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Adaptive Insights vs Qlik Sense 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

Adaptive Insights
Ranking in Data Visualization
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Business Performance Management (8th), Financial Performance and Strategy Management (3rd), Reporting (12th), ESG Reporting Software (4th)
Qlik Sense
Ranking in Data Visualization
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Embedded BI (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Data Visualization category, the mindshare of Adaptive Insights is 0.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qlik Sense is 7.5%, down from 10.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Visualization
 

Featured Reviews

Andrew Rosenberg - PeerSpot reviewer
Adaptive scales well, simple to create new budget versions and models
For the organization I used to work at, it streamlined the process of creating budgets. It's very simple to create a new version and do some more modeling based on your need for planning things like headcount, other expenses, and revenue, everything is configurable within Workday. So that made it easy. Reporting was pretty easy to set up as well. It streamlined the amount of time it took to do the budget as well as kind of making it simple to implement a rolling forecast process. So, it really was more just a productivity increase and time shortening for the budgeting and forecasting process.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Reports are allowed to be edited for aesthetic purposes, which is lacking in a lot of other dashboard tools."
"We utilize planning on a daily basis, therefore we find it to be the most valuable product for our organization."
"The biggest feature is the source of truth for all of our budget and forecast versions."
"The integration with our payroll system to complete staff modeling during our budget and forecast processes."
"Changes to corporate structure, account codes are updated in all versions including prior years, hence "one-version of truth" as claimed."
"It's very simple to create a new version and do some more modeling based on your need for planning things like headcount, other expenses, and revenue, everything is configurable within Workday."
"The important feature is integration with source data. It connects to various ERP systems, including Workday, Intact, and others. It can also import actuals and compare them to PlanPoint quite easily."
"It helps develop a more unified work format throughout the company."
"Quick reporting."
"Qlik Sense is a very powerful and useful tool."
"Qlik was the first company to implement an in-memory associative analytics engine. This basically means that all data is loaded into memory, but it also means that instead of joining data together, the data is associated together. From the front end, from the UI point of view, data can be joined or included or excluded on the fly. It can be drilled down and drilled through and users can slice and dice it and that type of thing can be done from anywhere in the data to any other place in the data. It doesn't have to be predefined. It doesn't have to have hierarchies or anything like that."
"My organization now has data from disparate systems at their fingertips in a way that lets them get the answers they need when they want it."
"The most valuable feature is the mobile platform."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the drag-and-drop reporting."
 

Cons

"The integrations could be simpler. It takes quite a bit of internal and IT know-how to set up."
"Discovery (the data visualization module): Needs to catch up with BI leaders, such as MS and Tableau. E.g., sorting by amounts in column charts and page slicers to control all visuals."
"Being able to drill down when using OfficeConnect needs work."
"Adaptive Insights could improve the data designer interface to make integrations easier to set up."
"The product's configuration process could be faster."
"The upload feature exists, but isn't terribly useful."
"It's a Workday product; they could do a little bit better to integrate a pure-play integration with Workday, which really doesn't do that."
"Their customer support team is slow to respond and not extremely confident."
"Multi-server deployment: not just cloud, but on premise too, and hybrid. Needs lighter protocols to communicate between the different services and with the clients."
"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."
"The SaaS offering is being enriched quickly in order to attract new customers to that space and encouraging existing customers to make the switch. The Enterprise solution is therefore lagging behind SaaS in features."
"Areas for improvement include user-friendliness, self-service, and some of the visualization options for generating reports."
"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 reporting solution recently added to the latest Cloud version, since December or January, is not fully developed. The ability to use tabular reporting, like in dashboards, would be a great feature."
"Branding is not the product's strongest point. More control over the presentation colors would be great. A basic printing function would also be good. Easy connection to external tools like R Server would be nice."
"I would like to see Qlik add more DevOps functionality to their product. Currently, we have to turn to 3rd party products to handle things like Source Control, Code Deployment through environments, etc."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Ensure that you have the proper pricing plan in place."
"Everything is negotiable, but this solution is low cost compared to others."
"Pricing is in line with other cloud-based EPM tools. It is a subscription-based model based upon the number of users and site type if it's an admin or end-user type thing."
"It's affordable."
"Licensing seems to be worth the cost considering the efficiency Adaptive brings."
"Adaptive Insights' pricing is relative to its peer competitors. It's certainly competitive compared to a spreadsheet template that you build in Excel. It can be expensive if you need to have 100-500 budget holders giving input and building financial plans. However, in that case, it becomes an extremely good bargain. Compared to its competitors, it offers an excellent value."
"Prior to purchasing licenses, make sure you understand which users will only need planning and which users will need both planning and OfficeConnect."
"Adaptive Insights' pricing is reasonable."
"I'm not able to reveal the licensing cost for Qlik Sense, but because it was a huge deal, the cost was less than the usual cost. The license wasn't that costly. It was the infrastructure that was very costly."
"The cost is not bad considering the flexibility and support you receive from Qlik. I believe it is worth the cost."
"Know your needs when going into the purchasing decision."
"We have 20 licenses for Qlik Sense, and it is a special license that allows people in the whole company to use it over time. You buy this license and there are some minutes that can be used. For example, for the users that used only a few minutes in a month, we use this license. All the people have the ability to work with Qlik Sense. However, the number of licenses is not the number of users. The number of users that uses Qlik Sense is approximately 35 people."
"You will spend more time on educating your staff than licensing the product."
"For on-premise enterprise users, a number of additional features come at a premium cost."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Real Estate/Law Firm
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Educational Organization
60%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Adaptive Insights?
It's very simple to create a new version and do some more modeling based on your need for planning things like headcount, other expenses, and revenue, everything is configurable within Workday.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Adaptive Insights?
12 years ago, it was very affordable. Workday has definitely increased its price since it acquired Adaptive a few years ago. So, it's affordable. But there are other more affordable solutions that ...
What needs improvement with Adaptive Insights?
The integrations could be simpler. It takes quite a bit of internal and IT know-how to set up. So, there could be room for just improving the integrations, making it easier to integrate outside sys...
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Workday Adaptive Planning, Adaptive Discovery , Workday Adaptive Planning
QlikSense
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

1. Cisco Systems 2. Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated 3. Deloitte 4. DocuSign 5. Dropbox 6. Electronic Arts 7. Fender Musical Instruments Corporation 8. Fitbit 9. Fossil Group 10. Groupon 11. Hilton Worldwide 12. HP Inc. 13. Intuit 14. Johnson & Johnson 15. LinkedIn 16. Lyft 17. McAfee 18. Medtronic 19. Netflix 20. Oracle 21. Pandora 22. PayPal 23. Pinterest 24. Red Hat 25. Salesforce 26. ServiceNow 27. Slack Technologies 28. Spotify 29. Symantec 30. Tableau Software 31. Twitter 32. Workday
Abbvie, Airbus, Barclays, BT Openreach, BMW, Daimler AG, HSBC, IKEA, Nationwide Building Society, Royal Mail Group, Sanofi, Siemens, Wendy'', Vodafone, Volvo
Find out what your peers are saying about Adaptive Insights vs. Qlik Sense and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
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