Tech

Tableau Vs. Excel: The best difference you should know

Many feel Tableau and Excel are competing for a solution. Others think the tools are like apples and bananas.

Both tools are used for data analysis. They are a highly effective tool for creating, developing, storing, and analyzing your data. Companies use both of them, but they have distinct features and functionalities.

In this Tableau Vs. Excel blog, we will discuss the overview of both tools and learn the difference between them.

So, let’s start discussing the overview of Tableau and Excel.

What do you mean by Tableau?

Tableau is the Business Intelligence Software that enables connecting, visualizing, and creating interactive dashboards with just a few clicks. It visualizes the data so that you can see the outcomes immediately. It differentiates the correlations using color, size, labels, and shapes. Let’s learn some benefits and drawbacks of Tableau, which are as follows:

Benefits

  • The Tableau dashboard holds excellent features that allow you to customize the dashboards. This feature is only suitable for mobile phones and laptops.
  • Tableau users can connect Python or R scripts for complicated table calculations.
  • It can easily handle a large volume of data.

Drawbacks

  • Tableau is helpful for visualization but can not query the data.
  • Tableau does not have the features of automatic refreshing of the reports with the help of scheduling.
  • The users do not like Tableau’s formatting option, and only 16 columns of the table display.

What do you mean by Excel?

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet application that collects data in the form of rows and columns. It keeps the information in cells. You can also add charts, graphics, and various visualizations to make your data more presentable. The benefits and drawbacks of Excel are:

 

Benefits

  • Microsoft Excel can examine vast amounts of data to identify trends and patterns that will assist decision-making.
  • Excel can efficiently perform mathematics and logical functions.

Drawbacks

  • Excel is not able to resolve the problems.
  • Excel is not fit for intelligent business practice.
  • It is not easy to share worksheets online.

Thus, let’s move to discuss the difference between Tableau and Excel.

Tableau VS Excel

Points Of Difference Tableau Excel
Usage It is Good for quick and accessible representation of data. It is best for storing data and statistical analysis.
Benefits User Friendly, easy interactive visualization It manipulates descriptive statistics.
Knowledge Required Everyone can use Tableau without any prior knowledge of coding. To understand the full potential of Excel, knowledge of VBA and basic scripting is required.
Business Purpose It has a self-service function that would give insights into the data. Easily creates the on-off page.
Real-Time Usage Real-time interactive deal with the data. External applications and programs have to be set up for real-time.
Ease Of Use Not required coding skills. Require knowledge of scripting (VB) and Macros.
Field Tableau includes business evaluations and key performance patterns. In various domains, Excel deals with data transformations.
Solution It represents the insights of big data problems.  It is most suitable for small-scale and structured data.
Stand out  It saves a large amount of data. Excel stands out with descriptive statistics.

 

 

Data Related Problems It can quickly deal with big data to provide relevant insights. It has some finite resources to deal with extensive data.
Applications Data Analysts, Data Scientists. Developers, Data Analysts, ETL DBA

 

Do You Know

What are the positive or negative features of both tools Tableau and Excel?

Following are some negative and positive points of Tableau and Excel:

 

Tableau 

Positive Points Negative Points
Central Reporting Portal Expensive

 

Modern Visuals Unable to edit data into cells

 

Speed up the process of Reporting

 

Take time to prepare data.

 

Delivery Option

 

Demand Charge of the server for self-service reporting

 

 

Excel

Positive Points Negative points
Popular among companies to gather data.

 

No report portal

 

Affordable Price

 

Not compatible with other microsoft products

 

Editable formulas and data

 

Complex dated design

 

Easily compatible with other microsoft products

 

Need Maintenance time to time

 

 

 

Which one is better, Tableau or Excel?

Well, in my perception, Tableau is better at making live links from the outside resources. It can make links with ease of access and speed. Tableau is famous in the market because of the data issues that various organizations face.

On the other hand, excel has defined resources. It is considered in terms of data. Excel has confined columns and rows. But these are both used for data analysis.

Moreover, Tableau has an extra feature that BI ( Business Intelligence) analysts use.

Conclusion

Thus, I have mentioned the significant difference between Tableau Vs. Excel. Both tools are used for data analysts. Tableau is all about dashboards and Visuals. Contrary, Excel is a spreadsheet that is used to perform multi-layered calculations. Organizations and companies can choose one of them according to their budget and the type of reports and data they create.

 

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