Vena vs. Datarails

Arizona Cardinals

Sprout Social

Deloitte

Greystar

White Castle

Mitsubishi Chemical Group

Coca-Cola Consolidated

Shift4 Payments

Tanger Outlets

Prime Healthcare

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Get Full Excel—Not Just a Plug-in

Vena works natively in Excel so you can use the full interface and functionality. Datarails relies on a plug-in, limiting features and complicating data management.

Built To Scale With Your Business

Vena supports use cases beyond FP&A—like workforce planning and financial close—so you can consolidate processes and gain efficiencies on one platform.

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Easy To Use and Maintain

Vena auto-populates Excel with source data, keeping your workflow intact. Datarails forces you to toggle between apps, making Excel use cumbersome.

	Vena	Datarails
Native Excel Integration
Collaboration and Workflow Management
Flexible Scenario Modeling
Pre-Built Native Integrations
Financial Close and Consolidation
Workforce Planning
Embedded AI Capabilities
Robust Data Visualization
Easy-To-Update Central Database
Requires Learning Proprietary Formulas

Powerful Multi-Dimensional Modeling With Vena CubeFLEX^TM

Vena’s in-memory OLAP database is optimized for multi-dimensional analysis of large volumes of financial and operational data. Datarails, on the other hand, uses relational database technology, which leads to performance constraints when handling complex queries.

CubeFLEX technology that connects to ERP/GL, Operation, and HRIS with Excel

Go Live With Best-in-Class Implementation Support

We’re hands-on with every Vena implementation. Our services team works closely with you to ensure a smooth rollout and confident adoption. Datarails, however, leaves most of the implementation work to the user.

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Tell the Story Behind the Numbers With Robust Data Visualizations

Vena makes it easy to build executive-ready dashboards and share insights across your organization using Vena Insights with embedded Power BI. You can also bring live data and reports straight into decks through Vena’s seamless PowerPoint integration.

Award-Winning Innovation and Ease of Use

G2 Easiest To Use, Mid-Market, Fall 2025

Nucleus Research Value Matrix 2025 Leader

Unlike Vena, Datarails is not fully integrated with Excel, but rather works with Excel via Flex, an add-in. This lets you access your planning and analysis tools within an Excel workbook but has the limitations of any plugin—only allowing limited features, sharing and modeling capabilities. It can also introduce data management challenges. Updates made in your Datarails database—including new accounts and nomenclature changes—won't be reflected in Excel automatically, and to share templates with budget contributors you must create split Excel files for each department.

The goal of any Vena implementation is to achieve value as soon as possible. But “fast” shouldn’t be your only objective—it’s more important that we build a quality foundation for your continued success. How long the implementation takes will depend on the scope of your initial project and the readiness of your team and data. With the right foundations in place, your Vena implementation can achieve value in as little as 6–8 weeks.

Datarails says their implementations take 4–6 weeks, however, customers receive less support throughout that process and are left to build reports largely on their own.

Vena has six pre-built connectors available through Microsoft Fabric, a unified cloud-based data management and analytics platform. These connectors are for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations, SAP S/4 HANA, Deltek Vantagepoint, Acumatica, Xero and One Lake. Vena also has pre-built connectors for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, NetSuite, Sage Intacct and Quickbooks. Vena can connect to any system you need through bi-directional APIs, ETL and Microsoft Power Automate. Learn more about Vena’s integrations.

Vena’s pricing is customized to your business’s unique needs. Datarails emphasizes its low cost due to the fact that they don’t charge implementation fees, however this approach means you don’t have the expert support needed to ensure your team is sufficiently trained on the platform to be successful. Vena’s hands-on approach to implementation leads to lower cost of ownership overall. In BARC's 2025 Planning Survey, users rated Vena 9.6 for price to value.

If you’re evaluating both Vena and Datarails for your FP&A needs, the size of your business will likely play a role in your decision. Datarails is best for early-stage companies primarily looking for a financial reporting solution. Vena, on the other hand, is best for scaling and mature businesses looking for an all-inclusive solution to support the full scope of their financial and operational planning.