Tableau vs. Power BI – Which Should You Choose? - Issue 241

A comprehensive guide to evaluating Tableau and Power BI for data analysis

Welcome to my Data Analytics Journal, where I write about data science and analytics.

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A few years ago, I did a Q&A at the Galvanize bootcamp session on BI tooling, and almost every question I received was about Tableau or PowerBI - which tool should analysts choose for learning? Which one is easier? Which one is more popular? Which one is cheaper?

I find both tools overly complex and very expensive, so neither of these BI applications would be my choice of tooling in 2025. Yet, I understand that there are 53K companies that still use Tableau, which, to my fascination, still holds a 13% market share. PowerBI has 58.6K customers with a 14% market share (for comparison, Looker holds 1.6%). Like it or not, it will be a long road for modern BI tools to reach such a volume of usage and adoption.

Given such an outdated state of BI, for people transitioning into data and analytics, let’s face it - it makes sense to be comfortable with either Tableau or PowerBI. So, which one should you choose?

In the deep dive below, I review features, prices, usability, learning curve, community, and dashboard examples to help you decide which tool to use.

Getting started with both tools

If you have some experience with DAX or Excel, it may be easier to start with PowerBI. However, if you’re new to data and analytics or are more comfortable with SQL, starting with Tableau may be simpler.

Let’s break it down.

Installation