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Google Cloud Datalab vs Qlik Sense comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Google Cloud Datalab
Ranking in Data Visualization
15th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Data Science Platforms (16th)
Qlik Sense
Ranking in Data Visualization
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
125
Ranking in other categories
Embedded BI (2nd), AI Data Analysis (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Data Visualization category, the mindshare of Google Cloud Datalab is 1.2%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qlik Sense is 5.2%, down from 8.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Visualization Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qlik Sense5.2%
Google Cloud Datalab1.2%
Other93.6%
Data Visualization
 

Featured Reviews

LJ
System Architect at UST Global España
dashboards are good and data visualization is more meaningful for the end-user
Access is always via URL, and unless your network is fast, it would be a little tough in India. In India, if we had a faster network, it would be easier. In a big data environment, like when forcing your database with over a billion records, it can be tough for the end-user to manage the data. You need to have a single entity system in each environment. It's not because of GCP, but it would be great to have options like MongoDB or other similar tools in GCP. Then, we wouldn't always need to connect to the cloud and execute SQL queries. Even if your application is always connected to its database, the processing can be cumbersome. It shouldn't be so complicated. Once the data is collected, it should be easily sorted.
SW
Solution Architect at Predoole Analytics
Unlocks actionable insights through user-friendly analysis features
The self-service capabilities that Qlik Sense offers are significant. They offer natural language processing, allowing users to ask questions in layman language, and Qlik Sense will create charts and narratives automatically. Users can access any dashboard developed in Qlik Sense from familiar portals such as Okta or other company portals through embedding features. The integration with chatbots, particularly Microsoft Teams, allows users to access dashboards and ask questions directly within Teams. The collaboration feature enables users to share analysis by taking snapshots and tagging team members within the Qlik Sense interface, eliminating the need for lengthy emails or screenshots. The storytelling feature allows users to create presentations directly in Qlik Sense using dashboard analysis, making it easier to answer questions during meetings. The subscription feature enables users to receive charts and sheets via email instead of navigating to the dashboard, facilitating monitoring purposes. Qlik Sense offers alerting capabilities where users can set thresholds for KPIs and receive notifications when these thresholds are reached. The platform also includes AI/ML features for predictive modeling through a no-code component, allowing business users to create and deploy AutoML models without depending on data scientists. The Qlik Answers component, featuring generative AI capability, enables users to get answers from unstructured data including Excel, HTML documents, or Microsoft Word documents by creating a knowledge base. The user-friendly interface operates on a drag-and-drop approach, with Qlik Sense suggesting appropriate charts based on selected dimensions and measures. The associative engine capabilities allow data association between tables, implementing selections across related tables. The platform uses a color-coding system (white, gray, and dark gray) to show related, excluded, and unrelated data selections, providing insights beyond traditional BI tools.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The infrastructure is highly reliable and efficient, contributing to a positive experience."
"All of the features of this product are quite good."
"The APIs are valuable."
"All of the features of this product are quite good."
"In MLOps, when we are designing the data pipeline, the designing of the data pipeline is easy in Google Cloud."
"For me, it has been a stable product."
"Google Cloud Datalab is very customizable."
"It has improved the work of our team, thanks to the ability to manage complex models and thanks to the possibility of integration with different needs."
"The number of visualizations that are present in Qlik is very useful for our developers to help our business partners tell stories with their data. Qlik continues to add to and enhance these visualizations with each release. We are also very excited to leverage the integration between Qlik Sense and Qlik Catalog as we roll that out soon."
"The solution offers good performance."
"The UI is very easy to use, with drag and drop self-service analytics."
"The solution's technical support is good."
"The most valuable feature is flexibility."
"The most valuable feature is the user experience."
"With the changing business landscape, it is nice to access Qlik Sense through an external website. As an organization when we use QlikView Desktop, we need to connect to our internal network. We can access QlikView through the QlikView access point but the website has a little different look and feel than the desktop application."
 

Cons

"Even if your application is always connected to its database, the processing can be cumbersome. It shouldn't be so complicated."
"Connectivity challenges for end-users, particularly when loading data, environments, and libraries, need to be addressed for an enhanced user experience."
"We have also encountered challenges during our transition period in terms of data control and segmentation. The management of each channel and data structure as it has its own unique characteristics requires very detailed and precise control. The allocation should be appropriate and the complexity increases due to the different time zones and geographic locations of our clients. The process usually involves migrating the existing database sets to gcp and ensure data integrity is maintained. This is the only challenge that we faced while navigating the integers of the solution and honestly it was an interesting and unique experience."
"The interface should be more user-friendly."
"The product must be made more user-friendly."
"There is room for improvement in the graphical user interface. So that the initial user would use it properly, that would be a good option."
"The interface should be more user-friendly."
"There are occasional stability problems, but Qlik support is excellent at correcting anything that arises."
"It would be great if decentralized teams would have more features to manage the metadata on the dashboards, setup the specific user access rights and rules to govern incoming and outgoing data sets from/to other teams, and more features to separate the different data process layers (e.g. extraction, transformation [data quality, business rules])."
"I am not really a fan of the set analysis. It's its own language that doesn't quite make a whole lot of sense to me at this point. I wish it were more intuitive."
"Integrated maps should become part of the Qlik Sense, as opposed to buying an additional module just to power the BI, which has it built-in natively within the application."
"There is room for improvement in the learning curve when getting started, but training resources have been growing."
"The management console appearance needs improvement to its look."
"Qlik application automation needs additional work and features."
"I would like to see more types of visual elements and better configuration options for additional flexibility when developing charts."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is affordable for us because we have a limited number of users."
"The pricing is quite reasonable, and I would give it a rating of four out of ten."
"The product is cheap."
"I'm not able to reveal the licensing cost for Qlik Sense, but because it was a huge deal, the cost was less than the usual cost. The license wasn't that costly. It was the infrastructure that was very costly."
"QlikSense offers a Hybrid environment architecture, which is very cost effective based on where the enterprise data resides."
"Costs are a little high on the license/token side. However, if you look at the TCO, it is not too bad, particularly against Power BI."
"Qlik Sense pricing and licensing is like that of QlikView. It's on the high side for a small company, but it’s competitive among its peers. Use of licenses (referred to as tokens) is a bit confusing. There is a login access pass for infrequent or anonymous access."
"Ultimately, the cost is low, and it implements fast. The limiting factor is how quickly your staff can keep up."
"Know your needs when going into the purchasing decision."
"For on-premise enterprise users, a number of additional features come at a premium cost."
"For personal use, the desktop version of Qlik Sense is absolutely free, and you can share visualizations with others and to a personal cloud space, though limited with storage space."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Construction Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise40
Large Enterprise88
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Google Cloud Datalab?
Access is always via URL, and unless your network is fast, it would be a little tough in India. In India, if we had a faster network, it would be easier. In a big data environment, like when forcin...
What is your primary use case for Google Cloud Datalab?
It's for our daily data processing, and there's a batch job that executes it. The process involves more than ten servers or systems. Some of them use a mobile network, some are ONTAP networks, and ...
What advice do you have for others considering Google Cloud Datalab?
Overall, I would rate it a nine out of ten. Google Cloud is very good. Once you go through the features of Google Cloud, it's a good idea to get a GCP certification so you have an idea of how it ca...
Seeking lightweight open source BI software
It depends on the Data architecture and the complexity of your requirement. Some great tools in the market are Qlik Sense, Power BI, OBIEE, Tableau, etc. I have recently started using Cognos Enter...
Seeking lightweight open source BI software
There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I would recommend as follows: 1) If you have legacies of SAP, Oracle - look for SAP...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qlik Sense?
It is not about performance. It is just about how expensive it is to implement.
 

Also Known As

No data available
QlikSense, Qlik Analytics Platform
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Abbvie, Airbus, Barclays, BT Openreach, BMW, Daimler AG, HSBC, IKEA, Nationwide Building Society, Royal Mail Group, Sanofi, Siemens, Wendy'', Vodafone, Volvo
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Cloud Datalab vs. Qlik Sense and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
892,943 professionals have used our research since 2012.