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Qlik Sense vs Tableau 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

Qlik Sense
Ranking in Data Visualization
2nd
Ranking in Embedded BI
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
118
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
6.5
Number of Reviews
296
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (2nd), Reporting (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Data Visualization category, the mindshare of Qlik Sense is 7.5%, down from 10.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tableau is 25.9%, 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

Vishal_Goyal - PeerSpot reviewer
In-memory data storage boosts performance
The advantages compared to other BI tools show architectural differences. The main feature is that it keeps all the data in memory. It doesn't retrieve the data from data sources when I need it on the dashboard; instead, it quickly provides the desired data, making it very fast compared to other BI tools. The ROI is very high using Qlik Sense. It offers many benefits of BI. It is flexible from a developer's point of view, allowing me to accomplish many tasks compared to other BI tools. From an end-user perspective, it's convenient and performance-oriented, providing something meaningful from all the organization's data.
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 UI has been the most useful to me."
"The Qlik Sense cloud insights advisor helps our business users to get the answers to their data questions so that they do not have to rely on IT/BI resources every time they have some data request."
"Qlik Sense makes it very easy to build interactive presentations for meetings."
"From siloed reports, we went to a centralized knowledge hub, combining cross-functional data, and helping decision-makers see the data as a whole, therefore making more informed decisions."
"Time-saving efficiencies have translated into genuine bottom-line improvements via the reduction in FTE."
"The GeoAnalytics paints such a clear picture. It provides a visual of our patient volume, giving us opportunities to see how we are trending in the surrounding cities, and making us more aware of locations that we need to focus more on."
"We were able to identify easy things, such as when a contract was loaded incorrectly."
"Qlik Sense provides better visualization."
"All features are valuable. It is very user-friendly, and it is mostly drag-and-drop. If we have the dataset available, then we can develop any dashboard very quickly."
"The solution makes for very productive and really informative decision making. It can lead the whole business and build a strategy across whole working departments."
"Self-service is most valuable. Users can pick up quickly and do the resolution. There are a lot of out-of-the-box features, and it satisfies most of the needs. If users are properly trained, they can deal with any situation."
"Tableau is an advanced specialized tool. One of the best features I've seen is the lack of an intermediate semantic layer. I think that's an advantage compared to any other tool like BusinessObjects or Power BI, which are Tableau's biggest competitors."
"Visualization attributes: Marks – Color, Size, Label, etc.. Easily Accessible and Intuitive."
"The action feature which Tableau has is very useful for us. If we click on one visualization, it will pass the value to another visualization. That interactivity within different visualizations is the most valuable feature of Tableau."
"The most valuable feature is the geographic data analysis."
"It's very easy to visualize data with this product. The visualization maps of and frames that we have been able to cross-reference has been excellent."
 

Cons

"Qlik dashboards are not friendly with end-users, but they have been enhancing this shorted in some recent releases and next releases hopefully."
"There is no downside."
"I would like to see more types of visual elements and better configuration options for additional flexibility when developing charts."
"Qlik Sense could include additional features for data preparation and integration, making it easier for users to clean, transform, and integrate data from various sources."
"The management console appearance needs improvement to its look."
"There is a direction currently with feature releases within QLik Sense which are focused towards the SaaS or Cloud offerings of Qlik Sense. This leaves those who have invested heavily in on-premise enterprise deployments in a difficult position to gain the benefits of some powerful new features they have to look to reinvest further towards these SaaS or Cloud deployments or bring in a hybrid model. Qlik provides no real split between what features are available in each of the deployment options."
"This solution would be improved by adding some Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Deep Learning (DL) components that are easier to interpret and design."
"They need to keep it as simple as possible but include as much advanced functionality as possible by positioning all the objects on the page, changing colors for all the objects, improving sheets actions, etc."
"I have used Power BI as well as Tableau. There are a couple of interesting features that I like in Power BI, but they are not present in Tableau. For example, in Power BI, if I am looking at country-wise population, I can type and ask for the country that has the maximum population, and it will automatically give an answer and address that query. This kind of feature is not there in Tableau. Similarly, in Power BI, for integrating with the latest ML algorithms, we have decision trees and primarily multiple machine learning algorithms. The decision tree essentially visualizes the patterns in the data. We don't have such a feature in Tableau. If Tableau can integrate with the machine learning algorithms and help us to do visualizations, it would be a wonderful combination. Most of the people are going for Tableau primarily for visualization purposes. However, in the data science industry, users want to do model building as well as tell a story. As of now, Tableau is fulfilling the requirements for visualization purposes. If they can bring it up to a level where I can use it for machine learning purposes as well as for visualization, it would be very helpful. Many people who want to do data science don't want to write a code. Tableau is anyway a drag and drop tool, and if they can provide those options as well, it will be a powerful combination."
"When you're working on a dashboard, you can't select multiple components at a time and align them, so you have to go one by one. This is very cumbersome."
"With Tableau, there is a gap in its ability to handle very large-scale data."
"The visualizations should be user-friendly and allow for more custom visualizations."
"The charts in Tableau are quite limited."
"Many things have to be improved in Tableau. Right now, we make the calculation, and then we get that information. It would be better if business users could do that. I would ask the people at Tableau to provide that option to business users to get that information in one click. It would be better if they automated some calculations. There should be more automation in Tableau. However, there are many things in automation mode, but it is very limited at the moment. We need automation for people who do not know much about Tableau. It would also be better if there were good community support like in Alteryx."
"It should have more integration with different tools and technologies. Its licensing cost should also be improved."
"An advanced type of visualization is a bit tricky to create. It has something called a Calculated field, and that sometimes gets a bit difficult to use when you want to create an advanced type of visualization."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I believe pricing is similar to other products in the same category, if you have it on-premise."
"Licensing is quite good, easy, but slightly expensive."
"The license mechanism of Qlik is quite complicated and not exchangeable. Such as 2016, they charge licenses by token, 1500$ for a token / 1 user. 2018: they change to 2 kinds of licenses: professional 1500$ / user, analyzer 800$ / user. 2019: they support subscription with 70$ Monthly for professional, 40$ monthly for analyzers, but for those you’re using perpetual licenses, they don't support acquiring more subscription licenses. The maintenance fee yearly are also high, 20% of the perpetual 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: Review the named model and move towards a usage model (e.g., cores, memory, computers, API calls, etc.)."
"The new licensing model is much better."
"Ultimately, the cost is low, and it implements fast. The limiting factor is how quickly your staff can keep up."
"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."
"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."
"Pricing is not bad. It's competitive."
"Best advice on pricing is to anticipate the desire for more licenses once the results of this product are acknowledged in other parts of your company."
"I recommend that you discuss your needs with the salesperson and try to negotiate the price."
"For data extraction and analysis, Tableau is better than any other tool I have used with the same pricing model."
"I'm using Tableau Public, which is free."
"Tableau is an expensive solution."
"The value for money is definitely there."
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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
60%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Educational Organization
44%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
6%
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
 

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: February 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.