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Qlik Sense vs Tableau comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Qlik Sense
Ranking in Data Visualization
2nd
Ranking in Embedded BI
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
115
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Tableau
Ranking in Data Visualization
1st
Ranking in Embedded BI
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
294
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (2nd), Reporting (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Data Visualization category, the mindshare of Qlik Sense is 8.0%, down from 10.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tableau is 29.6%, down from 31.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Visualization
 

Q&A Highlights

Dawn Fenstermacher - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 04, 2023
 

Featured Reviews

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.
ROMIL SHAH - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides fast data access with in-memory extracts, makes it easy to create visualizations, and saves time
When it comes to visualizations, Tableau has a limitation as compared to Power BI. It has a limited set of visualizations. Power BI has the entire marketplace, so you can connect and import many visualizations and use them, whereas Tableau has only 10 or 15 visualizations. There should be more visualizations, and there should also be data integration with more cloud providers. Tableau has recently launched a paid version for the documentation. So, documentation has become a little bit challenging when it comes to Tableau development because we do not have any tool to export the data out of it. It is a license-based feature that you need to purchase to prepare documentation. So, on the documentation front, for preparing clear documentation for any dashboard, it would help if we get an embedded option, rather than buying a license for each user for the documentation. To document anything, if I have to connect to each workbook and see what has been written as a formula and then document in the Word document, it is pretty time-consuming. We have the Microsoft stack, and we are currently evaluating Power BI because Tableau has a limitation of 50 columns for a drill-down report. If we want more than 50 columns, we have found a hack, but there is no ready-made option for doing it. So, we have to use another tool in case we need a drilled report with more than 50 columns. There are many instances where users need 80 or 90 columns for their analysis, and switching between two technologies becomes a challenge. It is not a cost-effective approach for us. Their support should be improved. We are not happy with their support. Whenever we raised queries, we were pointed to a few blogs, and we didn't get a proper solution from them. Their licensing should also be improved. They want us to purchase a Tableau Creator license for business users, whereas Power BI Desktop is free for business users. They should come up with a basic license with one or two connectors that our business users can use for preparing their visualizations. Tableau also charges us per user for users who want the data only through email.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The drag-and-drop dashboard builder is an intuitive interface for building dashboards from source reports."
"Set analysis is great for its power user capabilities such as performing an IF on an aggregated column. The ability to create custom coloring expressions based on values is also a good idea although not as easy as I wished it was."
"The most valuable feature of QlikSense is that you can capture the data without modifying it and then perform the ETL (extract, transform, and load) process."
"The drag and drop UI has been the most useful to me."
"The data is incredibly easy to share with colleagues."
"We began to see how our processes and other team's processes were negatively affecting the bottom line. We were able to provide tips to other teams to help improve their processes."
"End users can adjust their analysis with a few simple clicks."
"For a deployment scenario, Qlik Sense is also very easy to use. I can start development from any platform, on-premise or cloud, and continue from where I left off."
"The ease of presenting findings is very helpful."
"The most valuable features are the visualizations, the way they show the combination charts."
"Scheduled extract and the multiple connectors are fantastic!"
"I really like the interactivity of the dashboards."
"The data visualization piece is most valuable. We do ad-hoc analysis or one-time shot things, but there are things that we have to track every single day. When our management and our customers want to see how things are changing, the dashboarding provides that information. Tableau is key in providing that data on a refresh basis. We use a data blending tool that pumps the data into Tableau, and we just schedule it to run every single day. So, the automation of the data and being able to present it to people who are interested are the most valuable features."
"One of the most valuable features is that the solution allows users to build interactive dashboards. This allows the end user to modify the criteria or the filtering if need be. As far as for my personal use as a QA Engineer, I really value how extensive their API document support has been."
"It’s good for quick visualization and being able to quickly consume unstructured data to play around with."
"The initial setup is simple."
 

Cons

"They need to make security rules to access applications and data security easier and customizable."
"Reload time is a limit since everyone wants real-time data."
"Areas for improvement include user-friendliness, self-service, and some of the visualization options for generating reports."
"There are occasional stability problems, but Qlik support is excellent at correcting anything that arises."
"The product could be improved by implementing a user-feedback ranking system."
"Right now, it is complex and you have to understand the data model prior to analyzing it, so basically I would like to see an integration with Excel in the future."
"My advice to others is to make sure they have a good technical team. We have found that a lot of the consultants go in and out of the business and sometimes you are left alone without assistance."
"Error handling is an area that needs to be improved."
"There are more than a powerful tool in the market, such as Microsoft BI."
"Implementation requires a technical background."
"We did have issues with Tableau 10.1 server with the brokers failing on heavy load but since moving to 10.2, then to 10.3, this issue seems to have been resolved and the environment is now quite stable."
"When compared to Power BI, it is less user-friendly."
"Improvements can be made in template support. The workbook file structure is really hard to version control. If there was some sort of version control support offered particularly for workbooks, that would help big time."
"I am not a frequent user of this solution, so I am not sure what they've been doing recently. The last time when I used it, I had to use other tools with it for data extraction and cleansing. Its price should also be improved. It is more expensive than Power BI. In terms of training, there is generally better online training for Power BI, but I am not sure of that. It would be helpful to know from where to access its training."
"Tableau has so many functions, so sometimes it's hard to find the right solution quickly. I have to search multiple menu bars to find the right command."
"I would like the solution to have certain features allowing the delivery of reports to the email."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The costs can initially become quite high. Make sure you have a clear understanding of who will truly use the product as opposed to someone that will simply receive the end report."
"Understand the break over price point for switching to the Enterprise license."
"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."
"Licensing can start to get expensive, but compared to other tools in this space it is about average."
"Licensing: Review the named model and move towards a usage model (e.g., cores, memory, computers, API calls, etc.)."
"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."
"Ultimately, the cost is low, and it implements fast. The limiting factor is how quickly your staff can keep up."
"The professional version of Tableau is quite expensive."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"Buy 50 at a time. Project your use base every three months, and project your requirements forward."
"Pricing could be better. I believe they should offer better pricing for deployment in small to mid-sized companies."
"I'm using Tableau Public, which is free."
"The cost of the solution should be improved."
"Its licensing cost should be improved."
"Its price is higher than Power BI and QlikView. Tableau costs around $70 per user per month, whereas Power BI is around $8 to $9. QlikView is around $30. Tableau has various prices for various models such as Creator, Designer."
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Comparison Review

it_user6330 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 2, 2013
MicroStrategy vs. Tableau
After a recent presentation, several attendees asked me about the applications of Visual Insights and Tableau. Many companies are investing in both tools and are trying to figure out the right tool for specific applications Tableau has found its sweet-spot as an agile discovery tool that analysts…
 

Answers from the Community

Dawn Fenstermacher - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 4, 2023
Sep 4, 2023
I have been impressed by Northcraft Analytics. Their technology is based on MS Power BI. I would check them out.https://www.northcraftanalytic...
2 out of 5 answers
BM
Jul 27, 2023
TIBCO Spotfire is the best solution for you. Go to https://syncsite.net/business-... to learn more and I'll be happy to help you further if interested - Bryan Marks with Syncsite.
HAGAY REINMAN - PeerSpot reviewer
Jul 27, 2023
I  think you should first decide which budget you can allocate for it.You can find "free' tools like Google Looker Studio, which have limited reporting and email capabilities. I assume other cloud vendors have similar "free" tools.Other reporting tools can cost from 10's $ per user per month to 100K$ for a year and more.There is also an open-source tool named Superset
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
58%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Educational Organization
42%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
Tableau vs. Business Objects - Which is a better solution for visualization and analysis?
Both tools have their positives and negatives. First, I should mention that I am relatively new to Tableau. I have been working on and off Tableau for about a year, but getting to work on it consta...
Which would you choose - Tableau or SAP Analytics Cloud?
Tableau is easy to set up and maintain. In about a day it is possible for the entire platform to be deployed for use. This relatively short amount of time can make all the difference for companies ...
What do you like most about Tableau?
Tableau is a fantastic tool that provides impressive dashboards and customized reports.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

QlikSense
Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Abbvie, Airbus, Barclays, BT Openreach, BMW, Daimler AG, HSBC, IKEA, Nationwide Building Society, Royal Mail Group, Sanofi, Siemens, Wendy'', Vodafone, Volvo
Accenture, Adobe, Amazon.com, Bank of America, Charles Schwab Corp, Citigroup, Coca-Cola Company, Cornell University, Dell, Deloitte, Duke University, eBay, Exxon Mobil, Fannie Mae, Ferrari, French Red Cross, Goldman Sachs, Google, Government of Canada, HP, Intel, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Macy's, Merck, The New York Times, PayPal, Pfizer, US Army, US Air Force, Skype, and Walmart.
Find out what your peers are saying about Qlik Sense vs. Tableau and other solutions. Updated: November 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.