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PeerSpot user
Director, Business Operations at a university with 51-200 employees
Vendor
May 15, 2016
For the price point, this tool is on par with many other BI tools out there.
Pros and Cons
  • "Sisense's documentation and video tutorials were thorough and helpful in starting off with the basic usage of the product."
  • "I did encounter an issue with the Dashboard load time to be slow considering that we had a basic dashboard with five reports and no more than 300 rows was disconcerting."

What is most valuable?

Sisense's documentation and video tutorials were thorough and helpful in starting off with the basic usage of the product. Connecting data sources and creating a dashboard with a couple reports was a breeze.

Given the limited company resources, we were looking for a Business Intelligence Tool that would be fast to set up and use by everyone in the company, from Product to Sales. For the price point, this tool is on par with many other BI tools out there. I also appreciate the fact that Sisense is constantly improving on the product, adding new features and providing detailed documentation on the changes and updates.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Deployment of the product on our AWS instance was fairly straightforward.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I did encounter an issue with the Dashboard load time to be slow considering that we had a basic dashboard with five reports and no more than 300 rows was disconcerting. But it appears the load time has improved somewhat, likely due to data caching.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We haven't needed to scale.

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Sisense
March 2026
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How are customer service and support?

Technical support is very responsive and helpful in providing links to various solutions to problems and questions that arose from using Sisense.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Yes, I have personally used several different solutions that were robust in features but also required continual engagement from our engineers.

How was the initial setup?

Setup was simple from a business perspective. It would be wise to have someone who has a background in DevOps to handle the schema and data connecting to start.

What about the implementation team?

Implementation was in-house.

What was our ROI?

N/A, as ROI remains to be seen. We are in the early stages of launching our product and using Sisense to its full potential so it will be at least another six months time to have a better understanding of whether the product will be helpful to the company or not.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Yes, we evaluated several other options but I'd rather not say which ones.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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PROJECT MANAGER - Fleet production optimization & monitoring. Quarry/Mining/Construction at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
Feb 18, 2016
Has allowed me switch to visual programming as I have access to all advanced database functionalities and features but don't need to code.
Pros and Cons
  • "It's really user friendly and fast, so I can use the product during customer meetings not only to show dashboards, but to create and process data analytics in real-time, making it perfect for consultant workshops where you can't work with static dashboards."
  • "I'd like to see branding features and more layout possibilities."

Valuable Features:

It's really user friendly and fast. I can use the product during customer meetings, not only to show dashboards, but to create and process data analytics in real-time. It's perfect for consultant workshops where you can't work with static dashboards. Also, because it has an HTML5 interface, it now looks very good when compared to BI solutions that haven't evolved since Windows XP.

Improvements to My Organization:

I can finally switch to visual programming as I have access to all advanced database functionalities and features in Sisense without having to code almost anything.

Room for Improvement:

I'd like to see branding features and more layout possibilities.

Use of Solution:

We've been using Sisense for two years now.

Deployment Issues:

We've had no issues deploying it.

Stability Issues:

The product is very stable.

Scalability Issues:

The scalability for my utilization is good.

Initial Setup:

Deployment is ultra-easy. I’ve installed the product, connected to mySQL database, and created my first dashboard in a day. ElastiCube manager may require some very basic IT skills, though.

Implementation Team:

I did it myself.

Other Solutions Considered:

When I started looking, I had two main prerequisites for my BI solution. I needed to create on-the-fly dashboards for customers so I needed a fast and intuitive solution to make graphical request and look good in front of customer when we wanted to check a particular aspect of their activity. Also, I wanted a product that looks sexy for its time and not outdated, as opposed to Business Objects. I checked a few products such as SAP, BOARD, Yellowfin, Klipfolio among others. We also looked at internal development using a Javascript library such as D3.js, metricsgraphics.js, and highchart.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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Buyer's Guide
Sisense
March 2026
Learn what your peers think about Sisense. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2026.
886,576 professionals have used our research since 2012.
PeerSpot user
Product Owner of Business Intelligence at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
Vendor
Oct 20, 2015
Easy to Deploy, Easy to Manage, Easy for End-Users; Sisense represents what a BI company should be: Intuitive and scaleable for large sets of data.
Pros and Cons
  • "Time to deployment was one of our most critical factors in choosing a BI vendor, and I am not sure you can get to deployment faster than Sisense."
  • "Users with viewer access have less capabilities than similar users in Tableau."

What is most valuable?

Time to deployment was one of our most critical factors in choosing a BI vendor, and I am not sure you can get to deployment faster than Sisense. On day one, I was able to download it, connect two disparate data sources with multiple tables, and build meaningful dashboards.

Other features that I found very valuable:

Query Speed: Querying a data source with more than 180 million records took on average less than 5 seconds after initial load.

Speed of Development: It took less than a month to configure single- sign on, be fully embedded within our web product, and to build a comprehensive data cube that covered all of our metrics.

Ease of use for end-users: Building meaningful dashboards is no longer an IT task. Sisense has done a great job at not over complicating dashboard building

How has it helped my organization?

We are no longer in the business of report changes and making a slight change to a report for a specific customer. Sisense is already reducing our development workload since customers are building their own reports instead of waiting on us.

What needs improvement?

Users with viewer access have less capabilities than similar users in Tableau. For example, data discovery would be difficult with only a viewer license.

Sisense limits the cube building to a very visual display that can get hard to analyze when you bring in many data sources. It would be nice to have either an "advanced" view or alternate view that helps with many tables.

They do not currently have support for R, but I hear that is coming in 6.0.

For how long have I used the solution?

About 6 months.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

None.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

None so far.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Not yet, but we did just start rolling this out

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

Excellent. I am confident I will receive a response within the same day and usually much sooner than that.

Technical Support:

Technical support has been superb. We had a fairly complicated security implementation, and they helped guide our developers through all the nuances.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We previously were on Pentaho, and we switched because we needed an easier platform to develop on. Building complex dashboards required a great deal of training and Pentaho experience.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup could not have been any easier.

What about the implementation team?

In-house

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Qlik and Tableau

What other advice do I have?

The sales process was excellent. We opted to do a proof of concept, and we were able to test all of our requested functionality prior to buying the product. They also guided us through the proof of concept, and offered a great deal of support. The sales process was one of the best sales experiences we went through.

Our customers love the product. When we demonstrate Sisense's capability against their data, they wonder how they existed without Sisense.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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Data Analyst at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
Sep 26, 2015
It's more efficient than running queries in MySQL to get data and generate reports, but it lacks connections to statistical packages like R and SAS.
Pros and Cons
  • "Sisense can do both in a much much faster way, which drives our reporting efficiency into another level."
  • "Sisense doesn't have connections with statistical packages like R, SAS, etc."

Valuable Features:

It has a very easy-to-use interface and we are able to create custom tables and fields that allow us do advanced analytics.

Improvements to My Organization:

We have MySQL, and we used to run queries to get data and generate reports in Excel and Google Doc. Sisense can do both in a much much faster way, which drives our reporting efficiency into another level.

Room for Improvement:

Sisense doesn't have connections with statistical packages like R, SAS, etc.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
it_user108030 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user108030Sales with 201-500 employees
Vendor

As of today - Im happy to say we support R integration as well as a wide variety of built in statistical functions in our solution

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PeerSpot user
Business Analyst at a media company with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Sep 23, 2015
We're able to do ad-hoc analysis and develop dashboards instead of working with Excel, but I would like an option to plug in any data from any source.
Pros and Cons
  • "Overall I think, it is a fantastic value-for-money analysis tool and I would absolutely recommend it to anyone who looks for a up-to-date BI solution that can be customized to your specific needs."
  • "The only thing I am missing is the option to plug in any data from any source easily since Sisense only offers a limited amount of supported data providers."

Valuable Features

Sisense is excellent to get done your analysis quickly. It's an easy-to-use BI tool and doesn’t require extensive IT knowledge, except when it comes to specific design requirements of widgets.

The ability to handle large datasets is impressive and fulfills all our expectations.

Also, I am very happy with the user management system that allows to set up rights and access to data on a very detailed level.

Improvements to My Organization

We are now able to do quick ad-hoc analysis and develop stylish dashboards instead of working with excel. This does not only save a lot of time but also reveals useful insights in the area of Marketing, Finance, Sales and Consumer Insights that are new to us.

Room for Improvement

The only thing I am missing is the option to plug in any data from any source easily since Sisense only offers a limited amount of supported data providers.

Customer Service and Technical Support

I’d like to highlight the good and quick support, which always tries to find a custom solution for any issues either by mail or even screen sharing session. Important requests are handled with high priority and are usually fixed quickly.

Other Advice

Overall I think, it is a fantastic value-for-money analysis tool and I would absolutely recommend it to anyone who looks for a up-to-date BI solution that can be customized to your specific needs. We are happy with the choice and look forward to all the planned future developments.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
it_user186843 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user186843Editor/Writer with 201-500 employees
Vendor

@Piero - Sisense actually comes with a built-in data integration and modeling environment (the Elasticube Manager) which in most cases would remove the need to use additional tools such as the ones you have mentioned. To see how it works, visit www.sisense.com/business-intelligence-technology/

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PeerSpot user
Director of Information Systems at a logistics company with 51-200 employees
Vendor
Aug 19, 2015
Dashboards are quick and combine multiple data sources.
Pros and Cons
  • "ROI was realized immediately by reducing manual report labor."

    Valuable Features

    Set-up was very simple and Sisense on-boarding made sure we were successful in meeting our business goals. The dashboards are extremely quick and can combine multiple data sources with ease.

    Improvements to My Organization

    Customer reporting was a manual, laborious process that now is automated. Internal KPIs are now also seen through intuitive dashboards.

    Deployment Issues

    Deployment started with the pre-sales team. To guarantee success, engineers were made available to connect actual data to build dashboards so our executive team could see end results to justify the buying decision.

    Customer Service and Technical Support

    Customer Service:

    Excellent customer service both pre-sales and post.

    Technical Support:

    Technical support has been very responsive. If they can't answer immediately, we receive prompt email responses with the result / code to solve the problem.

    Initial Setup

    The initial set-up was very straightforward since Sisense sales team spent so much time with us to ensure our success.

    Implementation Team

    Our internal IT staff handled deployment, including an onsite server.

    ROI

    ROI was realized immediately by reducing manual report labor. We can also meet the needs of clients that require dashboard reporting to retain business. Our sales team have brought bigger / better prospects by offering Sisense dashboards.

    Pricing, Setup Cost and Licensing

    Choose the onsite solution and only license for existing business, buying additional licenses as clients demand.

    Other Advice

    Excellent customer service and staff dedicated to their customer's success. You get what you pay for with Sisense (in a good way).

    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    PeerSpot user
    VP of Technology with 51-200 employees
    Vendor
    Aug 17, 2015
    It has an easy-to-use API and the ability to handle very large datasets.
    Pros and Cons
    • "We have been very pleased with our experience with Sisense to date."
    • "Although its plugin support mitigates this, Sisense could use additional out-of-the-box visualizations."

    We chose Sisense for a rip-and-replace of Tableau 9.0. After our initial implementation of Tableau, and as our data set grow, we quickly ran into major performance, stability, and usability issues.

    We went with Sisense because of its ease-of-use, visualizations built for the web, easy-to-use API, and, most importantly, its performance and ability to handle very large datasets.

    Other key features are how Sisense manages multi tenancy and its visualization plugin support. This give sus the ability to support our use case and build our own custom visuals as needed.

    We have been very pleased with our experience with Sisense to date. Our sales team is very excited about the slick dashboards we can put together with very quick turnaround times.

    Although its plugin support mitigates this, Sisense could use additional out-of-the-box visualizations. Additionally, the maps feature could also be improved.

    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    it_user108030 - PeerSpot reviewer
    it_user108030Sales with 201-500 employees
    Vendor

    Sisense Offer The Live connection - starting Version 6.6 (Q1 2017).

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    PeerSpot user
    Senior Manager of IT at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
    Real User
    Top 20
    Jun 18, 2015
    The rapid development of the product is good, but it has limited inner join functionality of the cubes. ​
    Pros and Cons
    • "We are now able to increase our visibility into our business beyond the canned reports available in our ERP (NetSuite) and provide actionable, timely insight to our leadership."
    • "The document is definitely a sore spot as well as the limited inner join functionality of the cubes."

    What is most valuable?

    The ability to combine multiple data sources in a cube environment is essential. The speed has been very good as well.

    How has it helped my organization?

    We are now able to increase our visibility into our business beyond the canned reports available in our ERP (NetSuite) and provide actionable, timely insight to our leadership.

    What needs improvement?

    The document is definitely a sore spot as well as the limited inner join functionality of the cubes.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    We have been using this product for approximately two months now and are close to our final implementation.

    What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

    Only trying to understand some of the functionality and our internal business rules.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    No issues with stability have been encountered yet.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    We are very early in our project but do not see any major limits yet.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    Customer Service:

    Customer service has been excellent.

    Technical Support:

    Technical support is very good. The rapid development of the product has some features that are new even to the tech support staff.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    No previous solution was in place.

    How was the initial setup?

    The connections to the SQL data were straightforward.

    What about the implementation team?

    We utilized the Sisense staff for implementation along with our internal BI group. They are very helpful, knowledgeable and responsive.

    What was our ROI?

    Unknown at this time.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    • Tableau
    • PowerPivot/PowerBI
    • Birst
    • Sisense

    What other advice do I have?

    Understand your business hierarchies intimately. Create flattened data files for roll-ups.

    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    it_user8760 - PeerSpot reviewer
    it_user8760Product Manager with 201-500 employees
    Vendor

    Hi there,

    As Director of Product Management of Sisense I would love to shed some light on the inner join issue you mentioned. In general I will say that there are two ways to address it:

    1. You can still always create an inner join with the custom SQL feature, if it's absolutely necessary.

    2. It's true that the ElastiCube Manager (visual data modeling environment) doesn't show inner joins as a configuration option. However, it's quite possible that if you find yourself looking to do inner joins, you're not utilizing the full power of the product:

    Most solutions rely heavily on joins in the data prep phase to create a single view.
    What's unique about Sisense is that you don't *need* to flatten the data during the data preparation stage. Sisense only performs joins when it needs to answer a query, such as when a new visualization is created. The joins are performed ad-hoc and the system automatically detects which type of join is most effective for that particular data scenario. So 99% of the time, you shouldn't be dealing with these join headaches in the first place.

    See all 3 comments
    Buyer's Guide
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    Updated: March 2026
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Sisense Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.