Tableau Desktop Public Edition, Free Edition, and Professional Edition Feature Comparison


This guide provides an overview of the differences between Tableau Desktop Public Edition, Free Edition, and Tableau Desktop Professional Edition (activated with a Tableau license).

Tip: Visit the Tableau pricing page to learn more about pricing options for Tableau licenses.

All three editions of Tableau Desktop allow you to explore and visualize your data, but each edition comes with its own characteristics, and the one you choose to use will depend on what you need to do with your data visualizations.

Who should use Tableau Desktop Public Edition?

Important: Tableau Desktop Public Edition is not for commercial use.

Tableau Desktop Public Edition allows individuals to:

  • Learn how to use Tableau

  • Analyze data consisting of up to 15M rows

  • Tell data stories using public datasets

  • Broadcast public information or embed public visualization on their own sites

Who should use Tableau Desktop Free Edition?

Tableau Desktop Free Edition allows individuals or businesses to:

  • Work with data and assets that can't be published publicly or shared with others

  • Connect to data sources that aren't supported by Tableau Public

  • Analyze data with more than 15M rows

  • Work with live data other than Google Drive

Who should use Tableau Desktop Professional Edition?

Activating Tableau Desktop Professional Edition with a paid Tableau license allows individuals or businesses to:

  • Connect to Tableau Server or Tableau Cloud

  • Share and publish data and content

Comparison guide

Features and Capabilities Tableau Desktop Public Edition Tableau Desktop Free Edition Tableau Desktop Professional Edition
Privacy and security A checkmark indicating which features apply to each version of Tableau Desktop A checkmark indicating which features apply to each version of Tableau Desktop A checkmark indicating which features apply to each version of Tableau Desktop
Save visualizations locally A checkmark indicating which features apply to each version of Tableau Desktop A checkmark indicating which features apply to each version of Tableau Desktop A checkmark indicating which features apply to each version of Tableau Desktop
Autorecovery A checkmark indicating which features apply to each version of Tableau Desktop A checkmark indicating which features apply to each version of Tableau Desktop A checkmark indicating which features apply to each version of Tableau Desktop
Publish or embed visualizations on other public sites An x icon indicating which features don't apply to each version of Tableau Desktop

* Embedding options available after publishing to Tableau Public

 An x icon indicating which features don't apply to each version of Tableau Desktop A checkmark indicating which features apply to each version of Tableau Desktop
Publish visualizations to Tableau Public A checkmark indicating which features apply to each version of Tableau Desktop An x icon indicating which features don't apply to each version of Tableau Desktop A checkmark indicating which features apply to each version of Tableau Desktop
Publish visualizations to Tableau Cloud or Tableau Server An x icon indicating which features don't apply to each version of Tableau Desktop An x icon indicating which features don't apply to each version of Tableau Desktop A checkmark indicating which features apply to each version of Tableau Desktop
Share packaged workbooks with other users An x icon indicating which features don't apply to each version of Tableau Desktop An x icon indicating which features don't apply to each version of Tableau Desktop A checkmark indicating which features apply to each version of Tableau Desktop
Live data refresh Limited data refresh

(Google Drive only. Data is refreshed automatically once every 24 hours)

 A checkmark indicating which features apply to each version of Tableau Desktop A checkmark indicating which features apply to each version of Tableau Desktop
Data sources Limited data source options

(Google Drive, JSON files, Microsoft Excel 2007 or later, OData, PDF, Spatial files, Statistical files, Text files)

 A checkmark indicating which features apply to each version of Tableau Desktop

* Published data sources on Tableau Cloud or Tableau Server are not supported

 A checkmark indicating which features apply to each version of Tableau Desktop

(Can connect to all data sources)
Data source rows A checkmark indicating which features apply to each version of Tableau Desktop

15M rows

 A checkmark indicating which features apply to each version of Tableau Desktop

Unlimited

 A checkmark indicating which features apply to each version of Tableau Desktop

Unlimited
Cloud Storage A checkmark indicating which features apply to each version of Tableau Desktop

10GB on Tableau Public

An x icon indicating which features don't apply to each version of Tableau Desktop A checkmark indicating which features apply to each version of Tableau Desktop

Tableau Cloud and Tableau Server if applicable
Local Storage A checkmark indicating which features apply to each version of Tableau Desktop A checkmark indicating which features apply to each version of Tableau Desktop A checkmark indicating which features apply to each version of Tableau Desktop
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