Self-service analytics has empowered teams and now drives faster data-driven decisions
What is our primary use case?
My name is Peter Chemo, a Financial Analyst at Nesto.
One of the major challenges that ThoughtSpot solves is reducing the dependency on data teams for reports and insights. ThoughtSpot also integrates well with modern data cloud platforms like Snowflake. This platform enables the creation of dynamic, interactive dashboards and visualization which helps track KPIs and provide insights into business performance. We are able to make data-driven decisions, know how our business is doing, and understand where to put more effort and where our clients are very happy about our business. ThoughtSpot empowers non-technical users to perform ad hoc data analysis. Users can use a Google-like search interface to query data and generate insights in real-time without relying on the data team.
We are able to gather data insights from different data sources and make our own data-driven decisions easily without even involving the data team. ThoughtSpot delivers performance at scale, ensuring that even the largest organization can quickly analyze and visualize data without needing a data team. I love the ability to seamlessly share live dashboards, foster collaboration, and ensure everyone in the organization is working from the same data source and aligned in decision-making.
ThoughtSpot allows us to create live boards that process quickly when it comes to large datasets. We are able to do a live data connection that gives us scalability to find insights that ultimately guide us in the strategic management of our data, whether it is engineering, marketing, product, or any department. Our teams are able to make their own data-driven decisions easily. This serves a wide array of use cases when the strategy is focused on product.
We gather data from different departments through ThoughtSpot, which enables us to collaborate and make data-driven decisions together.
What is most valuable?
I have an experience of four years using ThoughtSpot.
ThoughtSpot is very easy to use. Even non-technical users find it very easy to use and user-friendly.
Some of the best features ThoughtSpot offers are innovation, ease of use, and data analytics. Reporting development is also pretty easy, making complex formulas slightly easier. Additionally, dashboarding for non-technical people, easy search of data, ease of getting insights, AI-driven analytics, and the ability to easily build charts are highlights. ThoughtSpot also offers data connection with live data sources.
ThoughtSpot's scalability is impressive; it can handle large data easily, and performance has been powerful and reliable. The AI-driven analytics capabilities in ThoughtSpot help to predict future outcomes and are very helpful in tracking data, and performance is great.
What needs improvement?
The customizability of the visualization live boards should be improved. Additional support for more data warehouse systems is needed, as data does not always match sometimes. Sophisticated data modeling features like AFC should be included.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working in my current field for five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
ThoughtSpot is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
ThoughtSpot's scalability is impressive; it can handle large data easily, and performance has been powerful and reliable.
How are customer service and support?
The customer support for ThoughtSpot is very proactive and supportive, available 24/7.
It was very easy for my team to learn and adopt ThoughtSpot since it has a very user-friendly interface. The customer support is proactive 24/7, so they are able to support both technical and non-technical users.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We switched from Looker and Sisense before using ThoughtSpot.
I did not previously use a different solution before ThoughtSpot.
How was the initial setup?
The integration process with our existing data sources and tools is very seamless.
The performance of ThoughtSpot has been very fast, reliable, and consistent, even when handling huge amounts of data. I have not seen any crashes.
What was our ROI?
This tool has really improved our decision-making by 70 to 80% because we are able to rely on insights from different data sources from different departments. We can make data-driven decisions easily. ThoughtSpot is a very good tool because it does not usually take much time from the data team. We make our own decisions without even involving the data team, allowing them to save time and focus on more strategic projects.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing for ThoughtSpot are competitive, and it is a very user-friendly tool compared to its competitors. Setting it up was easy and straightforward.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing ThoughtSpot, I evaluated the Microsoft BI tool.
What other advice do I have?
If others want to be reliant on themselves and not on the data team, they should consider using ThoughtSpot. ThoughtSpot gathers insights from different data sources and allows for making their own data-driven decisions.
It is easy to make data-driven decisions with ThoughtSpot. Consequently, we are able to gather insights from different data sources, improving data security. Tracking and progress reports are simple to generate, and the speed of execution is commendable.
ThoughtSpot is very easy to use, cost-effective, and a very secure tool. I would rate this product an 8 out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Steep Learning Curve, But Powerful
What do you like best about the product?
I find ThoughtSpot to be a great tool once you get used to using it. It helps me put data together in ways that make it easy for me to tell a story. I use it to gather and compare performance data.
What do you dislike about the product?
I think it's very difficult to learn how to use ThoughtSpot. It takes a long time to really learn it, and I'm still not even close to where I want to be proficiency-wise. The initial setup was confusing, though manageable.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
I use ThoughtSpot to gather and compare performance data, which allows me to easily put data together to tell a story.
Great for Search-Driven Analysts with Interactive Dashboards
What do you like best about the product?
It is good for search driven analysts,interactive dashboard,
What do you dislike about the product?
Expensive,limited customisation less control over visual design
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
More people can find insight without deep technical skills
ThoughtSpot: Easy to Use, Clear Documentation, and Seamless AI Integration
What do you like best about the product?
What I like most about ThoughtSpot is its ease of use, the ability to build relationships within the data model, and its very clear documentation. It also offers a seamless integration of AI capabilities and a well-designed user interface that aligns closely with market needs.
What do you dislike about the product?
“ThoughtSpot is highly accessible to end users, so once the models are built correctly within the platform, the responsibility for operating reports and visualizations lies with the end users. You don’t need to be a BI developer to manage the system. This has saved the data and engineering teams significant time, allowing them to focus on deeper business analysis rather than report maintenance.”What I like less at the moment is that while the platform is very AI-focused, their agent isn’t as powerful as I would expect. It doesn’t fully learn user behavior as anticipated, even though it leverages the OpenAI engine.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
ThoughtSpot is highly accessible to end users, so once the models are built correctly within the platform, the responsibility for operating reports and visualizations lies with the end users. You don’t need to be a BI developer to manage the system. This has saved the data and engineering teams significant time, allowing them to focus on deeper business analysis rather than report maintenance.
Great Self-Service, But Formulas, Modeling, and Dashboard Access Are Too Many Steps
What do you like best about the product?
The platform makes it easy for non-technical users to self-serve, and the software is relatively easy to learn. Customer support is also responsive.
What do you dislike about the product?
The formulas don’t use SQL or Excel-style formatting, so they’re difficult to build, understand, and troubleshoot.
Also, for a dashboard to include filters, the data has to be created as a model rather than pulled directly from the source table. That’s frustrating because it adds an extra step to what should be a straightforward setup.
Adding users to dashboards and granting access also feels unnecessarily drawn out. Users request access, it comes through via email, and when you click “grant” it takes you to the dashboard—where you then have to remember the user’s name and manually add them yourself. On top of that, if someone needs to use the dashboard filters, you’re required to give them access to the underlying sources. Why? Overall, there are just too many steps.
The formatting available within ThoughtSpot also feels very limiting in terms of fonts, colour palettes, themes, etc. available.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Dashboarding and analytics for the business in real-time. Varied dashboards can be built fairly quickly and easily to answer business questions.
Empowering Self-Service Analytics with Room for Governance
What do you like best about the product?
I love ThoughtSpot for its simple self-serve interface and AI natural language queries, which make it quick and easy for users to get to the right data. It's great because it empowers non-technical users to explore our data, solve problems, and answer their own questions without relying on the BI team. This speeds up insight generation and improves our organization’s data literacy.
What do you dislike about the product?
Because users can create their own 'answers' and 'liveboards', it can make governance difficult, leading to a number of duplicated, inefficient reports.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
ThoughtSpot simplifies data exploration for non-technical users, speeds up insight generation, and boosts our organization's data literacy. The self-serve interface and AI natural language queries make it quick and easy to access the right data.
Intuitive and Inspiring Analytics Platform
What do you like best about the product?
I have found Thoughtspot really easy to use. It's intuitive and easy to set up data dashboard and look for insights. I really like the Thoughtspot university, which helped me find more functions and uses in the beginning. Very inspirational.
What do you dislike about the product?
I wish more teams in my company would use it as it's easy to set up.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Time saving and getting data insights quickly. Allowing me to share & provide regular updates & insights with other team members too.
Effortless Analytics with Intuitive Multi-Module Support
What do you like best about the product?
ThoughtSpot is helpful in capturing analytics for my team. I love the ease of use and the ability to have several data modules available at once.
What do you dislike about the product?
No issues at this time. I have only been using it for a few months now and have not had any issues.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
ThoughtSpot allows me access to several data modules all at once. This allows me the ability to speak to data on meetings when questions are asked.
ThoughtSpot Redefines Self-Service BI at Enterprise Scale
What do you like best about the product?
Natural Language Search allows users to query data using plain English, significantly reducing analysis times from hours to minutes. This makes self-service analytics accessible to non-technical stakeholders.
Real-Time Queries are possible through a live connection to the Redshift warehouse on AWS, providing almost instant results even when working with hundreds of billions of rows.
Security and Governance are enhanced with Role-Based Access (RBA) and Row-Level Security (RLS), giving Thoughtspot a compliance advantage and reducing the complexity often found in other BI solutions.
Scalability for Enterprise Loads is another strength, as the system is designed to manage massive and complex datasets from numerous data sources. Its cloud-native architecture helps avoid the performance issues that can occur with legacy BI tools.
The Unified Workflow Ecosystem is also notable. Analyst Studio brings together SQL, Python, R, and visualizations in a single environment, which greatly boosts productivity and supports end-to-end analysis without losing context.
What do you dislike about the product?
High and Opaque Pricing Policy: ThoughtSpot’s custom-quoted pricing model can be a shock to BI budgets, particularly for those looking to embed or scale the platform, with costs exceeding $500K annually for large-scale deployments. In contrast to Power BI’s affordable per-user tiers or Tableau’s transparent licensing, ThoughtSpot’s pricing can feel unpredictable and may pose a significant barrier for smaller startups and SMBs.
Limited Visualization and Customization Options: The dashboards lack the refinement and variety found in Tableau’s or Power BI’s advanced charting capabilities. ThoughtSpot’s auto-generated visuals often appear basic and can feel sluggish during in-depth analysis. The user interface can be tedious, making it less suitable for presentation-ready reports when compared to the pixel-perfect designs offered by competitors.
AI and NLP Limitations in Real-World Scenarios: The natural language search feature may struggle with complex or nuanced queries unless there is substantial upfront modeling. It lags behind tools like Sigma, which offer spreadsheet-like intuitiveness, or newer options like Zenlytic for genuine ad-hoc exploration. Achieving true self-service still requires a dedicated data professional team to ensure complete output accuracy, unlike Power BI Copilot’s broader capabilities.
Performance Glitches and Stability Issues: While ThoughtSpot is fast for live queries and individual answers, liveboards (dashboards) can become laggy or unresponsive when handling massive datasets and numerous visualizations during exploratory work. This stands in contrast to Tableau’s reliable rendering or Looker’s efficient query handling.
There are also several feature gaps and occasional bugs, which can make ThoughtSpot less dependable for high-stakes, real-time enterprise use compared to other well-established alternatives.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
ThoughtSpot is addressing the 'last-mile' challenge in business intelligence. Previously, our business users often had to wait days or even weeks to get the answers they needed. With the introduction of natural language search, they can now simply ask questions in plain English or use a point-and-click interface to receive answers within seconds, even when working with hundreds of billions of rows. Since deploying ThoughtSpot, the number of analysis requests has dropped by 800%, now averaging just 10 to 15 requests per month. This shift has enabled us to reclaim 70-75% of our business intelligence engineering team's time for more valuable work.
ThoughtSpot: Powerful Analytics, Real-Time Insights, and Effortless Collaboration
What do you like best about the product?
We use ThoughtSpot for analytics and it has been awesome. It makes good use of business data to detects patterns and trends and it helps in decision making.
It offers great AI features as well as real-time analytics to ensure efficiency and speed.
I like the data accuracy and the collaboration aspects where everyone has a centralized point to access business data.
Beside simplifying complex business data, then tool also makes visualization and diagramming easy.
What do you dislike about the product?
ThoughtSpot is the best I have used. No complaints.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We use the product to run analytics on our business data no not only understand data deeper but also get helpful and actionable insights.
