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Domo and Tableau are both well-respected business intelligence (BI) and data analytics platforms. Both were scored well by Gartner in its latest “Magic Quadrant (MQ) for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms.” Tableau came out ahead; Gartner graded Tableau as a Leader and Domo is a Challenger.
Data analytics applications are in heavy demand these days, as organizations seek to boost the quality of their data mining. Whether from relational databases, enterprise applications, unstructured data, social media, or other sources, there is more information than ever that is subject to analysis. Instead of a small team of data scientists slicing and dicing data, today data seekers come from from management, marketing, line of business heads, sales, and IT – all utilize analytics in their day-to-day activities.
As two popular analytics platforms, users often are forced to choose between Domo and Tableau. There are arguments for and against each solution. It is hard to say that you could go wrong with either selection. But which analytics platform is best?
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Domo vs. Tableau: Key Feature Comparison
Tableau is very much focused on delivering analytics with AI, data management, and collaboration. At the heart of Tableau is a proprietary technology called VizQL that makes interactive data visualization an integral part of understanding data. It differs sharply from traditional BI tools that require the user to analyze data in rows and columns, choose a subset of the data to present, organize that data into a table, and then create a chart from that table. VizQL skips those steps and creates a visual representation right away, providing visual feedback as you analyze.
Domo is a cloud-based platform that offers productive, efficient visualizations and dashboards, as well as a low/no-code environment for BI application development – this greatly expands the platform’s functionality. More recently, it has been improving its back-end to boost its data preparation and manageability features in an effort to win more of the power user market.
Tableau, of late, has been adding features like Ask Data in Slack (ask questions using natural language and automatically get data visualizations), Einstein Discovery in Slack (predictions in the flow of work), and Model Builder (collaboratively build and consume predictive models using Einstein).
Which has the best features? Domo’s latest update is Sandbox, a new development and testing environment built on its own platform. This helps customers more easily create and promote content into production across the enterprise. Its aim is to strengthen the enterprise capabilities of Domo and move into larger-scale BI and analytics. Tableau wins in terms of depth of analysis and the kind of features that data scientists, analysts and power users look for.
However, Domo wins when it comes to ease of use for business leaders who don’t fall into the power user category – a huge and important user cohort.
Is Domo Easier to Use Than Tableau?
Newer users appear to find Domo a little easier to use than Tableau. Some complain that Tableau has a steep learning curve. Users should be well-versed in working with the R programming language, which is used heavily in statistical programming and data analysis.
But Tableau has been working to become easier to use. Its AI-powered analytics features lower the barrier to data science techniques. Tableau works really well when Excel and statistical data is being used as the raw material. For other formats, ease of use can suffer.
Domo is better at dealing with diverse data sets. Additionally, it doesn’t require knowledge of programming languages due to its no-code/low code approach. Everything needed is integrated within the tool.
The conclusion: Domo wins on broad usage by a non-technical audience whereas Tableau wins with more technical and advanced users. Key point: Domo is working to close the gap in that regard, and similarly, Tableau has also been attempting to make itself easier to use by inexperienced users.
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Domo vs. Tableau: Comparing Analytics Capabilities
Tableau tries to differentiate itself with what it describes as an intuitive analytics experience with richer capabilities based on its patented VizQL engine. It can connect to data live (performing queries in-database and returning results in real-time) or in-memory (ingesting data from source systems into Tableau). This allows users to control performance, cost, and data freshness. Tableau also scores very well on live query capabilities and extracts, helping analysts to query faster. Its use of the R language makes it the winner on statistical capabilities.
Domo has solid analytics qualities, too. It does not match Tableau in that regard. But many users don’t need all the bells and analytics whistles baked into Tableau. Yet the vibrant Tableau user community swears by them.
Domo vs. Tableau: Cloud, On-Prem Comparison
Domo wins hands down when it comes to the cloud. It is completely cloud-based, whereas Tableau evolved from the on-premises world. Tableau does offer cloud-hosted solutions such as Tableau Online and Tableau CRM, but its strength lies in on-premises deployments and this is where much of its massive installed base resides. Thus, it can be challenging to scale out Tableau workloads in the cloud.
Some users noted that loading and savings data into Domo can take time. Tableau is better on this point, but it still takes a long time to load massive data sets. Therefore, Domo the gets the nod for cloud analytics, and Tableau for on-prem.
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Does Domo or Tableau Have a Better Integrated CRM?
CRM and business intelligence often go together. With Tableau now being owned by Salesforce, this comparison category goes beyond David vs. Goliath. Tableau has excellent marketing and enterprise product capabilities and is being integrating with Salesforce Einstein Analytics (known as Tableau CRM). An Einstein Discovery dashboard extension, for example, brings predictive modeling capabilities from Einstein to Tableau.
Domo offers plenty of great visualizations and dashboards for sales and marketing teams. But it stops short of CRM. Thus, for those wanting integrated CRM, Tableau wins. For those not part of the Salesforce universe, however, Domo might be a better option.
Domo vs. Tableau: Comparing Integration Challenges
Tableau has its hands full in integrating with Salesforce. This creates a somewhat fragmented experience between Einstein Analytics and Tableau, though steady progress is being made in bringing both together. It won’t be long until those issues are resolved. As a result, Salesforce customers will be upsold to Tableau and vice versa.
Domo is largely free of integration headaches. Its cloud-based approach simplifies its deployment and use. Domo wins here.
Also see: Top Data Visualization Tools
Domo vs. Tableau: Price Comparison
Tableau has a reputation for being expensive. By some estimates, it works out to about $75 per month per user for decent analytics functionality. But those who only want to interact with some basic dashboards can get it much cheaper. That said, the addition of Tableau CRM for a list price of up to $150 per user per month means newer functionality and Salesforce integration doesn’t come cheap.
Domo has also run into some pricing challenges. Its rates have dropped in recent times. But it works out to around $80 per user. In this category, Tableau will sometimes come out ahead for some bids, and Domo in others.
Domo vs. Tableau: Bottom Line
Tableau boasts a fanatical user base and a very loyal user community. Its user conferences attract large crowds. Its popularity is growing, too, partially through the distribution of a free platform known as Tableau Public. This is where people can share and explore data visualizations online. It contains over 3 million interactive visualizations. But it is in the data scientist, analytics specialist, and power user markets where its feature set wins the most plaudits. In these markets, it is likely to be favored over Domo.
Domo, on the other hand, has a reputation for being intuitive and easy to use. Housed wholly in the cloud, it does very well in markets that lack in-house data science talent. It can be up and running in no time and providing sales managers and execs rapid feedback, visualizations, and dashboards – and much of what they need on the feature-set front. Further, Domo has been adding enterprise-grade features to enable it to move up the food chain. For those that want decent analytics capabilities without requiring heavy duty capabilities, Domo probably wins.