Zhihu hot discussion: In addition to PowerBI, is there a better BI data analysis tool?

In today's digital era, if companies make decisions without data analysis, they are completely unreliable. Therefore, BI tools become super important, after all, BI data analysis tools are good helpers for data analysis.

As you may have heard, PowerBI is indeed a well-known BI tool with some advantages of its own. However, the needs of enterprises are diverse and complex, and PowerBI may not meet all the needs of all enterprises. So, there are other tools on the market that are worth looking into. By comparing the various tools on the market side by side, we can clearly see the advantages and disadvantages of each of them. In this way, you can pick out the most suitable "Destiny" BI data analysis tool for yourself.

There are many BI data analysis tools on the market, too much comparative analysis may make everyone more dazzled, here, I will choose the two hottest ones at present - Finesoft BI and Tableau, to give you a wave of comparative analysis!

1. PowerBI

PowerBI is a cloud-based business data analysis and sharing tool. It mainly has these characteristics:

• Complex data can be made concise, allowing users to quickly create visual and interactive reports. In addition, these reports can be viewed at any time in the mobile app, and the operation status of the company's various businesses can also be monitored.
• Its core product is an enterprise-level business intelligence and big data analytics platform, which integrates the functional requirements of data analysis and decision support in many industries. It can meet the needs of big data analysis such as enterprise-level reports, data visualization analysis, self-service analysis platforms, data mining modeling, and AI intelligent analysis.

2. FineBI

FineBI is a product of FineFine, and I have summarized its three major advantages:

1. Efficient and convenient data management: In the usual work process, we IT people need to process data from a variety of data sources, and FineBI includes more than 30 kinds of big data platforms, SQL data sources and Excel file datasets, which can be said to be completely troubled in terms of data sources. In addition, FineBI distinguishes two modules, public data and personal analysis, and supports data management in the form of folders, which is convenient for distinguishing and managing personal data and team data.
2. Powerful data editing and analysis capabilities: As a self-service analysis tool, one of my personal favorites is that FineBI's self-service datasets are rich in functions, providing functions such as secondary calculation and data interpretation, so that business analysts can quickly get started with data processing, allowing IT to focus more on basic data preparation.
3. Data visualization: In terms of visual presentation and ease of operation, I personally think that FineBI is much easier to use than PowerBI. In addition, the dashboard can be shared directly or edited with others, making it easier for teams to collaborate or communicate across departments.

The link to the use of FineBI is attached below: https://s.fanruan.com/dfr8b FineBI - BI Data Analysis Software_Enterprise Big Data Analysis Platform

3. Tableau

Tableau is a unique tool for data visualization, Tableau is the perfect way to graft data operations with beautiful charts. It's an easy-to-use program that companies can use to drag and drop large amounts of data onto a digital canvas and create charts and graphs in the blink of an eye. The idea is that the easier the data on the interface is, the better the company will know whether what it is doing is right or wrong in its area of business.

Official website link: https://www.tableau.com/zh-cn

四、PowerBI VS FineBI VS Tableau 三者对比

After understanding the advantages and characteristics of each of the three data analysis products, we can compare the three data analysis tools from 10 aspects:

Data connection

• FineBI: has strong ability to connect with enterprise data platforms, supports multiple data sources, flexible deployment, and no database restrictions.
• Tableau: Native support for multiple data sources, low support for Linux deployment, Win server deployment is preferred.
• PowerBI: Some popular big data platforms in China do not support kerberos authentication connection mode, do not support JAVA plug-ins for C# development, and only support windows systems after windows8.

Engine architecture

• FineBI: Distributed architecture engine columnar storage, supports billions of large data volumes, extracts direct connections and flexibly switches, and supports second-level display of hundreds of millions of data.
• Tableau: Extracts direct connections and flexibly switches, supports the display of hundreds of millions of data in seconds, but does not support one-click update of all data tables, only a single table can be updated, and only supports incremental increment (select dependent time stamps), and does not support incremental modification and incremental deletion.
• PowerBI: The data mode supports real-time and extraction modes, and the extraction mode is stored in rows, and there are few types of directly connected databases, which has weak support for the engine.

data processing

• FineBI: Visualization, efficient processing, and independent management of data preparation.
• Tableau: Visual operation interface, similar to FineBI processing method, can quickly process filtering, grouping and summarizing, adding new columns, sorting, etc.

• PowerBI: The visual interface combines M language and DAX functions, requiring users to master both Microsoft languages.

Front-end presentation

• FineBI: Based on the well-known graphic grammar (The Grammar Of Graphics) design, with "shape" and the corresponding "color", "size", "hint", "label" and other attributes (in addition to supporting free settings, it also supports dynamic display bound with fields) for chart type substitution, there are two axes in the analysis area, horizontal axis and vertical axis, drag the indicators and dimensions to be analyzed to the two axes, and the visualization chart will be automatically generated, and the chart is also intelligently recommended according to the analysis situation;
• Tableau: As the earliest practitioner of graphical syntax, it has stronger and more beautiful visualization capabilities than FineBI.
• PowerBI: PowerBI's visualization capabilities are slightly insufficient, and it cannot realize WYSIWYG and exploratory analysis, specifically, PowerBI does not support graph syntax, but first determines the chart type, and then fills in the data, which cannot support the vision of exploratory analysis, and there are relatively few built-in chart types, such as rose charts, multi-layer pie charts, word cloud maps, heat maps, flow maps, etc.

Multi-dimensional analysis capabilities

• FineBI: supports drilling, linkage, slicing, jumping, rotating, and other operations, and supports more predefined actions.
• Tableau: supports drilling, linkage, slicing, and click action settings, making it highly interactive.
• PowerBI: supports drilling, linkage, and slicing, and cannot automatically filter between templates when hyperlink jumps, and can only be used for URL redirection alone.

1. Multi-dimensional computing power

• FineBI: Quick Calculation provides ready-made period-on-period/period-on-year/month-on-month, ranking, cumulative value, all values, percentage calculation, etc., which is more convenient, and the OLAP calculation and analysis capability is faster and more convenient than PowerBI operation, and the user has a lower threshold for learning to get started.

• Tableau: In addition to providing functions, it also encapsulates some custom calculation functions.
• PowerBI: A lot of calculations rely on DAX functions, in the same vein as Excel functions.

In terms of multi-dimensional computing capabilities, the three products have their own characteristics, and we still need to consider the advantages in combination with the actual scenario to make a choice.

Complex format reports

Paginated reports

Complex header reports

• FineBI: It can solve the problem of complex reports, support pagination settings, in-page calculations, complex multi-table header styles, etc., and it is no problem to extend the secondary calculation of complex data logic on the front end.

• Tableau: does not support pagination settings, cannot perform in-page calculations, and is suitable for complex logic,

  Tables with complex logic and high style requirements have weak support capabilities and cannot implement complex multi-table header styles, and cannot be implemented when complex data logic is involved and needs to be extended and then recomputed at the front-end.

• PowerBI: It does not support pagination settings, cannot perform in-page calculations, and has weak support for tables with complex logic and high style requirements, and cannot implement complex multi-table header styles.

Featured chart scenes

• FineBI: It has good performance in large-screen development and featured charts, supporting dynamic effects/3D chart display, indicator card/dashboard-style charts, and rich and intuitive display styles.
• Tableau: The support ability for large-screen development is poor, and it does not support the use of dynamic effects/3D charts, and does not support indicator cards/dashboard-style charts, and the display style is relatively simple and not intuitive enough.
• PowerBI: It has poor support for large-screen development, does not support the use of dynamic effects/3D charts, does not support indicator cards/dashboard-style charts, and the display style is relatively simple and not intuitive enough.

Here are a few dynamic extended charts and indicator card charts made with FineBI:

Ability to fill in

• FineBI: It has the ability to fill in new data or historical data.

• Tableau: It does not support the ability to fill in the report, which has to be said to provide a relatively difficult operation and maintenance work.
• PowerBI: O&M relies on cloud services, which has the advantage of lower thresholds and costs, but inevitably reduces operability and security.

Platform O&M capabilities

• FineBI: It has very complete intelligent O&M capabilities, including memory, cluster, backup, log, resource migration and other modules, all of which can be configured and managed at the front-end, and supports monitoring and scheduling, ensuring low cost and high quality of O&M to the greatest extent.

• PowerBI: Its operation and maintenance relies on cloud services, which has the advantage of low threshold and cost, but the operability and security will inevitably be reduced.
• Tableau: TSM is a specialized command-line O&M tool that can be used to complete monitoring, operation, and tuning, but it cannot be visualized at the front end, which provides greater difficulty for O&M work.

V. Conclusions

Overall, PowerBI has certain advantages in terms of data processing capabilities. However, FineBI and Tableau have also shown to be competitive in many ways. FineBI is more suitable for domestic enterprises, with stronger localization service capabilities, excellent processing capabilities for complex reports, and better data management and control and platform operation and maintenance capabilities. Tableau, on the other hand, excels in visualization and interactivity, making it ideal for personal data analysts, but falls short in some aspects of enterprise applications. Therefore, whether you are an enterprise or an individual, you still need to choose the right BI data analysis tool according to your own needs and usage scenarios.

Finally, in order to show you the comparison between PowerBI, Finesoft BI and Tableau more intuitively, you can refer to the following table:

Compare items	PowerBI	Sail Soft BI	Table
Data connection	Some domestic big data platforms do not support kerberos authentication, only support systems after windows8, and C# development does not support JAVA plug-ins	It has strong ability to connect with enterprise data platforms, natively supports multiple data sources, and is flexible in deployment	Native support for a variety of data sources, priority is recommended for Win server deployment, and Linux support is not high
Engine architecture	The data mode supports real-time and extraction, and the extraction mode is stored in rows, and there are few types of directly connected databases, which has weak support for the engine	The distributed architecture engine columnar storage supports one billion data volumes, extracts direct connections and switches flexibly, and supports the display of hundreds of millions of data in seconds	Extracting direct connections can be flexibly switched, and hundreds of millions of data can be displayed in seconds, but it does not support one-click update of all tables, and only supports incremental addition of some operations
data processing	The visual interface combines M language and DAX functions, and requires users to master both Microsoft languages	Visualized, efficient processing, independent management of data preparation	The visual operation interface is similar to the BI processing method of Finefine
Front-end presentation	Graph syntax is not supported, and the chart type needs to be determined first, and there are few types of built-in charts	Based on the graphic syntax design, the chart is intelligently recommended	He is the earliest practitioner of graphic grammar and has strong visualization ability
Multi-dimensional analysis capabilities	It supports drilling, linkage, and slicing, and hyperlink jumps can only be redirected to individual URLs	It supports drilling, linkage, slicing, jumping, rotation and other operations, and supports more predefined actions	It supports drilling, linkage, slicing, and click action settings, and is highly interactive
Multi-dimensional computing power	A large number of calculations rely on DAX functions, in the same vein as Excel functions	Quick Calculations provides a variety of convenient calculation methods	Encapsulate some custom computing functions based on functions
Complex format reports	It does not support pagination and in-page calculations, and has weak support for complex header reports	Solve complex reporting problems	It does not support pagination and in-page calculations, and has weak support for complex header reports
Featured chart scenes	Poor support for large-screen development, and does not support dynamic/3D charts and indicator cards/dashboard-style charts	It has better performance in large-screen development and featured charts	Poor support for large-screen development, and does not support dynamic/3D charts and indicator cards/dashboard-style charts
Ability to fill in	Not supported	In the tank	Not supported
Integrate application capabilities	Proprietary engineering is required for deployment, integration is limited, and mobile app integration is not supported	It supports multiple deployment methods, supports web and mobile integration, and can be deeply and seamlessly integrated	Proprietary engineering is required for deployment, integration is limited, and mobile app integration is not supported
Data management and control capabilities	The report is packaged and published, and row-level permissions are assigned, and column-level permissions cannot be controlled, and user databases cannot be connected	Perfect row/column level permission control, multi-level control permissions, and the interface can be open for secondary development	Permission configuration is cumbersome, and it is difficult to reuse it indirectly through parameters
Platform O&M capabilities	Relying on cloud services, operability and security are reduced	Intelligent O&M capabilities and front-end configuration management	Command-line tool TSM O&M is required, which is difficult

If you still want to know more about the comparative analysis and evaluation of BI tools, you can click on the card to download the BI white paper for free, which has a more detailed and comprehensive analysis of BI selection: https://s.fanruan.com/ol4d6 "Link"