Mobile BI tools compared (2026): native apps, offline access, push alerts, and AI on 8 platforms

The strongest mobile BI tools in 2026 are Power BI and Qlik Cloud Analytics for offline use, Tableau and ThoughtSpot for push alerts on the metrics you follow, and Domo and Zoho Analytics for asking questions in the app in plain English. All six have native iOS and Android apps. Looker has a native app but documents no offline mode or AI in it, and Basedash runs as a Home Screen web app on iPhone built around asking questions out loud. Every price and feature below was checked against the vendor’s official documentation on October 14, 2026.

What counts as mobile BI in 2026

Mobile BI used to mean a shrunken copy of a desktop dashboard. Today it covers three different things, and most buyers need more than one:

• A native app from the App Store or Google Play, with features like offline caching, push notifications, biometric app lock, and device management.
• A phone layout that an author designs (or the tool generates) so a dashboard reads top to bottom on a small screen.
• Delivery to where people already are: push alerts, scheduled email snapshots, and Slack messages that put the number in front of someone without opening the BI tool at all.

AI has added a fourth: asking a question by typing or speaking on the phone and getting a chart back. That is now available in some form in six of the eight tools below.

How we evaluated mobile BI tools

We picked criteria from the questions buyers ask when mobile access is a requirement, such as “which BI tools include mobile access in the base license vs add on” and “BI tools that support scheduled email reports and mobile dashboards”:

1. Native apps and platforms. iOS, Android, tablets, and anything recently retired.
2. Licensing. Whether a viewer can use mobile on the base license or needs something extra.
3. Offline access. What still works with no connection, and the limits.
4. Push alerts. What triggers a notification on the phone.
5. AI on mobile. Natural language or voice questions inside the mobile app, and the license it needs.
6. Governance. Phone layouts, MDM and Intune support, biometric lock, and SSO.

Prices are list prices from official pricing pages as of October 2026. Where a vendor’s docs say nothing about a capability, the table says “not documented” rather than guessing.

Mobile BI comparison table

A second table covers the general fact card for each tool, since mobile is rarely the only buying criterion.

Which BI tools include mobile access in the base license?

All eight tools treat mobile as part of the product rather than a paid add-on, but “included” does not always mean “free to view.”

• Tableau is the clearest: its license page says Viewer licenses “let users access Tableau Mobile,” so the cheapest paid role gets the app.
• ThoughtSpot lists “Mobile for iOS and Android” on every plan on its pricing page, including Essentials.
• Zoho Analytics ticks “Mobile Apps” for Basic through Enterprise on its pricing page.
• Looker enables the mobile app for every instance by default, and admins can limit it with the mobile_app_access permission.
• Qlik Cloud needs no special role; admins control the “Native mobile app” permission, with an option to require Intune (Qlik help).
• Power BI is the one to read carefully. The app is free, but a Free license can only view shared content if it sits in Premium capacity or Fabric F64 or larger (Microsoft Learn). Otherwise every viewer needs Pro or Premium Per User.

Which mobile BI apps work offline?

Only two tools document real offline analysis. Qlik Cloud Analytics downloads whole apps to the device and runs them on the phone, so you can still make selections in an airplane; offline login lasts 7 days after the last online login, and Direct Query apps are not supported in the mobile app (Qlik setup docs). Power BI keeps read-only copies of reports you have opened, up to 250 MB, but reports on DirectQuery or a live connection are not cached (Microsoft Learn).

Tableau sits in between: it stores interactive previews of favorites, your start page, and favorited collections, but filtering, viz-in-tooltip, and trend lines do not work offline (Tableau help). Zoho Analytics shows only the list of workspaces and views when offline; the documented workaround is exporting a view to PDF first (Zoho help). Looker, ThoughtSpot, Domo, and Basedash do not document an offline mode.

Which mobile BI apps let you ask questions in plain English or by voice?

• Power BI has two Copilot experiences in the mobile apps, both in preview: one inside the report you are viewing and a standalone one that can query any report or semantic model. The standalone version accepts dictated questions on iPhone and iPad (Microsoft Learn). Copilot needs F2 or larger Fabric capacity or P1 or larger Premium; a Pro or PPU license alone is not enough (Copilot requirements).
• ThoughtSpot puts Spotter in a tab in the app, and you can type or speak a question; anyone with Spotter on the web gets it on mobile (ThoughtSpot docs).
• Zoho Analytics lets you ask Zia by voice or text and get a report back (Zoho help).
• Domo offers AI Chat in the mobile app to answer questions and generate visualizations, with no extra grants needed (Domo docs).
• Tableau shows Pulse insight summaries and suggested questions in the app; the richer Tableau Agent in Pulse is a Tableau+ feature on web and mobile (Tableau help).
• Basedash is built around voice on the phone: tap the mic, ask, check the live transcript, and the AI data analyst answers with a chart you can drill into by tapping (launch post).
• Qlik does not support Insight Advisor Chat in its mobile app (Qlik support), though Qlik Answers chat works in mobile browsers. Looker’s mobile docs do not mention Gemini or Conversational Analytics.

Power BI

Best for: Microsoft 365 organizations that need offline reports, Intune-managed devices, and phone-specific report layouts.

Power BI has the most complete mobile feature set of any tool here. Authors can build a dedicated phone layout for each report page in the mobile layout view, and admins can manage the app with Intune or any MDM provider and force biometric sign-in (app configuration). The tradeoffs are licensing and AI: Copilot on mobile is still in preview and needs Fabric or Premium capacity, and data alerts only work on card and gauge tiles (data alerts).

Fact card: Power BI

• Pricing (as of October 2026): Free account; Pro $14 per user per month and Premium Per User $24, paid yearly; Fabric capacity priced separately (pricing).
• Free tier or trial: Free account, plus a 60-day Fabric trial.
• Deployment: cloud; Power BI Report Server on-premises with P SKUs.
• Mobile apps: iOS and iPadOS 18+, Apple Watch (bundled with the iOS app), and Android; the Windows app was retired on December 31, 2023. View and interact only; authoring happens in Desktop or the service.
• Query model: Import, DirectQuery, Direct Lake, hybrid tables, or live connections.
• Security: RLS applies to users with Viewer permissions; sign-in and provisioning through Microsoft Entra ID.
• Scheduled reports: email subscriptions with a snapshot image; PDF or PowerPoint attachments need Premium capacity or PPU.
• Embedding: secure embed by URL or iframe, JavaScript SDK, REST API, and Power BI Embedded.
• Not ideal for: teams outside the Microsoft stack or teams that want AI on mobile without buying capacity.

Tableau

Best for: organizations that want every Viewer on mobile and metric alerts pushed to phones through Tableau Pulse.

Tableau Mobile is view only by design: the docs say it “is for viewing visualizations but not for creating them” (getting started). Since November 2025 it sends push notifications when a followed Pulse metric crosses into an unfavorable range or starts a new unfavorable trend. Authors can design a phone device layout per dashboard, and admins can lock down copy, paste, and downloads with AppConfig keys. Pulse is a Tableau Cloud feature, so Tableau Server customers get less from the app.

Fact card: Tableau

• Pricing (as of October 2026): Tableau Standard starts at $15 per user per month and Tableau Enterprise at $35, billed annually; Creator licenses cost more, and every deployment needs at least one (pricing).
• Free tier or trial: free Tableau Cloud trial.
• Deployment: Tableau Cloud or self-managed Tableau Server.
• Mobile apps: iOS 17+ (iPhone and iPad) and Android 13+. Offline previews for favorites, start page, and favorited collections. The Workspace ONE edition of the app is being retired.
• Query model: live connections or extracts on a schedule.
• Security: user filters for RLS, data policies with Data Management; SAML; SCIM on Tableau Cloud and on Tableau Server 2025.3 and later.
• Scheduled reports: subscriptions as PNG, PDF, or both; Viewers can subscribe themselves.
• Embedding: Embedding API v3 web components, connected apps, REST API.
• Not ideal for: offline filtering, editing on the phone, or Tableau Server shops that want Pulse.

Looker

Best for: Google Cloud teams that want governed LookML dashboards and alerts on the phone, with SSO and biometric sign-in.

The current Looker app covers Looker (Google Cloud core), Looker (original), and Data Studio Pro in one place (mobile app docs). On Looker 26.6 and later, anyone who receives an alert by email also gets a push notification (alerts). Dashboards switch to a single column on phones unless the author turns on “Preserve desktop layout.” The gaps are offline access and AI, neither of which the mobile docs mention. Teams on the older app should plan a move: Looker Mobile (Legacy) will be deprecated on January 31, 2027.

Fact card: Looker

• Pricing (as of October 2026): quote only, on one- to three-year annual terms; Standard, Enterprise, and Embed editions, each with ten standard and two developer users included (pricing).
• Free tier or trial: trial edition instances (overview).
• Deployment: Looker (Google Cloud core) is Google-hosted; Looker (original) can be customer-hosted.
• Mobile apps: iPhone (iOS 17+) and Android; view, filter, and drill only. Admins can force re-authentication after 60 minutes of inactivity.
• Query model: live SQL against your database, with persistent derived tables written back to it.
• Security: access_filter for row-level rules; SAML, OIDC, and LDAP; SCIM in preview through Workforce Identity Federation.
• Scheduled reports: dashboards as PDF, PNG, or a CSV zip on every edition.
• Embedding: private embedding, signed and cookieless embedding on the Embed edition, Embed SDK, API.
• Not ideal for: offline field use or anyone expecting Gemini on the phone.

Qlik Cloud Analytics

Best for: field and frontline teams that need to explore data with no signal.

Qlik’s app, renamed from Qlik Sense SaaS mobile to Qlik Analytics, is the only one here that runs full analytics offline: apps download to the device and the associative engine runs locally, so selections work in airplane mode (using the app). Admins can require Intune before sign-in and apply app protection policies (mobile configuration). The limits: Direct Query apps do not work in the mobile app, the Alerts tab is missing on Standard tenants, and AI chat is not in the native app.

Fact card: Qlik Cloud Analytics

• Pricing (as of October 2026): Starter from $300 per month for 10 users and 10 GB; Standard from $825 per month for 25 GB; Premium from $2,750 per month for 50 GB; Enterprise by quote; all billed annually (pricing).
• Free tier or trial: 30-day trial, no credit card.
• Deployment: Qlik Cloud, or client-managed Qlik Sense Enterprise (with a separate mobile app).
• Mobile apps: one app for iOS and Android phones and tablets; explore and bookmark, no editing. PIN or biometric app lock.
• Query model: in-memory associative engine, with Direct Query for Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery, and Redshift.
• Security: Section Access for row and column rules; SAML; SCIM through Microsoft Entra ID.
• Scheduled reports: PDF or PowerPoint report subscriptions; Starter allows up to 250 reports.
• Embedding: qlik-embed web components and React, iframes, nebula.js and enigma.js.
• Not ideal for: Direct Query-heavy deployments or teams that want AI chat inside the app.

ThoughtSpot

Best for: teams that want to ask questions on the phone, by typing or speaking, against live warehouse data.

ThoughtSpot Mobile pairs a Watchlist of KPIs with push notifications for shares, scheduled alerts, and threshold alerts (push notifications), and puts Spotter in its own tab. It supports a wide set of MDM platforms, including Workspace ONE, MobileIron, XenMobile, Intune, and Meraki (deployment). On mobile you can view but not edit Liveboards, there is no phone layout to design, and pivot tables, geo maps, and sankey charts do not render (mobile vs web). Spotter is not on Essentials, and Pro caps it at 25 queries per user per month.

Fact card: ThoughtSpot

• Pricing (as of October 2026): Essentials from $25 per user per month for 5 to 50 users; Pro $50 per user per month or usage-based from $0.10 per credit; Enterprise custom; billed annually (pricing).
• Free tier or trial: 14-day trial, no credit card; free embedded Developer plan for one year.
• Deployment: ThoughtSpot Cloud or ThoughtSpot Software.
• Mobile apps: iPhone, iPad, and Android, included on every plan. Enterprise SSO in the app.
• Query model: live queries to the warehouse, with an optional in-memory cache add-on.
• Security: RLS on all plans; SAML SSO on Pro and Enterprise; SCIM documented.
• Scheduled reports: Liveboard schedules as PDF, CSV, or XLSX, set up on the web.
• Embedding: Visual Embed SDK (Liveboard, Spotter, and search components) and REST API v2.
• Not ideal for: offline use, or small teams on Essentials who want AI search.

Domo

Best for: executives who want KPI cards on every Apple device, from Apple Watch to Apple TV, with alerts by push, SMS, or Slack.

Domo’s app runs on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, and Android, and adds home-screen widgets for favorite cards. Instant alerts go to email, SMS, Domo Mobile, or Slack when a value crosses a threshold (notifications), and AI Chat in the app can answer a question and build the chart. Authors customize the mobile version of a dashboard from the web and can hide cards on phones. Domo now belongs to Progress Software, which completed the acquisition of Domo’s platform business on September 22, 2026, so buyers should ask about the product roadmap.

Fact card: Domo

• Pricing (as of October 2026): custom, credit-based pricing with no per-user charges (pricing).
• Free tier or trial: 30-day free trial, no credit card; no new Freemium sign-ups.
• Deployment: cloud.
• Mobile apps: iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, and Android. Offline mode not documented; cached content is encrypted and wiped at the end of each session (mobile security). Admins can require biometric or passcode lock and restrict export and copy through support.
• Query model: data imported into Domo by default; Cloud Amplifier queries warehouses such as Snowflake in place.
• Security: PDP row policies; SAML SSO; SCIM.
• Scheduled reports: card and dashboard images by email, with an optional CSV attachment.
• Embedding: Domo Everywhere with programmatic filters.
• Not ideal for: buyers who need public, predictable pricing or a documented offline mode.

Zoho Analytics

Best for: small and midsize teams that want a low-cost native app with voice questions.

Zoho Analytics includes its mobile apps on every paid plan, and Ask Zia in the app takes questions by voice or text and answers with a report (iPhone help). Push notifications cover new shares, comments, failed scheduled imports, and triggered alerts. The main limitation is offline: reports need a connection. There is also no documented MDM support; the app lock is a PIN.

Fact card: Zoho Analytics

• Pricing (as of October 2026): Basic $24 per month (2 users), Standard $48 (5 users), Premium $115 (15 users), Enterprise $455 (50 users), billed annually; monthly billing costs about 25% more (pricing).
• Free tier or trial: free plan for 2 users and 10,000 rows; 15-day trial, no credit card.
• Deployment: cloud, or on-premise.
• Mobile apps: Mobile BI app (explore, Ask Zia) and a view-only Dashboards app, both for iOS and Android phones and tablets.
• Query model: synced imports (once a day on Basic, 8 times on Standard and Premium, 24 on Enterprise); Live Connect on Premium and Enterprise.
• Security: row filters on shared views; SAML and SCIM through Zoho Directory.
• Scheduled reports: email schedules as PDF, HTML, CSV, or Excel (export by email); 4 active schedules on Basic up to 100 on Enterprise.
• Embedding: public links on all plans, private embed links on Premium and Enterprise.
• Not ideal for: offline use or IT teams that require MDM-managed apps.

Basedash

Best for: teams that want to ask their database a question out loud on the phone and drill into the answer, not browse prebuilt dashboards.

Basedash Mobile is not an App Store app. You open Basedash in Safari on iPhone, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen, and it runs full screen with your existing data sources, chats, and dashboards (launch post). The phone experience is built around the AI data analyst: tap the mic, ask “which region grew fastest this month?”, and get a plain-language answer with a chart. Tapping a bar opens a sheet that breaks that slice down by another dimension, and dragging along a line chart reads off any day’s value. Compared with the native apps above, Basedash does not document offline access, push notifications, MDM support, or Android, so regulated field deployments are better served by Power BI, Qlik, or Tableau.

Fact card: Basedash

• Pricing (as of October 2026): Startup $1,000 per month plus AI usage, with up to 25 users and $1,000 of monthly AI credits; Enterprise custom (pricing). Monthly and annual billing.
• Free tier or trial: 14-day trial, no credit card.
• Deployment: cloud; self-hosting on Enterprise.
• Mobile: Home Screen web app on iPhone with voice input and touch drill-downs; the same product and license as desktop.
• Query model: live SQL against PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, ClickHouse, Databricks, and other native connections; SaaS apps sync into the Basedash Warehouse. Dashboards auto-refresh every 15 minutes by default.
• Alerts and scheduled reports: dashboard subscriptions send snapshots to email or Slack daily, on weekdays, weekly, monthly, or quarterly; automations send AI-written updates on a schedule or when data changes; Insights can notify by email or Slack. The Slack app answers questions in Slack, including on a phone.
• Security: row-level security for Postgres only; SSO (SAML 2.0 or OIDC) and SCIM on Enterprise; SOC 2 Type II.
• AI features: chat-based analysis, AI dashboard generation, Insights, and an MCP server on every plan.
• Embedding: Enterprise.
• Not ideal for: offline use, Android-first teams, or IT departments that require MDM-managed apps.

BI tools without a native mobile app

Several popular warehouse-native tools rely on the mobile browser instead of an app:

• Sigma adapts workbook layouts to phones automatically and lets authors set a custom mobile layout (Sigma docs).
• Omni adapts dashboard layouts for mobile, with per-container settings such as stack vertically, wrap, or hide on mobile (Omni docs).
• Metabase has no native app and its docs do not describe a mobile layout; dashboards open in a mobile browser.

Two tools outside the main table also ship native apps. Amazon Quick Sight has iOS and Android apps where readers can view dashboards, though alerts cannot be created from the app (AWS docs). Databox has iOS, Android, and Apple Watch apps with its Genie AI assistant, and threshold alerts can go to mobile (Databox help).

Which mobile BI tool should you choose?

• Your team works without signal (field sales, site visits, flights): Qlik Cloud Analytics, which runs whole apps offline, or Power BI, which caches up to 250 MB of previously opened reports.
• IT requires Intune or MDM-managed apps: Power BI, Qlik, Tableau (Intune edition and AppConfig), or ThoughtSpot.
• Executives want KPIs pushed to their phone: Tableau Pulse for metric alerts, Domo for alerts by push, SMS, or Slack across Apple devices, or ThoughtSpot’s Watchlist.
• You want to ask questions by voice: ThoughtSpot Spotter, Zoho Ask Zia, Power BI standalone Copilot (preview, capacity required), or Basedash.
• You need scheduled email reports and mobile dashboards: every tool here does both; PDF attachments need Premium or PPU in Power BI, while Tableau, Looker, Qlik, ThoughtSpot, and Zoho schedules can all send PDF. For how delivery options differ, see our guide to scheduled reports in BI tools.
• You are a small team on a budget: Zoho Analytics from $24 per month or ThoughtSpot Essentials from $25 per user.
• You already live in Slack: Basedash, whose Slack app answers questions and delivers subscriptions and alerts in channels, or Domo, which can send instant alerts to Slack. Either way, the Slack mobile app becomes a mobile BI client.

If mobile is one requirement among several, our comparison of security features by plan covers SSO, SCIM, and RLS gating, and the Power BI alternatives page compares the Microsoft stack against newer tools.

Frequently asked questions

Which BI tools include mobile access in the base license vs as an add-on?

None of the eight tools compared here lists mobile as a paid add-on in 2026. Tableau gives every role, including the $15 Viewer, access to Tableau Mobile. ThoughtSpot lists mobile apps on Essentials, Pro, and Enterprise, and Zoho Analytics includes them on every paid plan. Looker turns the app on for every instance by default. The catch is Power BI: the app is free, but viewing shared content needs a Pro or Premium Per User license unless the content sits in Premium or Fabric F64 or larger capacity.

What are the best mobile BI tools in 2026?

For native apps with offline access and device management, Power BI and Qlik Cloud Analytics lead. Tableau is strongest for pushing metric changes to phones through Pulse, ThoughtSpot for live warehouse search by voice or text, and Domo for covering every Apple device, including Apple Watch and Apple TV. Zoho Analytics is the lowest-cost native app with voice questions. Basedash fits teams that want to ask an AI analyst questions out loud on iPhone rather than browse dashboards.

Can I view BI dashboards offline on my phone?

Yes, in two tools with real offline support. Qlik Cloud Analytics downloads whole apps and runs them on the device, with offline login allowed for 7 days after the last online login. Power BI caches up to 250 MB of reports you have already opened, read-only, but skips DirectQuery and live connection reports. Tableau saves interactive previews of favorites without offline filtering. Zoho Analytics, Looker, ThoughtSpot, Domo, and Basedash do not document offline dashboard viewing.

Which BI apps let me ask data questions by voice on mobile?

ThoughtSpot Mobile accepts typed or spoken questions in its Spotter tab for anyone licensed for Spotter on the web. Zoho Analytics takes Ask Zia questions as voice notes. Power BI’s standalone Copilot supports dictation on iPhone and iPad, but it is in preview and needs Fabric F2 or Premium P1 capacity or larger. Basedash on iPhone turns the composer into a voice panel with a live transcript, then answers with a chart you can drill into.

Which BI tools support scheduled email reports and mobile dashboards?

All eight tools in this comparison do both. Power BI sends snapshot emails, with PDF or PowerPoint attachments on Premium capacity or PPU. Tableau sends PNG or PDF, Looker sends PDF, PNG, or CSV, Qlik sends PDF or PowerPoint, ThoughtSpot sends PDF, CSV, or Excel, and Zoho sends PDF, HTML, CSV, or Excel. Domo emails card images with an optional CSV, and Basedash sends dashboard snapshots to email or Slack on a daily to quarterly schedule.

Do mobile BI apps work with Microsoft Intune and MDM?

Power BI has the deepest support, with Intune app protection policies, configuration through any MDM provider, and a setting to force Face ID, Touch ID, or fingerprint. Qlik integrates the Intune SDK and can require Intune before sign-in. Tableau offers a dedicated Tableau Mobile for Intune app and AppConfig keys, and ThoughtSpot supports Workspace ONE, MobileIron, XenMobile, Intune, and Meraki. Domo documents Intune Conditional Access; Looker, Zoho, and Basedash do not document MDM support.

Can I build or edit dashboards from a phone?

Mostly no. Tableau’s docs state its app is for viewing, not creating, and ThoughtSpot and Looker allow viewing, filtering, and drilling but not editing. Power BI supports annotating and sharing, with authoring in Desktop or the web service. Domo lets you save a filtered or drilled card as a new card, and Zoho’s Mobile BI app can generate reports through Ask Zia. Basedash generates charts from spoken or typed questions on the phone, since every answer from the AI analyst comes with a chart.