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QlikView vs ThoughtSpot comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Ranking in Embedded BI
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
161
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (5th)
ThoughtSpot
Ranking in Embedded BI
8th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (19th), Data Visualization (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Embedded BI category, the mindshare of QlikView is 8.8%, up from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ThoughtSpot is 5.9%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Embedded BI
 

Featured Reviews

Arjun Meda - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Anthony Fiorino - PeerSpot reviewer
You can drill down into any data right out of the box, with a straightforward deployment, and great support
The most valuable feature is probably the core functionality itself, which is the ability to search and drill down into any data right out of the box. Of course, there's data modeling needed, and things like that, but I can throw it at a set, and I can get up and running in a matter of hours. If a new group comes to me and says, "Hey, I've heard about ThoughtSpot. I have some data and I want to be able to do some analytics, do some profiling, do some BI against it." In a couple of hours, I connect to their source and I just do it. Now for a production product, we have to model and perform it over time, but at least I can get people up and running extremely fast with a tool that's intuitive and easy to use.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"A well designed app brings freedom of inquiry to meetings, allowing me to answer questions in real time and this has transformed progress and outputs of our monthly group meeting."
"We use QlikView for its cost-effectiveness and ease of integration with databases."
"We can scale it if we need to."
"Associative model - no more cubes."
"QlikView is one of the strongest tools, I would say. Also, it has a very vast capability to process the data"
"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 initial setup is straightforward."
"The platform's most valuable feature is its associative data model. It allows me to discover hidden data and gain insights that are not immediately visible."
"The scalability is good."
"I would say the return on investment is good. Whatever we invested, we got results. We have been finding it easy to use and onboard new use cases."
"ThoughtSpot takes the modifying of existing reports out of our hands."
"The ability to do ad hoc explorations of data has been most valuable."
"It's easy to drill down or expand data to get more details right out of the box."
"The initial setup was very straightforward."
"I like ThoughtSpot's search capabilities. You can also create custom analytics even if you aren't an experienced data analyst. We have users with no data analytics experience making some of the dashboards we've created, copying components, and customizing them to their specific use cases."
"It is easy to set up the solution."
 

Cons

"Better source data connectors."
"The solution should be mobile-responsive. It should also include drag-and-drop and slice-and-dice features."
"They could improve the speed."
"There is a challenge on the frontend when it comes to browsing data through QlikView, as it isn't entirely compatible with other platforms we use."
"QlikView is probably on the pricier side than other BI tools."
"Scalability really depends on the size of your data and QlikView server architecture. For the biggest data sets, it could become an issue at some point."
"It needs work with visualization."
"I would want them to have more options as a user. It would be nice for them to create their own dashboards and add fields."
"I would like to see more flexibility in adding the pins. Currently, we have four different sizes in which I can add pins, but I would like to be able to resize my pins."
"The most difficult thing I found is that it only deals with the files and does not have direct connectivity to databases."
"ThoughtSpot is a fairly new product, so some usability aspects aren't as mature as we'd like them to be. One example is their organizational methodology, like how objects are organized in their dashboards inside the product. They're all on a flat list, which works if you've got five or 10 dashboards. However, it's insufficient when you're a large enterprise with multiple groups looking at the same dashboards. It isn't organized well."
"The one area of the solution that I do hear needs improvement is on the visualization front."
"In terms of features, I'd like to be able to pivot data - for example, going from rows to columns. It's not easy to do."
"A customized visualization is lacking in this product."
"If I want to order columns, this feature is not there."
"The dashboards could give you more ability to fine tune the appearance. You get a great deal more control over how something looks in Power BI than you do in ThoughtSpot."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"QlikView pricing and licensing is on the high side for a small sized company, but it's competitive among its peers."
"Pricing is a bit too high and I think licenses should be unlimited."
"QlikView is more expensive than one of its competitors."
"It's reasonably priced and falls on the more affordable side."
"My firm got the product at a cheap price, but in general, I believe that the product is a bit costly."
"The pricing is moderate, in the medium price range."
"Its licensing costs are moderate, but it can get expensive due to the numerous add-ons available like those for printing."
"The pricing is too high compared to the other solutions on the market."
"I give the pricing a six out of ten."
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Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

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.
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...
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...
What do you like most about ThoughtSpot?
It's easy to drill down or expand data to get more details right out of the box.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ThoughtSpot?
I like the pricing structure. I get billed by how much data I put in, not how many people are looking at the data. It's better for me as I can control pricing a bit more easily.
What needs improvement with ThoughtSpot?
We'd like more flexibility with the calendar as our fiscal year does not align with the calendar year. We have to load or create our own custom calendar to actually need our fiscal year-end. With o...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Canon, Gatorade, Amcor, Panasonic, Fila, Cambridge University Hospitals, Global Retail Bank, North Yorkshire Police department, Lanoo Group Publishers, and AonGroep Nederland.
Primary Capital Mortgage, Sterling Backcheck, RichRelevance, Rambus, Batteries Plus Bulbs
Find out what your peers are saying about QlikView vs. ThoughtSpot and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.