4 ms·

Are you sure your scripts and web server costs less than Tableau?

infinite8s 7y ago
Probably not. From his comment I doubt he's even used Tableau (and I say this as a programmer who worked on something similar - https://perspective.finos.org https://perspective.finos.org - and yet I still find myself turning to tableau pretty often).
himlion 7y ago
Yeah, Tableau is very expensive. Way more than a few weeks of dev time.
- finaliteration 7y ago
  > Way more than a few weeks of dev time. Except it's not just a few weeks of dev time that makes up the overall cost. Consider infrastructure, maintenance, updates, support, training, etc,. Those things start to add up and you don't get the benefit of scale/community if you do it on your own. There's also the opportunity cost of building your own system when you could buy something existing and use that time to work on other things.
  - himlion 7y ago
    True I'll give you it depends on the situation and might indeed be the better option. For a startup I wouldn't recommend it at least
- selectodude 7y ago
  Tableau is $850/yr per seat. Very expensive might be overstating things a little.
  - stewbrew 7y ago
    So how many seats are needed to hire somebody who creates a custom shiny + R app that does exactly what you want? How big is the average company that makes use of tableau etc.? Let's do the math ...
    - cycrutchfield 7y ago
      It’s 2019. Are we seriously still trying to argue that homegrown solutions are overall more cost effective than SaaS? Are we still of the opinion that developing tooling outside of your company’s core competencies is somehow adding value?
      - spookthesunset 7y ago
        Absolutely. There are tons of people I encounter every single day that seem to think it is cheaper to build everything inhouse. I think it comes from a complete misunderstanding of how business delivers value coupled with RMS-like distrust of anything they cannot completely crack the lid open and mess around with. Mostly the former, some of the later.
      - stewbrew 7y ago
        Well it's probably a question of perspective and problem domain. Also my main concern is precision and correctness. Quite often you can choose between (1) customized tools that achieve almost what you want them to do, but often the people who implemented or customized them didn't fully understand the problem and did things wrong without anyone noticing for a long time, or (2) custom tools that do exactly what you want, that were tested by somebody who cares.
- capkutay 7y ago
  Ah of course. Just a few few weeks of dev time to build the same thing a multi-billion dollar company sells. Then after a few weeks of dev time you find out you're missing about 80% of the features that makes tableau useful. After that few weeks your manager asks you how the project is going and you just mutter something about how you should probably just buy looker or tableau.
  - cycrutchfield 7y ago
    Nah, these sorts of folks are far too obdurate and prideful to ever willingly admit defeat. More likely they would keep telling the manager that they just need a few more weeks time to finish it while they frantically keep rolling that Sisyphean boulder up the hill.
hadlock 7y ago
We were getting ready to do a tableau api/integration with our software and the licensing came out to about $100k for two server dev licences and six client licenses.

Probably not. From his comment I doubt he's even used Tableau (and I say this as a programmer who worked on something similar - https://perspective.finos.org https://perspective.finos.org - and yet I still find myself turning to tableau pretty often).

himlion 7y ago

Yeah, Tableau is very expensive. Way more than a few weeks of dev time.

finaliteration 7y ago
> Way more than a few weeks of dev time. Except it's not just a few weeks of dev time that makes up the overall cost. Consider infrastructure, maintenance, updates, support, training, etc,. Those things start to add up and you don't get the benefit of scale/community if you do it on your own. There's also the opportunity cost of building your own system when you could buy something existing and use that time to work on other things.
- himlion 7y ago
  True I'll give you it depends on the situation and might indeed be the better option. For a startup I wouldn't recommend it at least
selectodude 7y ago
Tableau is $850/yr per seat. Very expensive might be overstating things a little.
- stewbrew 7y ago
  So how many seats are needed to hire somebody who creates a custom shiny + R app that does exactly what you want? How big is the average company that makes use of tableau etc.? Let's do the math ...
  - cycrutchfield 7y ago
    It’s 2019. Are we seriously still trying to argue that homegrown solutions are overall more cost effective than SaaS? Are we still of the opinion that developing tooling outside of your company’s core competencies is somehow adding value?
    - spookthesunset 7y ago
      Absolutely. There are tons of people I encounter every single day that seem to think it is cheaper to build everything inhouse. I think it comes from a complete misunderstanding of how business delivers value coupled with RMS-like distrust of anything they cannot completely crack the lid open and mess around with. Mostly the former, some of the later.
    - stewbrew 7y ago
      Well it's probably a question of perspective and problem domain. Also my main concern is precision and correctness. Quite often you can choose between (1) customized tools that achieve almost what you want them to do, but often the people who implemented or customized them didn't fully understand the problem and did things wrong without anyone noticing for a long time, or (2) custom tools that do exactly what you want, that were tested by somebody who cares.
capkutay 7y ago
Ah of course. Just a few few weeks of dev time to build the same thing a multi-billion dollar company sells. Then after a few weeks of dev time you find out you're missing about 80% of the features that makes tableau useful. After that few weeks your manager asks you how the project is going and you just mutter something about how you should probably just buy looker or tableau.
- cycrutchfield 7y ago
  Nah, these sorts of folks are far too obdurate and prideful to ever willingly admit defeat. More likely they would keep telling the manager that they just need a few more weeks time to finish it while they frantically keep rolling that Sisyphean boulder up the hill.

hadlock 7y ago

We were getting ready to do a tableau api/integration with our software and the licensing came out to about $100k for two server dev licences and six client licenses.