Compare Tableau and Sisense - Apr 2022

Shlomi Lavi / Apr 21, 2022

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Bottom Line: Which is Better - Tableau or Sisense?

Sisense vs. Tableau

About the Providers

Sisense is BI tool that lets you analyze complex data with thorough agility. Easy data preparation with beautiful & user-friendly dashboards and rich analytics, Sisense gives a simple way to manipulate, analyze and anticipate virtually composite data. It was founded by Sisense Inc. in 2011 with presence both on Desktop as well as on cloud. Revenue of this organization is less than $500M but it is growing beyond leaps and bounds.

Tableau is also an efficient BI tool that allows easy correlation with data, anticipate, and create visual control panels that can be shared. It is so easy that any novice users, who know basics can learn it, achieve mastery to satisfy most complex and engineer inquisitive problems. Tableau Software Inc. founded it in 2003 with presence on desktop. Revenue lies in the range of $500-$1000M.

Ease of Use

For Sisense, graphical user interface is very pleasant and user friendly. It is well integrated and quick to learn. However, in comparison to Tableau, visualization needs to be improved when heavy customizations is required to be added. Without doubt, Tableau set the pace for easy-to-use data visualization and exploration software. It allows creating graph, charts and visual control panels in a way needed by individual with simple option of drag and drop.

Both provide Database Connectivity (DB) layer, which integrates data between software and third party vendor tools such as Microsoft’s Excel/ SAP Crystal Reports. By creating connection between respective software and the business, they have attracted vast set of user-base. They use fast column based database so that very large queries can be executed at fastest speed, which makes it to stand out from their competitors and in turn promotes ease of use.

Reliability

Sisense support is excellent. Responses are fast and support staff has the required knowledge and experience. Tableau support is not par in comparison with Sisense. Tableau lacks in providing support personnel having sound knowledge and experience. Moreover, since Sisense is also available on cloud, it is always reliable as compared to Tableau, which is just available as desktop server.

Both of these solutions provide support on phone as well as online but Sisense are one-step ahead by providing a way of allowing logging tickets for incidents. In this way, one could keep track of historical items. They have 24*5*365 days support as per their norms.

Security

In both software’s, management of data access is governed by IT through the Data Server. They provide data isolation and multi-usability. Multiple “sites” can be hosted on a single server with each having multiple projects, which in turn have multiple workbooks enabling each entity managed as desired. Authentication support Microsoft’s Active Directory, SAML & OAuth.

It helps in creating seamless mapping between Sisense/Tableau and other systems while offering unique authentication policies, which in turn provides single sign-on across organization. In addition to these, Sisense provides one more layer by providing security at cloud level.

Speed

Tableau is one-step ahead of Sisense when performance is considered. Since Sisense is loaded with functions such as mapping large data, complex query formation it lacks in throughput. It also requires larger memory when ran from desktop, so, there are challenges in performances making the application unresponsive at times. If Sisense is configured from Cloud network, there are chances of performance degradation since there will be multiple user’s base who will be accessing the content.

In Tableau, data set can be uploaded quickly through various API connections with options of multiple attachments, which reduce overall execution time.

Features

Key features of Sisense include drag-and-drop GUI where components can be placed as needed. Multiple options of widgets help in analysis, whereas charts and graphs help in better representation. Eye-pleasing visualization is yet another trademark of Sisense. Complicated business scenario queries solution can be achieved without SQL query that saves response time.

Some of the other features are as below:

• Unlimited data manipulation size
• Natural graphical user interface
• Exports data to Excel, PDF, CSV, and other formats
• Merges with web portals
• Analysis of enormous-volume data
• Integrates with exterior software or web sites
• Access features on panels which allows only particular group of users to have right to view
• Write or update managed by Administrator
• Option of logging tickets in case of failure with Technical support staff.

Tableau includes "no-code" data queries - patented of Stanford University can create queries without writing SQL code. It also helps to translate queries to perceptions and getting desired output. Multiple ranges and sizes of data can be imported with minimum time duration using multiple API’s.

Some of the other features are as below:

• Create rich and sharable visual control panels
• Information management i.e. rename fields, merge fields into groups,
• Create subsets by selecting groups of points, and build new hierarchies
• Panel commenting
• Automatic scheduled reporting where reports can be scheduled and delivered on required basis.

Sisense’s unique end-user tools enable non-technical users to perform tasks that require support from database admins, data experts & engineers. This is not the case in Tableau where support team is required. In addition, Sisense comes with option of setting it up entirely within organization, implementation fees and enormous costs of outsource can be cut-off that adds to overall benefit. Even with enormous data volumes and concomitant users, Sisense can handle data at par on a single server without causing issue of slowness across peak hours. It also helps preventing high costs of data warehouse, OLAP servers or clustered solutions.

Even though Sisense is a complete business product, its total pricing is still lower overall compared to Tableau with the almost same level of functionality including software, hardware and services. It is lowest in terms of pricing when compared with other multiple competitors like Tibco’s spotfire or Qlikview. All of Sisense's components are very well integrated and can be deployed by non-developers without any implementation issue.

Summary

Finally, it’s upon end-users who can decide which out of above two compared suits their requirement. Sisense is about data scrutiny, discovery and taking a developer’s approach, Tableau prides itself as "Smart Intelligence"- getting to details quickly and dealing with universal questions. Tableau is old and renowned but Sisense has been making efforts constantly to catch up by continuously showing out new and advanced features. In case you are still confused, or which option to go for, try out the free trial versions of both and take your choice. It is a matter of time when we may have a winner in our hands.