Many friends privately wrote to me, wanting me to make a domestic BI tool evaluation, today to start the first issue: Fansoft VS Guanyuan
Let's still put the assessment elements first:
(1) Tools
(1) Ease of use
Most of the objects of BI are still business personnel and professional data analysts, so whether the tools are good to use, whether the interactive experience is silky, and whether there are enough learning resources largely determine whether users will continue to use it and whether they can be used in depth. Most BI tools on the market have the concept of "zero code": if you can drag, pull, and drag the implementation, you don't write complex functions. Fine BI and Guanyuan's BI are no exception.
The functions of Guanyuan are displayed layer by layer through the pages, so the structure of each page is very simple, even novices who have never touched BI tools can follow the tips for data analysis and chart making.
The Fine BI operation interface is relatively informative, and the functions are tiled on a single page, which is distinguished by lines and surfaces, which is more difficult to quickly analyze data when the screen is small and the amount of data is large. However, it is also because the functional information display is relatively rich and the level is relatively small, and the operation efficiency will be particularly high when analyzing the real scene.
For example:
If I want to analyze the sales data of store A this month, then I need to find the data as the first step.
In Guanyuan BI, I only need to click three times, and the page will go layer by layer to find the store data table, which is the ease of use of Guanyuan BI. But note the premise of this operation: I know the full name of the table, and I also know what the fields in the table are.
In Fine BI, I directly find or enter keywords in the search box to find the corresponding table and data, and when I find that this table is not what I want, I can directly select another one to view until I find the data I want, which is the Fine BI operation interface is rich in information.
In fact, it is more of the following scenario, I only know the general keywords, but I don't know which table it is, so I need to open several tables one by one to determine which table the data I want to use is in.
In terms of whether it is good to get started and interactive experience, when watching the product demonstration, you will feel that the view is better, but in the actual business use process, you will find that the interaction of Fine BI is more suitable for exploratory analysis.
In fact, for most people, the habit of data analysis comes from Excel, Fine BI continues the soft report tool FineReport, using an Excel-like operation interface, and Guanyuan's smartETL operators are not many, it seems simple, in the actual process of processing data may require a lot of operations, business is still difficult to use.
Fansoft and Guanyuan have text version and video version tutorial entrance on the official website, and the learning materials are flat.
(2) Performance
In terms of product architecture, Guanyuan encapsulates Clickhouse, and Fansoft adopts StarRocks big data solution. In the case of "high concurrency", a query of clickhouse occupies half of the CPU of the server, starpocks can be pre-aggregated, and hundreds of millions of data tables can be aggregated into millions of tables to improve concurrency efficiency. Generally speaking, ClickHouse is suitable for scenarios with wide tables with fewer dimensional changes, and StarRocks not only has better performance in single-table tests, but also has greater advantages in multi-table correlation scenarios.
For specific selection, please see this article "ClickHouse vs StarRocks Selection Comparison".
When talking about data processing, it is best to divide the performance into two parts: below 10 million levels and above 10 million levels (the amount of big data generally refers to more than 100 million levels).
For datasets with data volumes of less than 10 million rows, the Spider engine used by Fansoft and the Spark engine used by Guanyuan can provide a better response experience.
But in the scenario of large data volume, don't listen to manufacturers boasting, the domestic and foreign BI manufacturers I know cannot provide better support, and they are no longer suitable for using extraction mode for analysis. In this case, either carry out the underlying data optimization and build a big data platform; Or find out if the vendor has a solution.
I understand that Fansoft has a big data volume solution, which is probably to select a database with good performance to adapt and optimize it, so as to achieve the support of hundreds of millions of big data. How is the specific implementation effect, I haven't learned about it here, and friends who have understood it can share it in the comment area.
(3) Function
BI tools have many functions, and different tools have different focuses, so on the basis of ensuring ease of use and performance, it is still necessary to look at the matching degree of functions and enterprise needs.
- Data preparation
Both Fansoft and Guanyuan support two forms of data connection: filling in and connecting to databases. Guanyuan directly has the function of data filling in BI, while Fansoft data filling is to use the report tool FineReport, which has a strong filling ability, but the product integration needs to be investigated.
In the case of connecting to the database, the difficulty of accessing both is relatively simple, but there are some differences in the types of databases supported.
In terms of access, as long as the database server adds a whitelist that allows access, fill in the corresponding database address and account password, and then access immediately. Fine BI supports most of the major databases, and there are more than the most significant databases.
The steps of Guanyuan access and Fansoft are the same, and they are relatively simple. Guanyuan basically supports common databases on the market, and if there are no special needs, they are enough.
- data processing
In the ETL link, Fansoft uses the whole family bucket mode as always, and has a special tool FineDataLink to provide a one-stop data processing platform, which can be said to be specially prepared for IT data development and processing modules, supporting data synchronization, data conversion, comparison and deletion, data association, row and column conversion, JSON parsing, SQL scripts, conditional branching, circular containers and other professional data processing operations. In essence, Fansoft believes that data processing should be handed over to IT, while data editing and analysis can be done by the business itself.
Guanyuan has a special intelligent data processing module (Smart ETL), and users can drag and drop data processing operations and data fusion on multiple data sources. It can be seen that Guanyuan wants to provide simple ETL tools to let the business undertake part of the data processing work, but in the actual use process, text processing, index calculation, etc. need to use more formulas, which requires the quality of business personnel.
- Data analysis and visualization
The basic data analysis function, I will not expand on, the gap between the two tools is not much, such as OLAP analysis, both can be easily configured linkage, jump, drilling, etc.; Both support parameter participation in calculation and filtering; All support quick calculations such as one-click calculation of year-on-month comparison, maximum and minimum, average, standard deviation of variance (not supported by Guanyuan), proportion, cumulation, etc.
At the advanced data analysis level, Fine BI version 6.0 strongly launched the DEF function for complex analysis scenarios, claiming that mastering a formula can solve all data analysis scenarios. THE EMERGENCE OF THE DEF FUNCTION IS THE FIRST SHOT OF DOMESTIC IMPACT ON ADVANCED COMPUTING, WHICH IS SOMEWHAT DECLARING WAR ON TABLEAU LOD AND DAX CALCULATE, I WILL STUDY MORE AND STRIVE TO ADD SOME PRACTICAL APPLICATION NEXT TIME.
In terms of visualization, Fine BI is consistent with the design ideas of Power BI and Tableau, which design visualization modules based on graphical syntax, decomposing the graph construction process into a series of composable elements and operations, so as to achieve repeatable, scalable and flexible graph generation.
In addition, Fine BI can make visual dashboards, but does not have the function of visual large screen (usually implemented with FineReport) and does not have complex report functions (usually implemented with FineReport). Therefore, under normal circumstances, the company's procurement of soft products is in the form of FR+BI.
In terms of visualization, Guanyuan BI chose the idea of "graphics before problems", first determined the required chart type, and then displayed, which was slightly weak in terms of style switching flexibility, and they also invested in the number of fixed charts, with more than 50 fixed chart types.
In addition, Guanyuan's BI is a comprehensive collection of visual large screen and report functions, only divided into functional modules, does not distinguish software, and does a better job in integration.
- Platform governance
Permission control is usually the point of more attention in procurement, I have sorted out the relevant permission control functions, you can take a closer look when comparing. Here are two problems I noticed, the permissions of Fansoft do not support direct reuse of templates, but through the linkage between tables to reuse permissions, which is somewhat different from our usual usage habits. Guanyuan's line permission control needs to use SQL, the more layers SQL the more complex the SQL, and the more complex the company structure, it is very uncomfortable.
To give a very practical example: A leads the permission of a data table uploaded by C in department A, and A and B are from two departments in a separate project, but C is not the leader of these two departments, at this time to set the permission assignment, write SQL can write to crash.
(2) Manufacturers
Fansoft started early, well-known, with a total of more than 26,000 customers, previously had a place in the reporting field with FineReport, and now more is promoting Fine BI6.0. Even if it is a relatively old software company, focusing on "never going public", there is almost no need to worry about being cut leeks, manufacturing, financial industry, pharmaceutical industry solutions and customers do more, the volume is very loud.
Guanyuan is a rising star in the BI industry, taking the route of financing and listing, focusing on the retail industry. In recent years, Guanyuan's market expansion has been fierce, the solution side is some senior businesses deeply engaged in the industry, and the marketing side has also proposed the concept of "AI+BI", and the movement on the product side is not large.
From my point of view, when selecting a company, you should also consider whether it can land, and I was invited to participate in the "AI+BI" internal testing activity before, and the error rate was still relatively high. However, I am optimistic about "AI+BI" and hope that domestic BI can generate voice internationally.
(3) Market
In Gartner's 2021 Magic Quadrant for Analytics and BI Platforms, both Power Bl and Tableau are in the Leaders quadrant. The leader of the domestic market is Fansoft Software, which has been at the top of IDC's China BI Market Tracker for many consecutive years.
Private me free to use tools
brief summary
Under the wave of localization, domestic manufacturers have obvious ambitions for foreign software substitution, and indeed have more advantages in localization services and landing capabilities. It is foreseeable that under the cultivation of a large number of favorable policies and innovative soil, more domestic BI products will appear in the domestic market, competing with foreign products, and domestic BI products will receive more attention.
Finally, I will share with you a BI tool selection scoring table, and enterprises can compare the above factors according to their freedom, score according to the evaluation dimension, and then calculate the total score according to the weight.