I have been in BI(Business intelligence) field for almost a decade now and have worked with mostly IBM tools but if you are in this area chances are that you have either used Tableau or came across it.
Tableau is a fantastic visualization tool and have many version most are paid except the public one. When somebody asks you to download Tableau, you might get confused. In this post I will try to make that decision process simple for you.
| Prep | Server | Online | Desktop | Public | |
| Use | Data cleansing tool | Visualization and collaboration | Visualization and collaboration | Visualization | Visualization |
| Paid | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Free |
| Deployment | Windows or Mac desktops | Public cloud or on premises | Tableau managed and hosted cloud offering | Windows or Mac desktops | Tableau hosted free public offering |
| Comments | If you already have an ETL tool you won’t need this. | Enterprises and big organizations use this offering | Enterprises who don’t want to manage their own data and infra use this offering | Individual analyst | Best for learning and sharing analysis with Tableau community |