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IBM Planning Analytics vs Qlik Sense comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Planning Analytics
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Business Performance Management (4th)
Qlik Sense
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
115
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (2nd), Embedded BI (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM Planning Analytics is designed for Business Performance Management and holds a mindshare of 9.5%, up 8.7% compared to last year.
Qlik Sense, on the other hand, focuses on Data Visualization, holds 7.4% mindshare, down 10.3% since last year.
Business Performance Management
Data Visualization
 

Featured Reviews

Gnanavel-Chakkarapani - PeerSpot reviewer
Can easily create dashboards and helps businesses improve forecasting accuracy
The product has improved our company's forecasting accuracy since it serves as a very useful tool for our sales and controller teams as they easily get to enter the inputs using views in TM1, which gets loaded into our main database. If there are sales team members in different parts of the world, like in Hong Kong and Singapore, they may prefer to use IBM Planning Analytics, which is easy to use when compared to the Excel tool. Speaking about planning analytics and data analysis, I would say that our company used to use IBM Cognos Analytics for reporting, where we used to use Cognos Dynamic Cubes so that users can easily use its drag and drop features while getting to see the data for which the users had to wait for two to three minutes prior to its use. In our company, tons of data are loaded into the memory, and users can use Cognos Dynamic Cubes to analyze data and understand it. The AI capabilities of IBM have benefited our planning strategy as they are very useful for business. The tool allows the easy creation of dashboard reports using AI capabilities. No technical knowledge is required for business use cases. It is possible to integrate the product in scenarios where some new integrations are available. I remember that my company used Azure Data Factory to connect Azure, Oracle, and IBM WebSphere Application Server. When it comes to IBM Planning Analytics, it is complex to integrate it with LDAP and or any other authentication tool offered by Microsoft. In our company, some users like to integrate IBM Planning Analytics with the common LDAP or Microsoft AD, which we currently use for all our applications. The authentication part is difficult to configure with IBM Planning Analytics. The maintenance of the product is easy. My company has scheduled maintenance on the product every week, especially during forecast times, so that memories automatically lapse and users can freely access their servers. The use of the tool has had an impact on collaboration within our company's planning team since everyone knows how to easily access the data and publish the results. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.
Bruno Preti - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides ability to analyze data independently without relying on IT for every query
I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten. You can start with one user and easily scale up to even a thousand without limitations. We mainly have medium and enterprise, though we also have some small clients. But in the Italian market, "small" and "medium" have different meanings than other markets. A typical Italian medium company might only have 10-15 users, while in other markets, this would be considered small.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Navigating through the data to make analysis is really quick."
"IBM Planning Analytics is easy to use and deploy. It is quick to develop. The calculation machine is also very fast."
"The flexibility of IBM Planning Analytics is a great feature of this solution. The design flexibility with data rules and defining calculations The ability to combine online and offline calculations are a benefit. Additionally, the forecasting features and predictive analytics is very good."
"The product's stability is good."
"The tool is flexible."
"The most valuable feature is that it is able to slice and dice the data."
"A lot of the platform is in-memory, so Planning Analytics can run calculations quite fast. It also offers several user interfaces. And in the newest version of Planning Analytics, there is a new one called the Planning Analytics Workspace. Maybe it could be useful for the business side."
"The scenario modeling capabilities are frequently used to create different scenarios, compare them, and see which action leads to which result."
"Qlik DataMarket"
"Business users have been able to use the BI self-serve model."
"The flexibility of a non-IT developed solution allows for fast to market solutions."
"The associative searching and filtering capability is a unique feature among other BI tools, and one does not need to deeply understand the underlying data."
"Qlik has a powerful load script that uses an enhanced SQL language which is excellent for loading and transforming the data."
"The product is very stable."
"Data-driven decisions are now easier."
"There are a lot of features available in this solution, it has been very easy to use. We have found it to be less complex and user-friendly compared to other solutions we have used."
 

Cons

"The workspace API should be improved and documented so we know better which objects are used."
"Planning Analytics could be improved by adding automation features."
"The local authentication part is difficult to manage in the product, making it an area where improvements are required."
"Adding predefined templates could be beneficial."
"It's wonky, and not super user-friendly with Excel."
"The tool's transport layer could be improved when promoting development between environments."
"It is a bit expensive, but it does the job."
"It's highly competitive right now, and all the vendors are in a race to put out new versions with additional features. IBM comes out with new versions too often, and it has an impact on quality."
"The communication with the solution's sales managers in Europe is very bad, making it an area that requires improvement. My company usually gets no response from the tool's sales managers."
"Qlik application automation needs additional work and features."
"The only thing I would say that comes up is that sometimes it can be a bit buggy."
"There is no downside."
"If a team wants to keep track of source code changes, there is not an out-of-the-box solution for it."
"Qlik has a fast learning curve due to great online training resources (Qlik continuous classroom), but those are lacking the advance features like building extensions and using the API."
"Qlik dashboards are not friendly with end-users, but they have been enhancing this shorted in some recent releases and next releases hopefully."
"We need more types of visualizations."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a bit expensive, but you get what you are paying for."
"Compared with the other tools in the market, IBM Planning Analytics is a bit expensive."
"IBM Planning Analytics is not the cheapest solution, but it's priced per the market standard for this type of solution. I rate the price at seven out of ten."
"The license of this solution is paid annually. Most of my customers choose a license that includes support."
"Our licensing cost is approximately $50,000.00 per year."
"IBM Planning Analytics is priced well, and licensing costs are yearly."
"I would rate the tool's pricing a nine out of ten since it's expensive."
"Qlik Sense and its pricing model can follow any scalability."
"It is a little expensive for the Italian market. Normally, Qlik Sense has two types and costs. The medium cost is around 700 euros per year."
"Licensing is quite good, easy, but slightly expensive."
"Licensing can start to get expensive, but compared to other tools in this space it is about average."
"For on-premise enterprise users, a number of additional features come at a premium cost."
"We have 20 licenses for Qlik Sense, and it is a special license that allows people in the whole company to use it over time. You buy this license and there are some minutes that can be used. For example, for the users that used only a few minutes in a month, we use this license. All the people have the ability to work with Qlik Sense. However, the number of licenses is not the number of users. The number of users that uses Qlik Sense is approximately 35 people."
"The product is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"The cost is not bad considering the flexibility and support you receive from Qlik. I believe it is worth the cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
48%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
58%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Planning Analytics?
The most valuable features of IBM Planning Analytics for streamlining planning processes include a unified database where all data are centralized.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Planning Analytics?
The cost of IBM Planning Analytics is not cheap, considering the amount of money involved. However, it offers good ROI for customers.
What needs improvement with IBM Planning Analytics?
The workspace API should be improved and documented so we know better which objects and tier-one objects are used.
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 do you like most about Qlik Sense?
The most valuable features of Qlik Sense are its speed and seamless development of web technologies.
 

Also Known As

Cognos TM1, IBM Cognos TM1
QlikSense
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ManpowerGroup, Convergys, AIG, Orchard Brands, Citibank, InterGen, Northwestern University, EF Education First, Ironside, Bazan Group, CSOB Insurance, Macquarie Group, Charles Stanley, SATO, Government of Sint Maarten, BMW Financial Services
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 Anaplan, Oracle, IBM and others in Business Performance Management. Updated: December 2024.
825,399 professionals have used our research since 2012.