QlikView vs SQL Server comparison

The compared Qlik and Microsoft solutions aren't in the same category. Qlik is ranked #5 in RT , with an average rating of 8.3, and holds a 3.3% mindshare in the category. Microsoft is ranked #1 in SQL , with an average rating of 8.3, and holds a 18.6% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Qlik users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

QlikView

Read 161 QlikView reviews

1,651 Views
1,454 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

SQL Server

Read 268 SQL Server reviews

18,969 Views
14,206 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

QlikView

SQL Server

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between QlikView and SQL Server based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Salesforce, Oracle and others in Reporting.

To learn more, read our detailed Reporting Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Reporting

April 2025

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Helped 845,564 peers since 2012

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

QlikView

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

161

Ranking in other categories

Reporting (5th), Embedded BI (3rd)

SQL Server

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

268

Ranking in other categories

Relational Databases Tools (1st)

Mindshare comparison

QlikView and SQL Server aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. QlikView is designed for Reporting and holds a mindshare of 3.3%, up 3.3% compared to last year.
SQL Server, on the other hand, focuses on Relational Databases Tools, holds 18.6% mindshare, down 23.1% since last year.

Reporting

Relational Databases Tools

Featured Reviews

Arjun Meda

Assistant Vice President at HSBC India

Useful for data visualization and business intelligence

Many of the features in Qlik Sense need to be available and reintroduced in QlikView. I believe many of the features have been added to QlikView after the layout containers were introduced. QlikView used to be a way more customizable tool than Qlik Sense is in the present time. Improvements are required in the hide and unhide functionality that falls under the layout container feature that has been used in my company in recent times. Hiding off the apps in the app overview tab based on the access was a really good feature that needs to be introduced back in the product since I see that, at the moment, there are multiple groups on the tool, owing to which multiple changes on the QMC part is required to handle the solution. Only the person with access to the dashboard in QlikView could have a link to the dashboard through QlikView's hub or access points. With Qlik Sense, one can see whatever is available in the stream. If a user wants to control everything in the product, then there is no need to make multiple changes in the QMC at the individual app level. The aforementioned area can be considered to improve Qlik Sense.

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Azizul Haque

AVP, IT Division at NCC BANK LIMITED

It has eliminated all kinds of inconsistencies, and it is reliable, secure, and fast

I don't know whether SQL Server can support large organizations where the database size is more than 100 GB. It might be because of SQL Server, or it might be because of the programming of the software vendor, but a lot of people think that it is a problem with SQL Server. It can't handle a large amount of data or large data size. In terms of its usage, about 90% of our applications are running on the SQL Server database. We have around 1,600 users for our software, and all the applications are connected to the SQL Server database.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of QlikView is the integration with other third-party tools."

"QlikView is an excellent tool, though expensive compared to other BI tools, it provides ETL capability allowing the building of a complete data warehouse within Qlik Sense."

"The search feature: ability to see the related data."

"It's pretty easy to deploy."

"The integration with Salesforce has helped us gain access to crucial sales data in real-time."

"The product’s most valuable feature is its ability to view the entire data available for analysis."

"E-T-L, The Extract, Transform, and Loading capabilities of QlikView make it a highly sophisticated self-service business intelligence tool for developers and analysts."

"It is useful to use a tool like this to have a view of data at a point in time. You can extract and create little data sets that you can store, and then over time, you can have a view for tracking changes. Especially when you work with a relational database or a database that's a production database, the data is dynamic, but if you use QlikView, you can take a snapshot of different datasets. In your own time, you can then get insights and report, build, analyze, and draw whatever you need from the data, which is quite useful."

More QlikView pros

"One of the things I most like about SQL Server is the log shipping piece. This is a great feature."

"I would say that it is a stable product."

"The solution is configurable."

"Its speed and the ease of server management are valuable. If I compare Microsoft SQL Server to MySQL, what I like in Microsoft SQL Server is the speed. We are using Microsoft Management Studio for managing our Microsoft SQL Server, and the user interface that I get to work with is also better."

"The solution's most valuable feature is that we can set up redundant databases and replication in the databases."

"SQL Server's performance is fine."

"The pricing of the solution is okay. It's less expensive than Oracle, for example."

"The product has very good online documentation that can be used for troubleshooting."

More SQL Server pros

Cons

"It is really old. We are moving towards converting everything into a Power BI environment. We want to have a self-service type of BI environment where different levels of users in organizations can log onto a portal and retrieve the data they need or get the necessary insights for decision-making that's important for them or their business unit. They have built a new version of QlikView called QlikSense, which probably competes with newer BI tools, such as Power BI, but they are far behind. That's why we are moving towards a newer tool that's easier to use and has more visualizations to represent the data."

"The solution should be mobile-responsive. It should also include drag-and-drop and slice-and-dice features."

"I would like to see more advanced features from Qlik Sense integrated into QlikView to keep it competitive and up-to-date."

"This solution would be improved with the inclusion of a feature that would allow us to add a common library of (our) commands used in load scripts and expressions, so with a keyword, we would get a drop down to select the command we are looking for, as opposed to the generic help."

"The user interface and ease of use takes a bit of a learning curve to pick up."

"QlikView lacks self-service capabilities, which means users depend on the IT team to make changes."

"QlikView certainly lacks in its ability to share visualizations or create visualizations easily."

"They could improve the update time."

More QlikView cons

"It would be great if we were able to run it on multiple operating systems and not only stick with Windows."

"One thing I don't like about SQL Server is the way they've set up security with users and groups. It just doesn't seem that intuitive to me. Adding some more explanatory information might help some."

"Could have additional security."

"The tool's support needs to be improved."

"There are a lot of improvements in the cloud space about which we open a case with Microsoft every now and then. These improvements are not in terms of features or functionality. They are more related to their own compatibility or connectivity on which they keep on working to improve the product."

"SQL Server database capacities could be further increased to be more accessible for larger data requirements."

"The solution is lacking a compound index for comparing values."

"SQL Server could improve by having better usability or user guidance."

More SQL Server cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is moderate, in the medium price range."

"It's reasonably priced and falls on the more affordable side."

"The setup costs for QlikView are fair as are the yearly maintenance fees. The licensing becomes a bit more expensive and requires some planning for onboarding."

"Qlik is fairly high in terms of pricing."

"QlikView pricing and licensing is on the high side for a small sized company, but it's competitive among its peers."

"QlikView is more expensive than one of its competitors."

"The platform's pricing is considered quite expensive, particularly given the dollar-based pricing."

"It is quite expensive, rating at around nine out of ten on a cost scale."

More QlikView pricing and cost advice

"The price of the solution could be reduced, it is expensive."

"We did a one-time payment. Its price, in general, can be reduced."

"It is expensive in terms of licensing costs and pricing. If you want to scale SQL Server, it is very expensive. We probably have to pay extra for technical support. We also have to pay for the license of Windows on which the SQL Server resides, which is an extra cost."

"SQL Server is expensive if you use the advanced SQL version, but if you use the standard version, it's not expensive."

"I would rate the tool's pricing a six out of ten. It is not extremely cheap but also it's not the most expensive product."

"We pay approximately $12,000 USD per month for both the server and the license."

"We pay per second of usage, but there are different offerings of the license."

"The price of SQL Server could be reduced, the license is expensive. We have an annual subscription."

More SQL Server pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user79932

Senior Manager - BI Head at NVidia

Feb 4, 2015

Comparison of SAP BO, Tableau, QlikView, Cognos, Microsoft, OBIEE and Pentaho

1. SAP BO/BI Enterprise scalability Security Ease of use Semantic layer 2. Tableau Visualization Data discovery Turnaround time 3. IBM Cognos Enterprise scalability Security In-memory feature 4. MS BI - Flexibility 5. Pentaho - Open source but still enterprise grade 6. QlikView Data…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Educational Organization

53%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about QlikView?

If you correctly use the product for your use cases, it provides value for money.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for QlikView?

Qlik Sense's licensing metrics are flexible. They provide packages based on needs, like named licenses, developer licenses, or shared pool licenses. There is also a core-based license option for or...

See all answers

What needs improvement with QlikView?

QlikView lacks self-service capabilities, which means users depend on the IT team to make changes. Qlik Sense offers a more modern approach with self-service features, allowing users to build dashb...

See all answers

Would you say the price of SQL Server is high compared to that of similar products?

SQL Server is fairly priced because it has various editions, depending on the number of users, servers, or core packs you are using. If you compare the product to others in this category, the price...

See all answers

Has using SQL Server helped your organization in any way?

SQL Server has helped my organization through partitioning to distribute the workload, as it splits them up into smaller pieces so the machines can easily deal with it. However, this comes with a h...

See all answers

Which authentication mode is best for SQL Server?

My company connects through SQL Server authentication. We have company Windows accounts, but we do not want to connect the two, out of security concerns and to keep things separated for our own pur...

See all answers

Comparisons

Tableau vs QlikView

Compared 23% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs QlikView

Compared 15% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs QlikView

Compared 14% of the time

IBM Cognos vs QlikView

Compared 6% of the time

Domo vs QlikView

Compared 3% of the time

More QlikView Competitors

SAP HANA vs SQL Server

Compared 14% of the time

MariaDB vs SQL Server

Compared 14% of the time

IBM Db2 Database vs SQL Server

Compared 11% of the time

LocalDB vs SQL Server

Compared 9% of the time

Oracle Database vs SQL Server

Compared 9% of the time

More SQL Server Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

QlikView

March 2025

Download QlikView product report

Buyer's Guide

SQL Server

March 2025

Download SQL Server product report

Also Known As

No data available

Microsoft SQL Server, MSSQL, MS SQL

Overview

QlikView is a Business Intelligence tool that allows you to keep tabs on all of your business-related information in a clean, clear, and easy to access database that is intuitive to build and simple to navigate. It is ideal for business owners who wish to improve overall output by creating the most productive system possible.

Qlik

SQL Server is a relational database management system (RDBMS) by Microsoft. The product's main purposes are to store data and retrieve it as requested by other software applications - on the same computer or on another computer across a shared network. The solution is built on top of Structured Query Language (SQL), which is a standardized programming language used for relational database management.

The product is tied to Transact-SQL (T-SQL), which is an implementation of SQL from Microsoft that adds several proprietary programming extensions to the standard language. SQL Server is built similarly to other RDBMS products, as its structure is a row-based table that connects related data elements in different tables to one another. One of its most important components is the SQL Server Database Engine, as it controls data processing, storage, and security. Beneath the Database Engine is the SQL Server Operating System, which is used for memory and I/O management, locking data to avoid unneeded upgrades, and job scheduling.

The solution has four editions with different sets of services and tools. They include:

SQL Server Developer
SQL Server Expression
SQL Server Standard
SQL Server Enterprise

The first two are available for free and are typically utilized by smaller companies, as they work with fewer functions and storage. The second two editions are generally used by bigger organizations and enterprises and offer more features.

The solution has several functions through which users can facilitate different data-related processes. These include:

Aggregate functions: These functions are used to calculate one or more values and return a single value.
Window functions: Window functions calculate an aggregate value based on a group of rows and return multiple rows for each involved group.
Date functions: These functions allow clients to handle data and time data efficiently.
String functions: Through the string functions, SQL Server processes an input string and returns a string or numeric value.
System functions: The system functions of the product return objects, values, and settings.

SQL Server Services

SQL Server has a wide range of add-on services that provide additional benefits beyond database management. These services include:

Machine learning: SQL Server machine learning services allow users to do machine learning and data analytics within the product.
Service broker: This feature is a part of the database engine and offers messaging and message queuing for applications on the platform.
Replication: This feature consists of transaction replication, merge replication, and snapshot replication.
Analysis: SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) adds online analytical processing (OLAP) and data mining capabilities to SQL Server databases.
Reporting: This feature supports the development of custom reporting applications.
Notifications: This feature generates data-driven notifications which are sent to subscribers of Notification Services.
Integration: This SQL Server feature provides capabilities for data integration, data import, and data warehousing.
Full-text search: Through this feature, users can utilize specialized indexing and query for unstructured text stored in the solution.
Visual studio: This feature supports data programming with SQL Server.
Azure Data Studio: This is a cross-platform query editor that can be downloaded and used alongside SQL Server.

SQL Server Benefits

The solution has many benefits for users. These include the following:

The platform ensures a consistent experience across other platforms while being fast and agile.
Through the built-in intelligence features, users can understand their data better.
The solution has enterprise-level security, which ensures the smooth and safe performance of users' data.
SQL Server offers the ability to retrieve large amounts of data quickly and efficiently.
The product installation process is fairly easy, and it offers a user-friendly interface.
SQL Server offers improved data storage and retrieval functions through frequent upgrades.
The solution reduces the risk of database server attacks, since it is not an open-source database.

Reviews from Real Users

A president at a consultancy evaluates SQL Server as a veteran solution with critical log shipping feature.

Harkamal S., a user at a manufacturing company, rates SQL Server with a high mark because it is a stable, scalable, and easy-to-deploy solution that pretty much covers everything.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

Canon, Gatorade, Amcor, Panasonic, Fila, Cambridge University Hospitals, Global Retail Bank, North Yorkshire Police department, Lanoo Group Publishers, and AonGroep Nederland.

Microsoft SQL Server is used by businesses in every industry, including Great Western Bank, Aviva, the Volvo Car Corporation, BMW, Samsung, Principality Building Society, Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and the Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario.

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Salesforce, Oracle and others in Reporting. Updated: April 2025.

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