Google Analytics vs Tableau

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Google Analytics

125.9K
48.2K
+ 1
5K
Tableau

1.3K
1.3K
+ 1
8
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Google Analytics vs Tableau: What are the differences?

Google Analytics and Tableau are popular tools used for data analysis and visualization. Let's explore the key differences between them.

  1. Data Source: One of the main differences between Google Analytics and Tableau is the data source they use. Google Analytics primarily relies on website tracking and captures data related to website visitors, their behavior, and interactions. On the other hand, Tableau is a versatile tool that can connect to a wide range of data sources, including databases, spreadsheets, and APIs, allowing for a more extensive and diverse data analysis.

  2. Data Visualization: Another key difference between Google Analytics and Tableau is their approach to data visualization. Google Analytics provides pre-built, standardized visualizations and reports that are specifically designed for web analytics purposes. In contrast, Tableau offers a more flexible and customizable visualization experience, allowing users to create interactive and visually appealing dashboards and reports that fit their specific data analysis requirements.

  3. Data Exploration and Analysis: Google Analytics primarily focuses on web analytics and is designed for analyzing website behavior and performance metrics. It offers features like conversion tracking, segmentation, and user flow analysis to understand user journeys on a website. Tableau, on the other hand, provides a broader set of data exploration and analysis capabilities, allowing users to perform more advanced analytics tasks such as statistical analysis, predictive modeling, and data mining.

  4. Data Processing: Google Analytics automatically tracks and processes data related to website visitors, events, and conversions using JavaScript tags and cookies. The data processing in Google Analytics is handled by Google's servers, relieving users from the need to manage data infrastructure. Tableau, on the other hand, requires users to manually connect to and extract data from various sources. The data processing and preparation tasks need to be performed by the users before visualizing or analyzing the data in Tableau.

  5. Data Sharing and Collaboration: Google Analytics is primarily designed for individual users or teams to analyze website traffic and performance. It provides options for sharing reports and dashboards within the Google Analytics platform itself. Tableau, on the other hand, offers more advanced data sharing and collaboration features. With Tableau, users can publish their visualizations on the Tableau Server or Tableau Online platforms, allowing for easy sharing and collaboration with a wider audience.

  6. Pricing and Licensing: Google Analytics has a free version available for small to medium-sized businesses, while also offering more advanced features and support through its paid version, Google Analytics 360. Tableau, on the other hand, is a commercial tool with different pricing options based on the number of users, features required, and the deployment model. Tableau offers individual and enterprise licenses, along with options for cloud-based deployment or on-premises installation.

In summary, Google Analytics is a web analytics tool focused on tracking and analyzing website performance, while Tableau offers a broader range of data analysis and visualization capabilities with support for different data sources and customization options. Tableau also provides more advanced sharing and collaboration features, but it comes at a cost compared to the free version of Google Analytics.

Decisions about Google Analytics and Tableau

Very easy-to-use UI. Good way to make data available inside the company for analysis.

Has some built-in visualizations and can be easily integrated with other JS visualization libraries such as D3.

Can be embedded into product to provide reporting functions.

Support team are helpful.

The only complain I have is lack of API support. Hard to track changes as codes and automate report deployment.

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Vojtech Kopal
Head of Data at Mews Systems · | 3 upvotes · 297.9K views

Power BI is really easy to start with. If you have just several Excel sheets or CSV files, or you build your first automated pipeline, it is actually quite intuitive to build your first reports.

And as we have kept growing, all the additional features and tools were just there within the Azure platform and/or Office 365.

Since we started building Mews, we have already passed several milestones in becoming start up, later also a scale up company and now getting ready to grow even further, and during all these phases Power BI was just the right tool for us.

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Pros of Google Analytics
Pros of Tableau
  • 1.5K
    Free
  • 926
    Easy setup
  • 890
    Data visualization
  • 698
    Real-time stats
  • 405
    Comprehensive feature set
  • 181
    Goals tracking
  • 154
    Powerful funnel conversion reporting
  • 138
    Customizable reports
  • 83
    Custom events try
  • 53
    Elastic api
  • 14
    Updated regulary
  • 8
    Interactive Documentation
  • 3
    Google play
  • 2
    Industry Standard
  • 2
    Walkman music video playlist
  • 2
    Advanced ecommerce
  • 1
    Medium / Channel data split
  • 1
    Easy to integrate
  • 1
    Financial Management Challenges -2015h
  • 1
    Lifesaver
  • 1
    Irina
  • 6
    Capable of visualising billions of rows
  • 1
    Intuitive and easy to learn
  • 1
    Responsive

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Cons of Google Analytics
Cons of Tableau
  • 11
    Confusing UX/UI
  • 8
    Super complex
  • 6
    Very hard to build out funnels
  • 4
    Poor web performance metrics
  • 3
    Very easy to confuse the user of the analytics
  • 2
    Time spent on page isn't accurate out of the box
  • 2
    Very expensive for small companies

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What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics lets you measure your advertising ROI as well as track your Flash, video, and social networking sites and applications.

What is Tableau?

Tableau can help anyone see and understand their data. Connect to almost any database, drag and drop to create visualizations, and share with a click.

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Blog Posts

Jul 2 2019 at 9:34PM

Segment

Google AnalyticsAmazon S3New Relic+25
10
6736
GitHubPythonNode.js+47
54
72280
GitHubGitSlack+30
27
18273
JavaScriptGitHubGit+33
20
2080
JavaScriptGitHubPython+42
53
21803
What are some alternatives to Google Analytics and Tableau?
Mixpanel
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Piwik
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Google Tag Manager
Tag Manager gives you the ability to add and update your own tags for conversion tracking, site analytics, remarketing, and more. There are nearly endless ways to track user behavior across your sites and apps, and the intuitive design lets you change tags whenever you want.
Amplitude
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Heap
Heap automatically captures every user action in your app and lets you measure it all. Clicks, taps, swipes, form submissions, page views, and more. Track events and segment users instantly. No pushing code. No waiting for data to trickle in.
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