Happy Valley

Evidence vs Tableau

Evidence and Tableau are both BI & dashboards tools. Evidence is aimed at developers, while Tableau is aimed at enterprise. Tableau costs less, from $75/mo versus $2500/mo for Evidence. Only Evidence has a free plan.

Evidence

BI as code: Markdown + SQL to reports

Tableau

Visual analytics leader, now Salesforce

PricingOpen source · $2500Paid · $75
Starting price$2500/mo$75/mo
Free planYesNo
Free trial30 days14 days
Built forDevelopersEnterprise
Platformswebweb, windows, macos
CountryCA · 2021US · 2003
Rating——

Choose Evidence if

Analysts comfortable with code.

  • Version-controlled reporting
  • Beautiful output
  • Developer workflow

Look elsewhere if: Business users wanting self-serve.

Choose Tableau if

Enterprises with dedicated analysts who need rich visual analysis.

  • Best-in-class visualization depth
  • Large community and resources
  • Handles complex analysis

Look elsewhere if: Small teams on a budget (Metabase, Looker Studio) or Microsoft shops (Power BI).

Evidence vs Tableau pricing

Evidence

  • Open source$0MIT-licensed framework, self-build (GitHub)
  • Team$2,500/moUnlimited users, 20K AI credits/mo, Analytics Agent
  • EnterpriseCustomAnnual contract, SSO, SCIM, embedding, self-deploy

Tableau

  • Viewer$15/user/moBilled annually; Standard edition
  • Explorer$42/user/moBilled annually; Standard edition
  • Creator$75/user/moBilled annually; at least one Creator required
  • Tableau+CustomEnterprise and AI bundle, quote only

Evidence · Key features

  • Markdown + SQL reports
  • Components for charts and tables
  • Git version control
  • Static site builds
  • Templated pages
  • Cloud hosting

Cons

  • Requires SQL and Markdown
  • Not drag-and-drop
  • Smaller community

Tableau · Key features

  • Drag-and-drop visual analytics
  • Live and extract connections to many sources
  • Tableau Prep for data preparation
  • Dashboards with interactivity and actions
  • Pulse and Agent AI insights
  • Cloud or self-hosted Server deployment

Cons

  • Expensive per user
  • Steeper learning curve for creators
  • Power BI cheaper in Microsoft shops

Evidence vs Tableau: FAQ

Which is cheaper, Evidence or Tableau?

Tableau starts at $75/mo and Evidence at $2500/mo. Both prices are checked on the vendors' own pricing pages.

Do Evidence and Tableau have a free plan?

Evidence has a free plan. Tableau has no free plan, a 14-day free trial.

Not sure yet?