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Google Cloud Datalab vs Qlik Sense comparison

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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

Google Cloud Datalab
Ranking in Data Visualization
25th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Data Science Platforms (22nd)
Qlik Sense
Ranking in Data Visualization
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
126
Ranking in other categories
Embedded BI (4th), AI Data Analysis (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Data Visualization category, the mindshare of Google Cloud Datalab is 1.4%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qlik Sense is 4.8%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Visualization Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qlik Sense4.8%
Google Cloud Datalab1.4%
Other93.8%
Data Visualization
 

Featured Reviews

LJ
System Architect at UST Global España
dashboards are good and data visualization is more meaningful for the end-user
Access is always via URL, and unless your network is fast, it would be a little tough in India. In India, if we had a faster network, it would be easier. In a big data environment, like when forcing your database with over a billion records, it can be tough for the end-user to manage the data. You need to have a single entity system in each environment. It's not because of GCP, but it would be great to have options like MongoDB or other similar tools in GCP. Then, we wouldn't always need to connect to the cloud and execute SQL queries. Even if your application is always connected to its database, the processing can be cumbersome. It shouldn't be so complicated. Once the data is collected, it should be easily sorted.
Saranya Deepthi - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Engineer at Wipro
Improved AI-driven dashboards have accelerated decisions but still need better visuals and faster refresh
Absolutely, nothing is entirely positive, and everything has both advantages and disadvantages. When I worked with Qlik Sense, circular charts were not available, which meant I had to look for alternative solutions that would be reliable or make the functionality work. There are some features that need to be added. Additionally, there is a limit to the number of fields that can be added in Qlik Sense, and I believe it would be beneficial if they increased the count for fields and columns. There might be requirements where an Excel file contains many columns that need to be displayed as visual representations to clients, and in those situations, it becomes very difficult and I have to use alternative approaches. When this problem arose, I used HTML code to write a solution and make it work. Qlik Sense should avoid these types of limitations in future updates. Another issue is page resolution. If a client wants to view the dashboard on a single page without scrolling, bar charts appear small and the values in KPIs, bar charts, scatter plots, and line graphs cannot be seen very clearly. Adding more extensions to make the job easier would also be beneficial. Improvements to reporting would be helpful as well, because working with large datasets makes reporting very difficult. Additionally, when data is refreshed, it cannot be completed in a short timeframe. Refreshing very large datasets can take one, two, or even three hours, so reducing the refresh time would be very useful for customers.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"All of the features of this product are quite good."
"The infrastructure is highly reliable and efficient, contributing to a positive experience."
"The APIs are valuable."
"For me, it has been a stable product."
"Google Cloud Datalab is very customizable."
"In MLOps, when we are designing the data pipeline, the designing of the data pipeline is easy in Google Cloud."
"Ease of use and connectivity to Qlik platform products are the most valuable features."
"This solution allows us to use a simple drag-and-drop interface to create flexible, interactive data visualizations."
"All the visualizations have been so valuable."
"The ETL component allows us to pull from many different sources, making pulling data in easy."
"Data-driven decisions are now easier."
"Just go and use Qlik; you will never look back."
"Qlik Sense provides better visualization."
"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."
 

Cons

"We have also encountered challenges during our transition period in terms of data control and segmentation. The management of each channel and data structure as it has its own unique characteristics requires very detailed and precise control. The allocation should be appropriate and the complexity increases due to the different time zones and geographic locations of our clients. The process usually involves migrating the existing database sets to gcp and ensure data integrity is maintained. This is the only challenge that we faced while navigating the integers of the solution and honestly it was an interesting and unique experience."
"The product must be made more user-friendly."
"Connectivity challenges for end-users, particularly when loading data, environments, and libraries, need to be addressed for an enhanced user experience."
"There is room for improvement in the graphical user interface. So that the initial user would use it properly, that would be a good option."
"The interface should be more user-friendly."
"Even if your application is always connected to its database, the processing can be cumbersome. It shouldn't be so complicated."
"It is easy to scale and buy a license, however, the solution is very memory intensive. More users and more data can lead to degraded performance and longer processing times to run reports."
"The current visualization features feel incomplete compared to what's available with scripting tools."
"The tools perform very well but there is the inconvenience of being bound to only use Qlik tools in order to read your data."
"The solution needs to make improvements to the licensing model. They need to make it more affordable at scale, and to make it more affordable for those companies at the low end of the market as well."
"From the initial setup of the product we had some struggles getting connections to some of our databases to function, this indicated that some of the data extract drivers can be improved and addition of some of the older database engines need to be added in Qlik Sense."
"Better searching capabilities would be a nice addition."
"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."
"There are some tools like Alteryx, which are used for data preparation. These features can be built into Qlik to make the process smoother."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is cheap."
"The pricing is quite reasonable, and I would give it a rating of four out of ten."
"It is affordable for us because we have a limited number of users."
"The cost is not bad considering the flexibility and support you receive from Qlik. I believe it is worth the cost."
"Licensing is quite good, easy, but slightly expensive."
"I would rate Qlik's pricing four out of five."
"Licensing: Review the named model and move towards a usage model (e.g., cores, memory, computers, API calls, etc.)."
"QlikSense offers a Hybrid environment architecture, which is very cost effective based on where the enterprise data resides."
"Know your needs when going into the purchasing decision."
"The new licensing model is much better."
"Start small with tokens. You can always buy more."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise40
Large Enterprise89
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qlik Sense?
It is not about performance. It is just about how expensive it is to implement.
 

Also Known As

No data available
QlikSense, Qlik Analytics Platform
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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 Google Cloud Datalab vs. Qlik Sense and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.