May 21, 2024
Choosing the Best PostGres Reporting Tool for Your Team
Which PostgreSQL reporting tool best fits my team?
By Nicholas Samuel
20 min read
Table of Contents:
Introduction
PostgreSQL, also called Postgres, is an advanced, enterprise-class open-source relational database. It supports both SQL (relational) and JSON (non-relational) querying. Postgres is a very stable database management system with over 20 years of community development. This has given it high levels of integrity, correctness, and resilience.
Choosing the right Postgres reporting tool is not quite so simple. Thanks to the huge community that has grown up around it, giving you a wide variety of options to uncover insights from your Postgres data. In this article, we have put together a list of the best Postgres reporting tools that you can choose for your team.
Best Postgres Reporting Tools
Tableau
Tableau is a powerful data analysis and visualization tool that comes with a PostgreSQL connector. The connector can be found under the "Connect" tab after starting Tableau. The connector requires you to know the name of the server hosting your Postgres database as well as the database name. Authentication of users can be done using integrated authentication or username and password. Tableau's PostgreSQL connector requires you to download and install a driver from Tableau's official website for the two platforms to communicate. After connecting Tableau to Postgres, you will be able to select or search for your target data tables and drag them to the canvas to get started with data analysis and visualization.
Tableau Features
Tableau gives its users access to the following features:
- Integrations
Tableau is shipped with native connectors to PDFs, files, spreadsheets, cloud data warehouses, and SQL databases such as PostgreSQL. However, it doesn't come with connectors to NoSQL data sources. Tableau users must depend on JDBC or ODBC connectors to pull data from such sources. Its PostgreSQL connector requires you to know the names of the server and the database. Authentication can be done using integrated authentication or username and password. You must download and install a driver from Tableau's official website to allow the two platforms to communicate.
2. Visualizations
Tableau gives you the ability to generate beautiful and powerful visualizations from your PostgreSQL data. The visualizations can be maps, charts, stories, and dashboards. You can customize the visualizations to meet your specific needs.
3. Search-based Analytics
Tableau has a search-based analytics feature called Ask Data that can help you extract insights from your PostgreSQL data using a common language. Ask Data returns instant answers even in the form of visualizations without requiring you to master any query language.
4. Cross-database joins
Tableau supports cross-database joins, allowing you to join data across different sources. Thus, you can join your PostgreSQL data with data from other supported sources. Tableau supports inner join, right outer join, left outer join, and full outer join operations. The joins depend on a common field among the data sources involved.
5. Alerts/Anomaly Detection
With Tableau, you can configure alert conditions in your data that will trigger notifications when met. The alerts can be configured on views and dashboards, but not on storyboards. You can be notified via Slack, email, or within Tableau.
6. Embedded Analytics
Tableau has an embedded analytics feature that enables you to embed your dashboards, visualizations, and its analytical capabilities into your external applications. It lets you generate a simple HTML embed code and use it to embed content into custom web portals, third-party applications, and data products.
7. Customer Support
Tableau has a knowledge base with written materials to help users learn how to use the BI tool. The materials are grouped into various Tableau products. You can type your question within the knowledge base and get the top article suggestions that can help you as you type.
8. Pricing
Tableau has three pricing plans namely Tableau Creator, Tableau Explorer, and Tableau Viewer. Tableau prices are quoted per user/month and billed annually.
The Tableau Creator plan gives users all the tools they need for performing end-to-end analytics and it costs $75 per user/month. The Tableau Explorer plan delivers the power of self-service analytics into the hands of users and it costs $42 per user/month. The Tableau Viewer plan allows users to view and interact with visualizations and it costs $15 per user/month.
Benefits of Tableau
Tableau users enjoy the following benefits:
- Integrates with PostgreSQL
Tableau integrates with PostgreSQL, allowing users to pull and analyze their Postgres data.
2. User authentication
Tableau supports two types of authentication when connecting to Postgres, that is, integrated authentication and username and password. This can help you ensure that your data is only accessed by authorized users.
3. Beautiful visualizations
Tableau users have access to beautiful and powerful visualizations for presenting their Postgres data.
4. Fit for non-technical users
Tableau's Ask Data feature makes it a suitable BI tool for non-technical users. They can ask questions about their PostgreSQL data in a common language and get answers in the form of visualizations.
Limitations of Tableau
Tableau has the following limitations:
- Complex integration
Integrating Tableau and Postgres is a complex process that requires technical knowledge. One has to download a driver from Tableau's official website and install it for the two platforms to communicate.
2. Few Integrations
Tableau doesn't come with connectors to some data sources such as NoSQL databases. You may encounter challenges when you want to join your PostgreSQL data with data from such sources.
3. Legacy architecture
Tableau uses a legacy architecture, a true reflection of its founding DNA. You must use Tableau Desktop to publish workbooks to the Tableau Server or Cloud. Although it excels in exploratory data analysis, it requires the data to be structured and ready for analysis.
Knowi
Knowi is a unified data analytics platform and one of the best PostgreSQL reporting tools. It enables warehousing, visualization, and reporting automation from PostgreSQL along with other structured and unstructured data sources. Knowi offers two options for connecting to PostgreSQL; Directly via its UI if your database is accessible from the cloud and using its Cloud9Agent to securely pull data inside your network. After connecting to PostgreSQL, Knowi will pull out a list of collections along with field samples. You can then generate queries using either its visual builder or query editor. The visual builder helps you generate queries in a no-code environment by dragging and dropping fields or selecting them from a drop-down. The Query Editor provides a versatile text editor with advanced editing capabilities such as PostgreSQL Query and support for multiple language modes. Knowi users can also choose between Direct and Non-Direct execution strategies. In Direct execution, queries will be executed directly on PostgreSQL, without any storage in between. In Non-Direction execution, query results are stored in Knowi's Elastic Store. This comes with benefits such as reduced load on your PostgreSQL database, long-running queries, and more.
Knowi Features
Knowi has the following features for its users:
- Data-as-a-Service
Knowi has a data-as-a-service feature that lets it work with any data, anywhere. It natively integrates with a wide range of SQL, NoSQL, files, and REST APIs to provide secure access to any data instantly. Knowi users can source data from multiple sources by blending data from structured and unstructured sources.
Knowi enables users to connect to their Postgres data without installing any driver or moving their data. They can connect directly from Knowi's UI if the database is accessible from the cloud, or use its Cloud9Agent to securely pull their Postgres data inside their network. After a successful connection, they can run direct queries against PostgreSQL, in which data for generating widgets will be fetched in real-time, or run non-direct queries, in which query results will be stored in Knowi's Elastic Store.
2. Visualizations
Knowi has a presentation layer with 40+ different visualizations that you can use to make sense of your PostgreSQL data. It allows users to customize their visualizations to improve their look and feel. It offers filters, drill-downs, and other features to help users dig deep into their data to extract fine-grained details. Knowi users can create custom visualizations using CSS/JavaScript.
3. Ask Questions of your Data
Knowi comes with a search-based analytics feature powered by Natural Language Processing that can help you uncover insights from your PostgreSQL data using natural language. You can ask data questions in plain English within Knowi and get instant answers in the form of visualizations.
Knowi allows you to embed this feature into your own applications to ask data questions directly from the applications and get answers.
It has also added this feature to Slack and Microsoft Teams, allowing users to ask data questions directly from these apps and get instant responses.
4. Multi-Source Joins
Knowi has a multi-data source join feature to help users join their Postgres data with relational, NoSQL, RDBMS, and APIs on the fly across data centers or multiple cloud providers without moving data into SQL structures or building complex ETL steps. It supports inner join, right outer join, left outer join, full outer join, and loop join operations. For the joins to run successfully, there must be a common field among the data sources involved.
5. Embedded Analytics
Knowi has an embedded analytics feature that lets you embed your dashboards and its analytical experiences into your applications. Users can also share their dashboards or email reports to facilitate analytics reporting among offline users.
Users can choose simple URL-based embedding, secure URL embedding with encrypted request payload, or Single SignOn (SSO) API embedding that enables token exchange from your system users to map to Knowi with user rights and permissions.
6. Machine Learning
Knowi comes with machine learning capabilities to help you combine hindsight and foresight and perform both descriptive and prescriptive analytics on your PostgreSQL data. It is easy to integrate machine learning into your Postgres analysis and workflows. You can use Knowi's open-source machine learning algorithms or integrate your custom algorithms.
7. Triggers, Alerts, and Actions
Knowi has an alert feature that you can use to automate notifications or actions based on your PostgreSQL data. You can configure a webhook to initiate a process in a downstream application or send a notification via email, Slack, or WebHook.
8. Customer Support
Knowi is shipped with release notes to help you learn how to use the data analytics platform. It also has a knowledge base full of written documentation on how to complete different tasks on the platform. You can type your question on the knowledge base and get the top article suggestions that can answer you as you type.
Knowi features a community section with sourced questions and answers that can help you. It also allows you to contact its support team by filling out a form through its Zendesk-powered chat system and they will get back to you.
9. Pricing
Knowi uses a custom-based pricing approach in which pricing is determined by your individual needs. They have provided a form on their official website that you can fill out to request a price quote. Knowi has three pricing plans namely Basic, Team, and Enterprise. Each plan comes with everything needed for success, including full onboarding and technical support when needed. Knowi offers discounts to startups and nonprofits. It doesn't charge for email reports that require a user and such in other systems.
Benefits of Knowi
Knowi has the following benefits for its users:
- Effortless integration with PostgreSQL
Knowi offers native integration with PostgreSQL without requiring you to install any third-party drivers or move your data.
2. Reduced database load
Knowi supports non-direct queries in which query results are stored in its Elastic Store, saving users from hitting Postgres every time they need data. This reduces the load on the database.
3. Supports multi-source joins
Knowi users can join data across disparate sources. Users can easily blend their PostgreSQL data with data from other SQL, NoSQL, REST API, and JSON/CSV sources.
4. Fit for non-technical users
Knowi comes with a search-based analytics feature to help non-technical users understand their data by issuing questions in plain English.
5. Supports machine learning
Knowi has built-in machine learning algorithms to help you perform advanced analytics on your Postgres data.
Limitations of Knowi
Knowi comes with the following limitations:
- Not open source
Knowi is a commercial tool.
2. Out-of-the-box visualizations are not the "prettiest"
Knowi doesn't have the most beautiful out-of-the-visualizations. However, users can customize them using CSS/JavaScript.
3. Complex user interface
Knowi has an intuitive business user interface. However, its user interface for data engineers is sophisticated and one may take some time to get used to.
Power BI
Power BI is a business intelligence tool created by Microsoft and it supports integration with PostgreSQL. You can access the PostgreSQL connector for Power BI by clicking the "Get Data" option from the top window and choosing the "More" option at the bottom. You can then find PostgreSQL under the "Database" option on the left. The connector requires you to provide the name of the server hosting PostgreSQL and the database name. The authentication can be done using your PostgreSQL username and password. If you enabled SSL during your PostgreSQL deployment, you will be required to provide details of your CA certificate. Power BI also gives you two options for getting your PostgreSQL data, you can import the data into Power BI or create a DirectQuery in Power to get the PostgreSQL data when needed.
Power BI Features
Power BI users have access to the following features:
- Integrations
Power BI comes with many software-as-a-service connectors to help users connect to apps, cloud data warehouses, and databases such as PostgreSQL. You can find the PostgreSQL connector by clicking the "Get Data'' option from the Home ribbon and choosing the "More" option. You can authenticate users using PostgreSQL's username and password, or using SSO for improved security.
Power BI seamlessly integrates with other Microsoft products such as Excel, Forms, and Office 365. It also comes with connectors to NoSQL databases such as MongoDB and cloud data warehouses such as Snowflake. It also lets users create custom connectors and submit them to Microsoft for certification.
2. Visualizations
Power BI has various types of visualizations that you can add to your dashboards and reports. Examples include waterfall charts, decomposition trees, doughnut charts, and funnel charts. Users can also download additional charts from the Microsoft AppSource. Power BI users can also create custom visualizations and share them with other users.
3. Ask Questions of your Data
Power BI has the Q&A feature to facilitate search-based analytics. Users can ask questions about their data using natural language and get answers in the form of charts and graphs. You can specify the desired type of visualization in your question, or let Q&A pick the best one for you based on the nature of your data.
4. Alerts/Anomaly Detection
Power BI users can set up alerts to be notified when their data changes beyond certain limits. You can configure the frequency with which Power BI will check your data for the alert condition. You can receive the alert notifications within the Power BI notification center or via email.
5. Customer Support
Power BI's support is now part of Microsoft Fabric's support. It comes with written documentation to help users learn how to use the tool. Power BI users can post their questions on the Microsoft Fabric Community forum and get answers from other Power BI users. They can also contact the support team by creating a support request via the official Microsoft website.
6. Pricing
Power BI has a free plan and two other priced plans, Power BI Pro and Power BI Premium.
Power BI Pro helps users perform self-service analytics by publishing reports and dashboards and viewing content across the entire organization. It costs $10 per user/month. Power BI Premium gives users access to enterprise-scale features such as larger model sizes, more frequent refreshes, and deployment pipelines. It costs $20 per user/month.
Benefits of Power BI
Power BI users enjoy the following benefits:
- Integrates with PostgreSQL
Power BI users can easily connect to PostgreSQL to analyze and visualize their data. Power BI doesn't require you to install any driver.
2. User authentication
Power BI supports basic authentication using PostgreSQL's username and password. You can also enable SSO authentication for improved security of your data.
3. Customizable visualizations
Power BI allows users to create custom visualizations that meet their unique needs.
4. Fit for non-technical users
Power BI has a Q&A feature that helps non-technical users uncover insights from their PostgreSQL data using natural language.
Limitations of Power BI
Power BI has the following limitations:
- Integration can get complex
Power BI users can easily connect to Postgres with basic authentication. However, the integration can become complex where advanced authentication is needed.
2. Limited integrations
Power BI doesn't have connectors to all user data sources. Users may have to create custom connectors to pull data from some sources.
3. Bulky user interface
Power BI's interface is bulky, hence, users may find it hard to navigate from one component to another.
Domo
Domo is a cloud-based business intelligence platform that supports integration with PostgreSQL. Domo's PostgreSQL Connector can help you pull data from your Postgres database and compile custom reports. You specify the data you want to pull by inputting an SQL query. You can access the connector in the Data Center by clicking "Database" from the toolbar at the top of the window. The connector requires you to know the name of the server hosting your PostgreSQL database and the port number. You must also provide details such as your Postgres username and password and the name of the PostgreSQL database you want to connect to. Optionally, users can provide details of their CA certificate, SSL certificate, and SSL key.
Domo Features
Domo has the following features for its users:
- Integrations
Domo has over 1,000 connectors to data warehouses, cloud business systems, on-premise systems, and proprietary systems. Domo users can pull data from SQL-based databases such as PostgreSQL and MySQL, and cloud data warehouses such as Google BigQuery, Snowflake, and Amazon Redshift. It also comes with connectors to some NoSQL data sources such as MongoDB.
Domo users can access the PostgreSQL connector from the Data Center by clicking "Database" from the toolbar at the top of the window. The connector requires you to provide details such as your Postgres username and password, hostname, port, and database name. You can optionally provide details such as your CA certificate, SSL certificate, and SSL key. After entering valid PostgreSQL credentials, you can create and run SQL queries to pull data from the database. You can choose between custom queries to enter customized SQL queries with or without parameters to execute, or the Query Builder to build SQL queries by selecting the database table and table columns.
2. Visualizations
Domo comes with over 150 different charts to help users present their data in context and narrative. Its users have access to simple drag-and-drop tools for creating visualizations. You can customize the visualizations by changing their dimensions to get the exact look and feel that you want.
Domo visualizations can be viewed on both desktop and mobile devices. Users can create custom visualizations without coding to meet their unique needs.
3. Search-based Analytics
Domo has the Domo.AI feature that empowers users with chat-style data exploration experiences. You can ask questions about your data and get contextual, personalized insights with both narrative and visual responses.
4. Embedded Analytics
Domo comes with the "Domo Everywhere" feature to enable you to embed analytics within your products to empower your customers. You can white-label the embedded elements to match the style that fits you and your customers. You can share curated dashboards using Story Embed, apps using the Domo Data Experience, and datasets with live query subscriptions, without writing code.
5. Alerts
Domo lets its users configure alerts to be notified when issues arise that need attention or when certain goals are met. The alert feature can notify you when your data doesn't meet your expectations to take immediate action. The alert notifications can be received via email, text, or Domo's mobile app.
6. Customer support
Domo has a knowledge base with written articles to help users learn how to use the platform. You can type your question within the knowledge base and get article suggestions upon hitting the return key.
Domo users can also get help from its how-to videos or post their questions within the Domo community forum and get answers from other Domo users. You can also contact the Domo support team via phone, email, or by filling out a form on their website.
7. Pricing
Domo uses a credit-based pricing approach where you start with what you need and scale with time. It has four pricing plans, Free Forever, Standard, Enterprise, and Business Critical.
The Free Forever plan helps you to try out the Domo platform. It is free and you get 300 credits/month. The Standard plan allows you to start with 300 free credits and add credits as you need. It costs $300/month. The Enterprise plan is suitable for companies with higher data volumes and its pricing is custom-based. The Business Critical plan is fit for organizations that need additional security layers and its price is custom-based.
Benefits of Domo
Domo offers its users the following benefits:
- Integrates with Postgres
Domo users can easily connect to PostgreSQL and pull data for analysis without installing any third-party tool or driver.
2. User-friendliness
Domo was designed to help all types of users, including business users, to extract insights from their data. It provides simple drag-and-drop tools for generating visualizations.
3. Supports many integrations
Domo users have access to over 1000 connectors to various data sources, hence, they can pull data from the widest number of sources for analysis and visualizations.
4. Fit for non-technical users
Domo has the Domo.AI feature to facilitate chat-style data exploration. Non-technical users can ask questions about their data in natural language and get visual responses.
Limitations of Domo
Domo has the following limitations:
- Limited integrations
Domo doesn't come with connectors to all data sources. Users must depend on the Domo Workbench Connector to pull data from unsupported sources or create custom connectors to the sources of interest.
2. May require technical knowledge
Domo users may have to build custom connectors to pull data from unsupported sources, a process that requires technical knowledge.
3. Lacks native support for machine learning
Domo doesn't have in-built machine learning capabilities, but it instead relies on third parties such as Amazon Sagemaker.
Looker
Looker is a completely cloud-based BI platform that comes with a PostgreSQL connector that allows you to access your Postgres data from Looker Studio. The connector can be found by clicking "Create" and then choosing "Data Source" in Looker Studio. Looker's Postgres connector supports two connection options, Basic and JDBC URL. The basic connection option allows you to connect to PostgreSQL with a hostname or IP address. You will also be asked to provide the port number (optional) and the Postgres database name to connect to. Authentication is done using your Postgres username and password. To connect via a JDBC URL, you must provide Looker with a JDBC URL that specifies the details of your PostgreSQL database including the hostname or IP address, port number, and the database name. Authentication is done using your PostgreSQL username and password. Looker also supports secure (encrypted) connections to Postgres using SSL/TLS for data security.
Looker Features
Looker has the following features for its users:
- Integrations
Looker supports integration with SQL-based data sources such as Postgres and cloud data warehouses such as Snowflake and Google BigQuery. However, Looker doesn't have connectors to NoSQL data sources. To pull data from such sources users must put their data in a relational structure for Looker to query against.
Looker's Postgres connector uses a PostgreSQL JDBC driver to connect a Looker Studio data source to a single PostgreSQL database table. You can then access all the table columns as fields in your Looker reports. You can also choose the CUSTOM QUERY option instead of connecting to a single table.
2. Visualizations
Looker users have access to a wide variety of visualizations to help them make sense of their data. Examples include radar charts, gauge charts, bar charts, sunburst charts, and area charts. Users can customize the visualizations to improve their appearance.
3. Analytics
Looker has Looker Blocks, which are pre-built data models for the common data sources and analytical patterns. They facilitate quick data modeling in Looker. With Looker Blocks, users can reuse the work done by other Looker users instead of starting from scratch. You can customize the blocks to meet your specific needs.
4. Embedded Analytics
Looker has the Looker Embedded solution to help users embed their interactive dashboards and its analytical capabilities into business applications. It lets users and customers explore data embedded into an iframe in HTML-formatted applications, web pages, and portals.
5. Alerts/Anomaly Detection
With Looker, you can configure alerts to be notified when your query results meet certain conditions. You can configure the frequency with which Looker will be checking your data for the alert condition. The alerts can be received via email or Slack.
6. Customer Support
You can get help about Looker from Looker Studio's help page. It has help topics to help you learn how to use the BI platform. You can type your question on the search bar and you will get article suggestions that can help you.
It also has a community forum where you can post your questions and get answers from other Looker users.
7. Pricing
Looker (Google Cloud Core) has categorized its pricing into two: platform pricing and user pricing. Platform pricing is the price of running a Looker (Google Cloud Core) instance and it covers costs such as platform administration. User pricing is the cost of licensing users to access Looker.
There are three Platform pricing plans namely Standard, Enterprise, and Embed and they have a custom-based pricing approach. There are also three editions for Looker User pricing namely Developer User, Standard User, and Viewer User, and their pricing is custom-based.
Benefits of Looker
Looker users enjoy the following benefits:
- Seamless integration with Postgres
Looker users can easily connect to PostgreSQL and pull their data for analysis and visualization. Looker doesn't require them to install any driver or perform complex configuration.
2. Data encryption
Looker users can enable TLS/SSL security while connecting to PostgreSQL to encrypt their data. This can protect the data from unauthorized manipulation.
3. Customizable visualizations
Looker allows users to customize their visualizations to get the desired appearance.
4. Multi-cloud friendly
Looker is a multi-cloud-friendly BI tool. Its users enjoy much flexibility when choosing where to deploy it and the underlying databases.
Limitations of Looker
Looker users encounter the following challenges:
- Doesn't integrate with NoSQL data sources
Looker doesn't have connectors to NoSQL data sources. It requires users to move their data into a relational structure for it to query against.
2. May require a learning curve
Looker users may have to learn LookML, its proprietary markup language to access some of its features. This may require a learning curve.
3. Limited US customer support
Looker has gone through many changes after its acquisition by Google, including scaling down its US customer support team. The BI tool has also created confusion among its users in terms of naming (Looker Studio).
Final Thoughts
Postgres is an advanced, enterprise-scale, relational database management system that supports both SQL (relational) and JSON (non-relational) querying. Postgres has a huge community around it, giving users a wide variety of options when choosing a PostgreSQL reporting tool.
Knowi, Tableau, Power BI, Domo, and Looker are some of the best Postgres reporting tools.
Knowi is an all-in-one data analytics platform that enables warehousing, visualization, and reporting automation from PostgreSQL along with other structured and unstructured data sources. Knowi users can connect directly to Postgres from its UI if the database is accessible from the cloud, or use its Cloud9Agent to securely pull data inside their network. They can also execute direct queries against Postgres, in which data for displaying widgets is fetched in real-time, or choose non-direct queries in which query results are stored in its Elastic Store to facilitate long-running queries.
Tableau is a powerful data analysis and visualization tool that comes with a Postgres connector. The connector requires you to download a driver from Tableau's official website and install it for the two platforms to communicate. You must know the name of the server hosting the database and the database name. Tableau supports two options for authentication, integrated authentication and username and password.
Power BI is a BI tool created by Microsoft that comes with a PostgreSQL connector. The connector requires you to provide the name of the server hosting your Postgres database as well as the database name. Authentication is done using PostgreSQL's username and password. Users can import their Postgres data into Power BI or create a DirectQuery to import the PostgreSQL data when needed.
Domo is a cloud-based business intelligence platform and one of the best PostgreSQL reporting tools. Its Postgres connector can be found in the Data Center by clicking the "database" option. It requires you to provide details such as the server name, database name, port number, and PostgreSQL username and password. Users can create customized SQL queries to pull their Postgres data or use its Query Builder to build queries by selecting tables and columns.
Looker is a cloud-based business intelligence tool that comes with a Postgres connector. Users can choose between a Basic connection to connect to PostgreSQL using hostname/IP address or JDBC URL to provide a JDBC URL with the connection details. Authentication is done using your PostgreSQL username and password. Looker users can also enable SSL/TLS for a secure(encrypted) connection to Postgres.