Tableau Prep is a product offered by Tableau that is similar to an ETL (Extract, Transform and Load) tool that extracts data and cleanse them before use by data engineers or analysts in Tableau Desktop.
The clean data from Tableau Prep is a data source for the Tableau Desktop.
Whereas Tableau Desktop is a data visualization tool that is used by Data Analysts and engineers for creating dashboards for interactive visualizations from the raw data.
Both are different in their usage and applications. Want to become proficient in Tableau, then check out the Tableau certification course from Intellipaat which will help you in mastering the software. The added benefit of this course is that it has 7 guided projects to practice and lifetime Technical support.
Also, check out our free introductory video on Learn Tableau step by step from our team of experts.