to remigrate the high memory usage. I think you are more familiar with Tableau (which I'm not at all), thus you favor the Tableau more in this video.
Very good point, also I think you're referring to Power Query. I'm actually more familiar with Power BI and I favor this tool more. BUT from what i've found online for data analysts, is that Tableau seems to be a more popular tool at the moment.
@@LukeBarousse Hi Luke. No I did mean the Direct Query. Here is definition I found online. "As its name suggests, DirectQuery is a method of retrieving data, that pulls the data directly from the data source, at the query time! The last part of the sentence holds the key - while Import mode stores the snapshot of your data in-memory - DirectQuery (DQ) doesn’t store any data. For every single request, it goes straight to the data source". This works with the date at where the data is stored. So you can write your SQL query and the compute resource impact will be at where the data is stored not your PC. So you can reduce the memory usage this way.
@@DarkGT Oh awesome! I see what you are referring to now. My apologies. Overall, this video was meant to be high level and I wanted to focus on PowerQuery. I agree though that Direct Query is very powerful.
@@LukeBarousse No need to apologies. I'm glad to add up some info into the debate PowerBI VS Tableau. It have being really long time since I touched PowerBI, glad to warm up my knowledge.
I like Tableau the most since it simplifies the calculated fields construction and it allows much more personalization on the dahsboard. Power BI is better for data preparation and blending because of Power Query and table relationships, but if you know how to build and clean the data before importing, this is not needed at all. I'd choose Power BI over Tableau only because of the costs. Thank you for this amazing video and for not giving any biased opinion.
Thank you for this really good overview, I have an interview today with a Fortune 500 company and only had experience in one of these tools, but I feel like I walked away with a good grasp on the other.
Hi Luke, it would be great if you could make a video an your approach when you get a new project in Power BI - how do you structure your work? I‘m struggling so much with my workflow, it always ends in some kind of chaos and I get a feeling I need soo much time to create one report - do you have any advice for me? ☺️ and also thanks a lot for your great content! Regards Patrycja
Hey Patrycja! I'm working on some content now around this. I too often struggle with this so I understand your pain and hope I can help with solving it. Stay tuned!
Interesting video. I suggest to add another aspect to it. Performance. When you need visualize hundreds of GBs or TBs of data, that is a important topic. Although then there are some other options how to manage that data load, still it would be interesting to see the comparison
This is a great point and actually considered before making the video. Overall, in my experience they are VERY similiar when it comes to handling millions of rows of data and haven't seen much difference. Because of this I decided not to cover this. But this isn't to say that there isn't a difference in performance. Maybe something for me to consider in a future video.
@@LukeBarousse very very surprised to hear that. For us even with a good few thousand rows of data with a few "joined" table relatinship on top of system connection (such as salesforce) the whole power bi is heavy and slow. Personally power query is indeed a more stable version of excel but you can only do so much with Microsoft; and just like excel, once the file gets big (i.e more data, more visualization, more tabs, more measures..), it's slow like hell.
@@MonsieurSchue Could that not be mitigated via native query folding? I try and have the SQL / Azure backend do all the hard transformation work before switching to the Power Query only normalisation actions, improves performance significantly Not used Salesforce before however so not sure if it works there
@@eric.nosabo Haha we do just get into Alteryx this year. It's amazing and truly makes one wonder why we didn't get on it much earlier. But it doesn't seem to be covered in this channel so I didn't mention it. We're also actually moving away from PBI. In general we feel MS is a company that's cheap so everyone is using it (low entry barriers) but once when you move into more complexed and advanced area the performance really start to show.
I like power bi to make nice to look at charts quick and easy, just upload excel data, create any kind of chart I need to display data in easy to understand way.
Yeah I've been using google data studio too recently. It's been really convenient with how easy it is to share. My MAIN problem though is know that I know the capabilities of softwares (like tableau and Power BI) I get mad when google data studio can't do the same things... but hey it's free.
Well I would recommend experimenting with functions and exercise thinking, implementing various ideas and logics. DAX is very easy I have used it for 5 days and I think I have good command over the tool.
Thanks for the kind words Bouseux! Plotly/Dash is very much a popular option right now. I can't really comment on if it worth learning as in my (corporate) day job I primarily get pulled to build dashboards in one of these two solutions. I haven't used this solution at all in my day job However, if a client wants a lower cost dashboard solution (basically free, besides server costs) you could code something up in dash. Really it depends on the clients needs at that point.
Currently in school learning about both. My professor said Power BI was only compatible with windows however so I’m confused how you showed us Power BI on your MacBook Pro 😅
My last job was a combo of SQL Server, Power BI and SSRS. My new job uses SAS, SQL Server and Tableau. I am still trying to figure Tableau, the visualizations sure are nicer but it doesn't feel as intuitive to learn as you stated.
I am confused about data warehousing, what is the best way to get data sources with power bi? creating data warehouse then bringing in power bi? or using data modeling in power bi directly?
It depends on where you data is and how clean it is. When I worked for my last company we had a sql database I could connect to with power bi and bring all the data I needed in... sometimes i'd have to clean that data up for my need and that's when I'd use power query to better model the data.
Tableau is way better, but Microsoft has a better licensing model. I use Tableau only for PDF reports or visuals, but if I need an interactive report I use Power BI.
Can you please elaborate on this? How do you enable them in measures? I often use "Both" in relationships instead of "single" for the visuals to interact.
Yet I need to check how power BI works (I'm a noob data geek still 😅... Trying to get it tho!), what I know I had the possibility and challenge to use Tableau to do a dashboard for a selection process, and even if I was in the mids of my final degree paper work (so extreeeemely stressed out) , I gotta admit using tableau was like a breath of fresh air! All those colors, interaction with data, was difficult to understand at the beginning but I had such great fun in doing the dashboard, and really was great to see the artistic side of data analysis, something what I really missed at uni while working with data! Also thank you very much for all the information you're sharing 🙏🏻 as I said I'm trying to get into this world after another job and after finishing my degree in statistics, you really pushed me to dig further into learning better excel, SQL, bought 3 of the books you recommended for python, Tableau and Power BI... really enjoying the learning process while looking actively for a job 🙏🏻
The first Google Trends graph might be a little biais since Tableau means "whiteboard" , "a painting", "drawing" in french thus these search keywords in french might be included and raising tableau's index
If you know one, it is not hard to pick up the other. I have no problem hiring someone who can demonstrate proficiency with tableau, even though we use power BI.
It sounds like you may have not known that Power Bi has a more robust community with the Power Bi User Group, it has grown tremendously over the last 5 years. You also didn't discuss Premium Per User for Power Bi which is $20/user a month and includes most of the premium features... There was much much more you skipped over that has made Power Bi Gardner's #1 BI tool for the last 3 years. As someone who also uses Tableau, Power Bi seems to have just about everything and more... 3 or 4 years ago was not the case at all. Power Bi seems to have more choice from the data model (using m query and dax) and the visualization standpoint which I prefer. If control is most important then Tableau will be the way to go... I foresee Tableau making some major changes to be more competitive in the near future, as Power Bi has really taken huge strides to become the more popular choice in the last year or so.
Thanks for your insight Dylan! I really appreciate you taking the time to point this out! Regarding the two tools I wanted to stay at a high level and only focus on components offered directly from Power BI and Tableau. Regarding the Premium Per user for Power BI, this was announced and released after this video was made..... 🤷🏼♂️
Hi Luke, loved your video, I am sure we can dig into each topic separately. I have a question, since we have invested in MS CRM D365 and MS AX 2012, does it make sense to stick with MS Power BI, and the consumption is only for 10 users max. Thank you
I’m not as familiar with Microsoft Dynamics. But if you’re using the office suite then I think it’s an easy method of adaptation with powerbi. Especially if paired with the power bi service
I've only ever had experience building with Tableau. In my current job, we're a PowerBI company, but using the tool for prototyping (I don't do any technical work now). What i seem to come up against is that with PowerBI, calculated measures, especially with moderately sized datasets, seem to make PowerBI dashboards really slow, especially when you've got a direct data connection to SQL Server! I never faced this issue with our previous Tableau/Redshift stack. The volume of data we're dealing with isn't gargantuan. Our team needs to go down the back-end route to solve certain issues because making a calculated measure would just make the dashboards slow. Am I being biased? Or is Tableau the more suitable tool in this situation?
Power BI can be extremely slow when dealing with large datasets and more complicated models and measures. I don't think you are bias at all, as I have experienced similar issues as well. Unfortunately, I don't have a solution for this at the moment
Hi Luke .... I am learning Data analysis from coursera certification offered by Google... Can you suggest me some tips to become successful in data analysis field
Hey Luke, what about the "hybrid" option, of getting a basic working knowledge of both platforms to start with, and then doubling down on the platform you expect to be used at wherever you are interviewing? As in, is it a good idea to have a Tableau AND a PowerBI version of any project you build for your portfolio, or is that kinda overkill and overthinking things?
Potentially, yeah I think you will increase your odds of landing a role by having this. But a lot of times companies want to see that you are a master of one of theese tools and can start working in them now
Good comparison and contrast of both products. I have done training mostly on Power BI than Tableau. I still want to learn Tableau as well. Excellent video!
I get the feeling that you don't use power bi that much... you missed a lot on the video... and you can create every style you want on power bi if you are creative enough
Great content can you please make a video about a start to end project that is a real world scenerio like how you planned, prepared and cleaned the data and how you visualize it in e simple and proper way, no need how a huge large project, just a demo so se can see how a data analyst works on a project in real life and maybe we can add thing to it and add it to our portfolio please pleaseeee and thank you for your help and support
Hi Luke, Thanks for your video. Its much helpful. I work for a media company- TV/Print/OOH/Online and looking for BI software.... we are stuck in deciding between TabClicks Vs. Tableau Vs. Power BI in terms of Coverage, Easiness and Pricing... Can you please suggest your best amongst all three.. Thanks for your kind help
It really depends, I haven't used TabClicks before so not sure. My money is on Power BI though since it fits into the Microsoft suite. But if y'all are working on Macs then I'm going to recommend Tableau as a backup.
