Beyond Dashboards

A STRATEGIC ANALYSIS OF LEADING BI TOOLS

In today’s data-driven world, organizations rely heavily on Business Intelligence (BI) tools to transform data into insights to make critical, real-time decisions. BI tools are used to prepare and analyze large amounts of data and present the results in tailored formats such as dashboards, reports, diagrams, charts, plots, and graphs.

Purchasing the correct BI tool is an important decision. BI tools are often discarded months after implementation due to unforeseen technical challenges:

  1. Organizations are often overwhelmed by the number of BI applications on the market.
  2. Organizations are bombarded with flashy vendor demos that skew the perception of tools.

This whitepaper will help break down the BI tool purchasing process into the most important factors. Today, we will compare five popular BI tools:

  1. Power BI (36% market share)
  2. Tableau (20% market share)
  3. QlikView/Qlik Sense (11% market share)
  4. Google Looker/Looker Studio (6% market share)
  5. AWS QuickSight (1% market share)

These tools were selected due to their popularity or market share as depicted in a 2021 study by Trust Radius.

Source: Trust Radius

We will compare each tool’s pricing, data connectivity, performance, ease of use, collaboration, data governance, security, machine learning, and data extraction capabilities.

Pricing:

Microsoft Power BI:

  • Free License: no content sharing.
  • Pro ($9.99/user/month): limited to 1GB datasets, tenant limited to 10 GB.
  • Premium Per User ($19.99/user/month): sharing with other Premium users.
  • Premium Capacity: starts at $4995/month, supports all users.

Tableau:

  • Creator: $70/user/month (cloud), $35/user/month (on-premises)
  • Explorer: $42/user/month (cloud), $20/user/month (on-premises)
  • Viewer: $15/user/month (cloud), $10/user/month (on-premises)

QlikView / Qlik Sense:

  • Qlik Sense: Server fees start at $1500; user licenses start at $30 per month.
  • QlikView Pricing:
    • Personal Edition: Free
    • Named User License: $1,395 per seat
    • Document License: $360 per named user
    • Concurrent License: $15,495

Google Looker:

  • Creator: $70/user/month (cloud), $35/user/month (on-premises)
  • Looker Standard: $550/user/month
  • Looker Advanced: $1100/user/month
  • Looker Elite: $1650/user/month

AWS QuickSight:

  • Starting at $0.30 per session, maxing out at $5/month.
  • Developer licenses start at $18/month.

Data Connectivity:

  • Power BI: 214 standard connections.
  • Tableau: 93 connectors.
  • Looker: 800+ data sources.
  • QlikView: 50+ databases.
  • AWS QuickSight: 20 relational data connectors.

Performance and Scalability:

  • All five tools support incremental loads, in-memory storage, and database direct querying.
    • QlikView performs well with large datasets;
    • Tableau visualizations scale better with bulk data than QuickSight.

Ease of Use:

  • Power BI: Numerous visualization types but steeper learning curve for DAX and M Query.
  • Tableau: Powerful visualization capabilities but steeper learning curve.
  • Looker: Code-based approach requiring SQL knowledge.
  • QuickSight: Easier use but fewer visualizations.

Collaboration:

  • QlikView: Less robust collaboration than Power BI and Tableau.
  • Looker: Most robust real-time collaboration features.

Data Governance:

  • Looker: Only tool with an embedded Data Dictionary.
  • All tools support data lineage and cataloging but require custom development in some cases.

Security:

  • All tools offer security features, including data encryption. Only Qlik offers table-level security.

Machine Learning:

  • All five tools support Python; only QuickSight does not natively support R.
  • Looker integrates with OpenAI, while Tableau has its GPT engine.

Data Export:

  • All tools export in CSV or Excel formats. Some limitations apply on row exports based on the tool.

Conclusion:

BI tools should align with business objectives and provide long-term value. By understanding specific needs, organizations can narrow down choices effectively. For instance:

  • Power BI for Microsoft ecosystems.
  • QuickSight for AWS.
  • Tableau for advanced visualizations.

Organizations should perform due diligence to ensure alignment with business goals.