Tableau Reader is a free product that was created in the early days of Tableau to allow analysts and content creators to distribute content they built in Tableau Desktop.
Tableau Viewer is a role-based license option on Tableau Server which allows casual users to access and interact with trusted content created by Creators and Explorers, without putting the security of your data at risk.
In terms of functionality, Tableau Reader lacks the governance, security, and administration capabilities that are essential for mission-critical production deployments of Tableau. In addition, Tableau Reader users can only access and interact with local workbooks (see the comparison chart below for detailed product comparison). These product limitations make Tableau Reader an appropriate option for some proof of concept projects but the wrong choice for deploying analytics at scale across your organization. To know more check out this link:https://www.igmguru.com/data-science-bi/tableau-training/
Tableau Viewer users, on the other hand, benefit from the security and trust that comes with a governed server-based deployment and specifically can:
- Access and interact with embedded, web-based, and mobile content
- Download underlying summary data for a visualization
- Favorite content
- Download visualizations as image files (PNG, PDF)
- Comment on visualization or dashboard
- Create and receive subscriptions
- Receive data-driven alerts
Is Tableau Reader really free?
Tableau Reader may be a free software download, but it's not unengaged to deploy and maintain if used as an alternate to Tableau Server. Organizations must consider the many costs related to valuable IT resources deploying and supporting a Tableau Reader deployment. There is also the potential cost of compliance issues related to the shortage of governance in Tableau Reader. Tableau Reader deployments require source files to be shared and accessed locally which suggests that it's no visibility into where the files go or how they're used after they're created.
The role-based server licenses offered by Tableau empower IT to secure, govern and administer a production deployment while significantly reducing the risks and hidden costs that a company is exposed to when trying to deploy Tableau Reader at scale. Information on a way to choose the combination of Tableau Server roles that are right for your organization is found here.
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