One of the most popular posts on this blog was a comparison of Data Visualization Tools, which originally was posted more then a year ago where I compared those best tools only qualitatively. However since then I got a lot of requests to compare those tools “quantitatively”. Justification for such update were recent releases of Spotfire 4.0, Qlikview 11, Tableau 7.0 and Microsoft’s Business Intelligence Stack (mostly SQL Server 2012 and PowerPivot V.2.)
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However I quickly realized that such “quantitative” comparison cannot be objective. So here it is – the updated and very subjective comparison of best Data Visualization tools, as I see them at the end of 2011. I know that many people will disagree with my assessment, so if you do not like my personal opinion – please disregard it at “your own peril”. I am not going to prove “numbers” below – they are just my personal assessments of those 4 technologies – I love all 4 of them. Feel free to make your own comparison and if you can share it with me – I will appreciate it very much.
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Data Visualization 
December 19, 2011 at 3:40 am
Hi Andrei,
From developer perspective I’ve always get this steps in most BI projects:
1. Prototyping of feature report/dashboard
2. Data fetching for the rep/dash (olap/table/file sources) and aligning
3. Data pre-UI calculations (when you need to calculate any behavior/color/distinguish in received data or change the logic based on filters selections etc.)
4. UI possibilities for rep/dash visualizations (ability to do any dynamic selections, include charts in table and vise versa, ability to freely change any type/part of UI object like font/color/type etc.)
5. Abilities to export data and/or charts/tables for any additional presentation or sharing purposes.
6. Easy maintain of new requirements implementations, same as creation of current rep/dash documentation against implemented logic.
7. Reuse the created rep/dash for new – using it as source of data and objects as building blocks.
And I cant tell when can we find all this in easy of use solution :).
Any strong side have weakness from the other side:
1. IBM Cognos/Oracle has all – except pricing
2. Tableu/QlikView – have many of UI and lack of metadata/parts reuse
3. Microsoft – many in API – not so in UI
4. From technology part – I even dont know how to compare – so big gap in pricing/scalability options between the products…
So there are no silver bullet in BI Space, amount of workarounds are always overwhelming.
Thanks for your Comparison – it feeds a lot of my thoughts!
December 25, 2011 at 7:19 pm
Hello Andrii:
on your last 4 points I have the following comments/opinions:
1. IBM Cognos/Oracle: in addition to ridiculous prices they are 1 or 2 generations behind in terms of Data Visualization, so I did not include them into comparison.
2. I suggest to spend more time learning about Tableau and Qlikview: you will see that they are very easy to use, excellent and fast for prototyping, data fetching, pre-UI calculations, leaders in UI for Data Visualization, good at exporting data, their applications easy to maintain and reuse.
3. Microsoft so far cares more about their lucrative Office and SQL Server businesses and they do not care too much (yet) about Data Visualization market.
4. Technological Comparison is possible (see mine above) only if you are willing to accept that it will be a very subjective. But this is known for almost 2500 years, way before computers and software were invented: Protagoras famously said that “man is the measure of all things”, see it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protagoras
December 20, 2011 at 12:35 pm
Hi Andrei,
Again a very interesting article, great comparison.
Given microsofts SSIS I wondered why microsoft scores lower on data integration than tableau. Next to this I would think tableau is better in modeling and analytics than qlikview. Could you give some clarification? I know three of these tools except spotfire and I agree on everything except those 2 things.
Best Regards
December 25, 2011 at 6:59 pm
1. Data Integration: Tableau has more diversified and wider support for data sources, including Aster Data nCluster, ParAccel, Sybase IQ, Vertica and others.
2. Analytics: I actually agree with your assessment and I updated estimates accordingly, Still Spotfire is far ahead of everybody in this department.
February 2, 2012 at 6:14 pm
Reblogged this on The BIT Box.
February 16, 2012 at 10:49 am
Very useful! It would also be nice to see your evaluation (maybe as additional criteria, wink wink?-) of Free personal edition (QlikView) and Free reader (some others), which can sometimes lower developer and user costs.
Cheers
February 17, 2012 at 12:44 am
[…] https://apandre.wordpress.com/2011/12/18/dv-comparison-2011/ […]
March 10, 2012 at 4:48 pm
Hi Andrei,
This is a great analysis. We currently use Tableau Desktop (6.0 have not upgraded to 7.0). It works great for visualizing clinical and financial hospital data. We are starting to gain traction and now need to go to more of a server based approach. Also, our clients are very interested in predictive modeling.
According to your above analysis, Spotfire “may” be a better choice for us long term. My question is: how difficult is it to re-create and build in Spotfire if all your learning and skills have been acquired developing visual sheets and dashboards in Tableau? We are a two person team (I guess that’s still a team) and have spent 3 solid months building in Tableau.
Thanks,
Kevin
March 10, 2012 at 6:07 pm
Hi Kevin:
To re-implement your visualizations in Spotfire will take time and it is not just learning the different UI and the different approach to visualizing, exploring and analyzing data. It may also include efforts on backend, for example if your Data are in SSAS or PowerPivot Cubes, Spotfire 4.0 cannot read it (but may be next version will be able to do to that).
Also it make take time to tune the performance of your visualizations or you will need to change your design, because there is no one-to-one correspondence between chart types in different platforms.
My estimate if you spent 6 man-months building in Tableau, then re-create it (with the same data) in Spotfire may take no more then 2-3 man-months, considering you have to relearn new environment. I could be wrong, so please inform me (when you done) about how long it will take – I am curious…
Andrei
June 7, 2012 at 2:13 pm
super great blog, greatly appreciated scorecard!
June 12, 2012 at 12:55 pm
Great Blog, your comparision is greatly appreciated
June 12, 2014 at 2:39 pm
Good blog but look at this:
I am not a Tableau or Spotfire proponent because I don’t really know those products. However I am not a SQL BI Stack proponent any longer. Following are my reasons:
I was a M$ in memory-OLTP proponent, until I saw the light.
Yes In memory-OLTP is faster for regular transactions such as Insert update and deletes, tested and proven, but that’s where it ends!!!
In memory-OLTP does absolutely nothing for select query performance, if anything it makes things worse.
Case in point: A 1.3 million row, 40 column disk based table table scan as well as a select query vs. the exact same table in-memory runs faster as some of your test results attest to as well.
Contacted M$ about this… Got a lot of runaround. Finally their response: try column store index on the same table. Verdict: Did that and got No improvement whatsoever! None!
So in essence they mean to tell me all this Marketing (read Hoopla!) about in memory-OLTP amounts to nothing but Hype!!
Incredibly disappointing how they can do this and get away with it!
Their reporting stack has absolutely NOT improved with the last two versions of SQL Server!!
So what if they purchased the Dundas code for their Reporting Services???
Alpha channel in chart colors no longer works and several other issues such as free placement of objects on the reporting canvas no longer work either… All of this resulting in an incredibly disappointing environment to produce decent reports, let lone BI.
No wonder Tableau, Spotfire, and a slew of other data visualization tools run circles around Microsoft’s “Reporting platform”…! And this is coming from someone who has worked with M$ tools for years.
The in-memory caching option of Reporting Services is absolutely dismal compared to Tableau… and to think whole corporate environments stake their hide on this environment.