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 8.4, and holds a 20.1% 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

1,771 Views
1,562 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

SQL Server

Read 267 SQL Server reviews

22,017 Views
16,530 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: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Reporting

January 2025

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Helped 838,713 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

Number of Reviews

161

Ranking in other categories

Reporting (5th), Embedded BI (4th)

SQL Server

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

267

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 3.2% compared to last year.
SQL Server, on the other hand, focuses on Relational Databases Tools, holds 20.1% 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.

Read full review

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

"Once you open it up, you see everything that you can do."

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

"It's pretty easy to deploy."

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

"Scripting as per a customer's need, which is a pretty cool feature and not available in other tools."

"It is a stable product."

"The solution is fast."

"It enables us to configure various elements, such as dashboard settings, including factors like color schemes and other customization parameters."

More QlikView pros

"The availability is the most valuable feature. It has high availability. It also has good performance."

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

"I have found SQL Server easy to use."

"SQL is stable."

"One of the most valuable features of SQL Server is that it's easy to use."

"There was an online system in which we had about 2500 requests to the DB per second. Every request had a completion window of one second to process and retrieve data. After switching to SQL Server, and AlwaysOn, and Snapshot, and tinkering, and configuring and tinkering, the handling capacity we measured increased to about 5000 requests per second, while the time decreased to 0.5 seconds per request."

"It is a pretty good solution. The on-premise version 2019 has many features, and they had introduced a really good and stable environment in version 2019. It has very good integration with big data clusters and other things. It covers pretty much everything that you can do with a SQL server. You can use any language to connect to it, which is not there in other solutions. They have also introduced Python, and it also has ArcScale. PaaS is a modern, scalable database. You can use Power Automate and a lot of features in this. It is very easy, and you don't have to worry about versions and upgrades. Microsoft keeps on adding new features to this solution. Microsoft is improving its connectivity on an ongoing basis. It connects well with Office 365. If you see something not working, in a couple of weeks, it is going to work because there is a team working on it. You can vote for the things that are missing, and Microsoft can work on them depending on the product that they're launching."

"It is easy to manage for the administrator. It is also easy to use for applications that are Windows-based. It is a very stable product, and it has got backup and recovery tools."

More SQL Server pros

Cons

"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."

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

"I really wish the application was easier to use in the development phase."

"It would be nice if QlikView could be plugged in into the company's website or an online portal such as QlikSense is capable of. There are ways around but it takes enormous time to develop."

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

"Better source data connectors."

"Although Qliktech's road map clearly states that QlikView has a long way to go, most of the R&D effort seems to be benefiting Qlik Sense."

"There's room for improvement in the area of management's handling of concerns."

More QlikView cons

"For a big amount of data, when we are speaking about IoT Segments, and Big Data projects, there are performance issues."

"SQL Server could be more robust than one of its competitors."

"I would like the SQL Server to be able to provide cloud support. We use the solution with a Korean provider supporting only MySQL rather than Microsoft SQL Server, which would be preferable and cheaper. This would prevent us from having to pay for troubleshooting and hosting the server."

"The pricing of the product could be better."

"There should be more tools and documentation for tuning the performance of Microsoft SQL Server. It would be nice to have more tools for tuning because currently, all the tuning that we have to do with our databases is almost manual. We have to read a bunch of knowledge base articles, and this information should be better documented. Its free text search should also be improved. It is quite important for us. Currently, we're developing our own free text search because of the lacking flexibility in Microsoft SQL Server. Therefore, we're kind of using elastic search and making different implementations in order to reach our targets. Using just the native free text search of Microsoft SQL Server is not enough for us. It should have more flexible features as compared to the current version."

"The way to make cursors and manage raw data in rows can be improved. Currently, the way to construct or build these cursors is very hard, and you can waste memory. You need a highly skilled person to make it more efficient. It can also have support for Cubes, which is the organization of data in different dimensions by using MDX languages."

"The security features of the solution could be better."

"Since this is a relational order system, scalability has a limit. If your system is very big, you need bigger servers and you have to spend more money. We scale a system up to a certain level, and then we move or shift data to the warehouse, which is NoSQL. We then do not have any bottleneck in scaling. For using this technique we are happy with it."

More SQL Server cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"On a scale of one to ten, where one being low price and ten being high price, I rate pricing a four."

"The pricing is too high compared to the other solutions on the market."

"QlikView is a reasonably priced solution."

"My firm got the product at a cheap price, but in general, I believe that the product is a bit costly."

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

"Qlik is fairly high in terms of pricing."

"It is expensive for small companies."

More QlikView pricing and cost advice

"The cost is high and because it's an expensive product, we are in the process of moving towards open-source solutions."

"The areas that need improvement are with regards to the commercial aspect of the solution, the licensing cost could be reduced in order to help customers to adopt it."

"For medium-sized customers who don't need some enterprise features, the tool would be available for 200 USD per month. For the enterprise segment, the tool's cost can go up to 6,000 USD."

"Their options for concurrency and locking are good, as well as their prices."

"It costs a lot."

"This is a downside of enterprise Microsoft products."

"Its licensing is yearly. There are no additional costs. There is only the subscription license."

"The SQL server is affordable. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."

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

16%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Educational Organization

52%

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

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Compared 25% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs QlikView

Compared 15% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs QlikView

Compared 14% of the time

SAP Analytics Cloud vs QlikView

Compared 6% of the time

Looker vs QlikView

Compared 3% of the time

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SAP HANA vs SQL Server

Compared 15% of the time

MariaDB vs SQL Server

Compared 14% of the time

LocalDB vs SQL Server

Compared 12% of the time

IBM Db2 Database vs SQL Server

Compared 10% of the time

Oracle Database vs SQL Server

Compared 9% of the time

More SQL Server Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

QlikView

February 2025

Download QlikView product report

Buyer's Guide

SQL Server

February 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: January 2025.

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