Alexis Kestler
As a data analyst, I‘m often asked which is better – QlikView or Qlik Sense? With the rising popularity of business intelligence tools, this question comes up frequently. Both platforms have their merits, so in this comprehensive guide I‘ll dig deeper into the key differences and help you determine which BI tool is right for your needs.
A Quick Introduction
First, let‘s quickly recap what each platform offers:
QlikView – launched in 1993, QlikView is the original BI tool from Qlik built for guided analytics and predefined applications. It leverages in-memory associative technology and offers strong business-driven data modeling capabilities.
Qlik Sense – the next-gen cloud-first platform from Qlik that came out in 2014. It focuses more on self-service visualization and exploration for business users. The modern interface makes it intuitive for getting insights quickly.
Now let‘s get into the details of how these two popular tools compare.
Diving Into the Differences
Based on my experience implementing both QlikView and Qlik Sense for clients, there are 8 key areas where the capabilities diverge:
1. Ease of Use
Hands down, Qlik Sense is more user-friendly. The whole interface is clean drag-and-drop functionality that‘s similar to Tableau. Even non-technical folks can get up and running with basic analysis quickly without formal training.
QlikView has a steeper learning curve. There is more complexity in building visualization extensions and applications requires learning the proprietary Qlik scripting language. Less self-service means users rely more on experts to build what they need.
Winner: Qlik Sense
2. Self-Service Analytics
Since Qlik Sense was built for ease of use, it offers much better self-service capabilities. Users can connect to data sources, drag and drop to create visualizations, and filter and explore on their own.
QlikView wasn’t really designed for business users. The guided analytics approach expects that data modellers prepare what users need. Less flexibility for on-the-fly analysis.
Winner: Qlik Sense
3. Advanced Analytics
Both platforms now integrate AI-powered insight generation, natural language capabilities, and predictive modeling. However, Qlik Sense has made more progress on advanced analytics.
The new Insight Advisor feature provides automated analysis and narrated data stories. Smart visualizations detect outliers and automatically suggest charts. Overall Qlik Sense seems to be investing more in augmenting human analysis.
Winner: Qlik Sense
4. Mobile Experience
With its responsive design, Qlik Sense offers the better experience for mobile analysis. Dashboards resize and adapt seamlessly to small form factors. Users can even work offline.
QlikView does have mobile availability through QlikView Mobile and Qlik Sense Client, but the experience is not as polished. There are more limitations on interactivity and exploration.
Winner: Qlik Sense
5. Scalability
QlikView is better optimized for large enterprise deployments. Its in-memory engine and data handling means it can crunch terabytes of data from numerous sources. Apps can be distributed across servers.
Qlik Sense uses search and its associative model to analyze large data sets. However, there may be limits on the size of data that can be managed, especially when supporting many concurrent users.
Winner: QlikView
6. Security
Both platforms have enterprise-grade security built in such as role-based access, authentication, and encryption.
Qlik Sense has the edge with broader identity management integration with tools like Okta, single sign-on, and secure sharing capabilities. Granular permissions allow control over exactly what users can see or edit.
Winner: Qlik Sense
7. Customization and Extensibility
QlikView has significantly more options for extending functionality to meet unique needs. Developers can build custom visualization objects, integrate external services, and code complex applications via Qlik’s APIs.
Customization is more limited in Qlik Sense since it prioritizes ease of use over flexibility. You mostly rely on out-of-the-box functionality and published extensions from the community.
Winner: QlikView
8. Cloud Platform and Services
As a next-gen platform, Qlik Sense was designed for the cloud from the start. The multi-tenant architecture allows centralized management. Qlik also offers a broader range of cloud services surrounding Qlik Sense.
QlikView comes from an on-premise world, but Qlik has cloud options via QlikView Cloud and QlikView Server in the cloud. However, the experience isn’t as seamless as Qlik Sense.
Winner: Qlik Sense
Which Use Cases Are Best Suited for Each Tool?
Based on their respective strengths, QlikView and Qlik Sense each shine for different use cases:
Qlik Sense is ideal when you need:
- Quick adoption with minimal training
- Faster time to insight for casual users
- Modern interactive visualization
- Mobile analytics
- Secure and governed self-service analytics
QlikView excels when you require:
- Scalable, enterprise-wide analytics
- Customized applications and extensions
- Advanced data modeling and ETL
- Controlled guided analytics for large groups
- On-premise or hybrid deployments
Understanding the use cases is an important factor when selecting between the two.
Making the Choice: Key Questions to Consider
Deciding whether QlikView or Qlik Sense is the right choice for your organization comes down to a few key questions:
- Who are the target users? Regular business analysts or power users?
- What degree of governance and control is needed over data and insights?
- Will usage be concentrated or distributed enterprise-wide?
- How complex are the required data models and analytics?
- Is an on-premise, cloud or hybrid deployment preferred?
- How much flexibility is needed for extending and customizing?
- What are the budget constraints and scalability needs?
Once you analyze your requirements, the choice between the two clear frontrunners in the Qlik BI suite becomes simpler.
Many organizations choose to standardize on one platform, but some opt to run both QlikView and Qlik Sense for different teams and analytics scenarios. Migrating fully from one to the other does require effort and change management.
The Bottom Line
QlikView versus Qlik Sense is one of the common evaluation scenarios I see organizations go through in selecting a BI solution.
While both platforms share Qlik’s strong associative engine and capabilities, Qlik Sense represents a major leap forward with its self-service ease of use, cloud architecture, and advanced analytics. For most current BI needs, Qlik Sense can be considered the strategic choice, with QlikView remaining an option for large-scale guided analytics.
Hopefully this detailed look at QlikView vs Qlik Sense from a data expert‘s view provides clarity to help you choose the right tool to empower users and insight-driven decision making in your organization. Let me know if you have any other questions!
