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Microsoft Power BI vs Qlik Sense 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.7
Microsoft Power BI enhances productivity with ease of use, cost-effectiveness, scalability, and improved data analysis, boosting decision-making.
Sentiment score
6.2
Qlik Sense delivers high ROI through faster decision-making, cost savings, and enhanced insights, boosting operations and revenue growth.
In a world surrounded by data, tools that allow navigation of large data volumes ensure decisions are data-driven.
Corporate HR Financial Controller at STMicroelectronics Holding
Power BI is easy to deploy within an hour, providing robust security against data leaks.
Senior Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd
I have seen a return on investment with Microsoft Power BI, including money saved and fewer employees needed.
Consultant at National Australian Bank
In my organization, we moved from OBI to Qlik Sense due to limitations with OBI, resulting in very high ROI.
Director Software Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft Power BI's support is mixed, with variations in responsiveness and effectiveness depending on user needs and resources.
Sentiment score
5.4
Qlik Sense's customer service is praised for technical support, though response times vary, with community forums and partners being essential.
The significant drawback I notice is that Microsoft's size makes it hard to get specific change requests addressed unless they involve a bug.
Corporate HR Financial Controller at STMicroelectronics Holding
We have a partnership with Microsoft, involving multiple weekly calls with dedicated personnel to ensure our satisfaction.
Executive Director, Decision Support at Community Health Network
The support is good because there is also a community available.
Business Development Director at a tech consulting company with 201-500 employees
While tech support is comprehensive, the stability of Qlik Sense means I generally do not need it.
Director Software Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Technical support requires improvement.
Associate Director at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
In Turkey, the consultant firms are very professional, and they support you.
Business Intelligence Architect at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.9
Microsoft Power BI is praised for scalability, cloud integration, and flexibility, but licensing and large datasets present challenges.
Sentiment score
7.7
Qlik Sense is praised for scalability, efficiently handling large data sets and users, but requires careful licensing and server management.
You expect only a small percentage of users concurrently, but beyond a thousand concurrent users, it becomes difficult to manage.
Senior Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd
With increasing AI capabilities, architectural developments within Microsoft, and tools like Fabric, I expect Power BI to scale accordingly.
Executive Director, Decision Support at Community Health Network
As more data is processed, performance issues may arise.
Product Owner at ABN AMRO Bank N.V.
It performs well in terms of performance and load compared to others.
Associate Director at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Qlik Sense helps analyze data and can handle larger amounts of data compared to other BI tools.
Solution Architect at Predoole Analytics
It is easily scalable with Microsoft, with other services Azure and other tools they provide.
student at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Microsoft Power BI is reliable for most reporting needs, though it can slow down with large datasets and network issues.
Sentiment score
7.6
Qlik Sense is highly stable, with users praising its reliability, effective support, smooth upgrades, and robust functionality.
In terms of stability, there's no data loss or leakage, and precautions are well-managed by Microsoft.
Senior Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd
We typically do not have problems with end-user tools like Excel and Power BI.
Executive Director, Decision Support at Community Health Network
It is very stable for small data, but with big data, there are performance challenges.
Business Development Director at a tech consulting company with 201-500 employees
The stability is very good.
Associate Director at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Users seek improved mobile compatibility, licensing, real-time data, advanced analytics, ease of use, and flexible design in Power BI.
Qlik Sense users seek better customization, real-time features, data handling, visualization, ease of use, cost efficiency, and improved support.
This makes Power BI difficult to manage as loading times can reach one or two minutes, which is problematic today.
Senior Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd
Access was more logical in how it distinguished between data and its formatting.
Corporate HR Financial Controller at STMicroelectronics Holding
Microsoft updates Power BI monthly based on user community feedback.
Executive Director, Decision Support at Community Health Network
Power BI has better visualizations and interactions with updates in 2023 that provide ease of use.
Business Intelligence Architect at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Providing an API feature to access data from the dashboard or QEDs could be beneficial.
Director Software Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
There should be more comprehensive documentation and explanatory videos available to help clients understand and calculate capacity-based pricing, making it easier to predict costs before implementing Qlik Sense Cloud.
Solution Architect at Predoole Analytics
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Power BI provides flexible pricing options, offering free, Pro, and Premium plans for individuals, teams, and enterprises respectively.
Qlik Sense offers flexible, albeit pricier, licensing options praised for easy setup and quick ROI, but requires careful cost analysis.
I found the setup cost to be expensive
Responsable du département Projets et Applications at CHD Vendée
Power BI isn't very cheap, however, it is economical compared to other solutions available.
Senior Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd
The pricing for Microsoft Power BI is low, which is a good selling point.
Business Development Director at a tech consulting company with 201-500 employees
It is just about how expensive it is to implement.
student at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Compared to Power BI, it is definitely costly.
Associate Director at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Among the BI tools and data analytics tools, Qlik is the most expensive.
Business Intelligence Architect at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Power BI offers strong data visualization, seamless integration, and customization, making it ideal for interactive, collaborative report creation.
Qlik Sense provides intuitive dashboard creation, seamless integration, and robust data handling with powerful analytics and flexible development capabilities.
In today's data-driven environment, these tools are of substantial value, particularly for large enterprises with numerous processes that require extensive data analysis.
Corporate HR Financial Controller at STMicroelectronics Holding
Within the organization, Microsoft Power BI is used to create dashboards and gain insights into data, enhancing data-driven decision-making.
Product Owner at ABN AMRO Bank N.V.
To reduce the need for highly skilled personnel, we can engage someone who is just familiar and has a basic understanding of Microsoft Power BI, while AI can handle the major tasks through either agent AI or requirement analysis.
Senior Technical Service Engineer Expert at Fujitsu
From an end-user perspective, it's convenient and performance-oriented, providing something meaningful from all the organization's data.
Director Software Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
The true power is in the ability to connect with any database, get the data, and work with the data.
Director at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees
It is a single product that I can use as an ETL database, BI, and more.
Associate Director at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Power BI
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
329
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (1st), Reporting (1st)
Qlik Sense
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
125
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (4th), Embedded BI (2nd), AI Data Analysis (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Microsoft Power BI is designed for BI (Business Intelligence) Tools and holds a mindshare of 9.3%, down 21.8% compared to last year.
Qlik Sense, on the other hand, focuses on Data Visualization, holds 5.1% mindshare, down 8.0% since last year.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Power BI9.3%
Tableau Enterprise6.7%
Amazon QuickSight3.7%
Other80.3%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
Data Visualization Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qlik Sense5.1%
Tableau Enterprise11.0%
Domo5.7%
Other78.2%
Data Visualization
 

Featured Reviews

Antonio Flor - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Anaplanner at Chaucer Group
Data integration has improved reserving and expense control while collaboration drives fast dashboards
Regarding drawbacks or weak points in Microsoft Power BI, it may not be directly related to the tool itself, but with our architecture, as we couldn't get a service account, which is an email address that has no relationship with the employees, just to establish the connection with Anaplan. We couldn't get it to work on SSO, so we use an employee account which could be a point of weakness, meaning if the person leaves, that connection will break. If the person goes on holiday and we need to refresh, we have to change the connection as well, but we have to live with that since we're not using SSO on the service account. Regarding the natural language processing feature, we're trying to avoid using it too much because it can slow down the connection, so as much as possible, we try to build the logic and any transformation in Anaplan, and then deliver an end product to Microsoft Power BI.
SW
Solution Architect at Predoole Analytics
Unlocks actionable insights through user-friendly analysis features
The self-service capabilities that Qlik Sense offers are significant. They offer natural language processing, allowing users to ask questions in layman language, and Qlik Sense will create charts and narratives automatically. Users can access any dashboard developed in Qlik Sense from familiar portals such as Okta or other company portals through embedding features. The integration with chatbots, particularly Microsoft Teams, allows users to access dashboards and ask questions directly within Teams. The collaboration feature enables users to share analysis by taking snapshots and tagging team members within the Qlik Sense interface, eliminating the need for lengthy emails or screenshots. The storytelling feature allows users to create presentations directly in Qlik Sense using dashboard analysis, making it easier to answer questions during meetings. The subscription feature enables users to receive charts and sheets via email instead of navigating to the dashboard, facilitating monitoring purposes. Qlik Sense offers alerting capabilities where users can set thresholds for KPIs and receive notifications when these thresholds are reached. The platform also includes AI/ML features for predictive modeling through a no-code component, allowing business users to create and deploy AutoML models without depending on data scientists. The Qlik Answers component, featuring generative AI capability, enables users to get answers from unstructured data including Excel, HTML documents, or Microsoft Word documents by creating a knowledge base. The user-friendly interface operates on a drag-and-drop approach, with Qlik Sense suggesting appropriate charts based on selected dimensions and measures. The associative engine capabilities allow data association between tables, implementing selections across related tables. The platform uses a color-coding system (white, gray, and dark gray) to show related, excluded, and unrelated data selections, providing insights beyond traditional BI tools.
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Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager - BI Head with 5,001-10,000 employees
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
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business135
Midsize Enterprise58
Large Enterprise166
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise40
Large Enterprise88
 

Questions from the Community

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...
Is Power BI a complete platform or only a visualization tool?
Power BI is an advanced visualization tool oriented to big data with a very complete set of widgets to visualize information, control users accessing information, the configuration of governance po...
How does Oracle OBIEE compare with Microsoft BI?
Oracle OBIEE is great in allowing design and creativity per the individual needs of the organization. Dashboards are fully customizable and very user-friendly. This solution is very stable. Oracle ...
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...
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.
What needs improvement with Qlik Sense?
Everything depends on the use case, but I would prefer Power BI because of how mainstream it is. There is not much information available. It is not a mainstream tool that many companies use, so if ...
 

Also Known As

SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI
QlikSense, Qlik Analytics Platform
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Accenture Adidas Aetna AIG Airbus Alibaba Allstate Amazon American Express Aon AT&T Audi Bank of America BASF Bayer Berkshire Hathaway Boeing Coca-Cola Comcast Cisco Coca-Cola Dell Disney Emirates Equinix FedEx Ford GE Google H&M Home Depot Honda IBM Intel JPMorgan Chase Kellogg's Kroger L'Oréal McDonald's Merck MetLife Microsoft Nike Oracle P&G PepsiCo Procter & Gamble Prudential Financial SAP Siemens Snapchat Spotify Starbucks Target Toyota T-Mobile Unilever Visa Walmart WeWork World Bank Xerox
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 Microsoft Power BI vs. Qlik Sense and other solutions. Updated: January 2023.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.