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IBM Planning Analytics 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
6.8
IBM Planning Analytics boosts budgeting productivity but faces challenges from rising costs, prompting some companies to explore alternatives.
Sentiment score
6.4
Qlik Sense delivers cost-effective, time-saving solutions with significant ROI through enhanced decision-making and improved data-driven strategies.
In my organization, we moved from OBI to Qlik Sense due to limitations with OBI, resulting in very high ROI.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.0
IBM Planning Analytics support is positive, yet response times vary; documentation, training, and multi-level support are valued.
Sentiment score
6.6
Qlik Sense customer service is helpful but slow; users benefit from community support and professional consulting assistance.
We have a multi-level support system, with the initial level handled by the company we bought the license from and subsequent support from IBM.
Instead, we rely on third-party partners recognized by IBM, who provide cost-effective support.
While tech support is comprehensive, the stability of Qlik Sense means I generally do not need it.
Technical support requires improvement.
In Turkey, the consultant firms are very professional, and they support you.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
IBM Planning Analytics excels in scalability and real-time data, though complexity and pricing pose challenges for some users.
Sentiment score
7.8
Qlik Sense offers impressive scalability, effective resource management, and consistent performance across enterprises, despite data export and licensing limitations.
Scalability is quite hard to implement in TM1, largely since the on-premise installation chosen back in 2014.
Scalability is straightforward but it is pricey since it's a SaaS model priced per user.
It performs well in terms of performance and load compared to others.
Qlik Sense helps analyze data and can handle larger amounts of data compared to other BI tools.
I believe it is easily scalable.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
IBM Planning Analytics is stable and reliable, praised for robustness, supporting budgeting in various industries with few issues.
Sentiment score
7.8
Qlik Sense is praised for stability and reliability, though some issues arise with capacity growth or initial versions.
This stability is really important as we use it for budget calculation, which is time-consuming.
The stability is very good.
 

Room For Improvement

IBM Planning Analytics needs improved integration, pricing, visualization, user interface, functionality, automation, design, speed, and predictive analytics support.
Qlik Sense users desire enhancements in data handling, analytics, customization, interoperability, and cost-effectiveness, citing several areas for improvement.
The abundance of features results in complexity, requiring strict guidelines for developers to ensure simplistic approaches are adhered to.
IBM's visualization needs significant improvement.
Power BI has better visualizations and interactions with updates in 2023 that provide ease of use.
Providing an API feature to access data from the dashboard or QEDs could be beneficial.
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.
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise IBM Planning Analytics has setup costs from consulting fees and varied licensing, offering market-standard ROI and compatibility.
Qlik Sense pricing is complex, with higher costs than competitors, requiring thorough analysis and negotiation for optimization.
TM1 is quite expensive, and I'd rate the pricing as an eight out of ten.
While IBM's solutions were costly before, the introduction of SaaS models has reduced prices significantly.
Compared to Power BI, it is definitely costly.
Among the BI tools and data analytics tools, Qlik is the most expensive.
For small or large organizations needing many or few licenses, pricing varies.
 

Valuable Features

IBM Planning Analytics enhances planning with flexible design, Excel integration, sandbox testing, machine learning, and user-friendly interface.
Qlik Sense offers swift data handling, user-friendly design, powerful visualizations, and seamless integrations, enhancing user experience and collaboration.
Its stability helps controllers win time in their planning processes.
It also integrates machine learning and AI engines, enabling us to use algorithms for inventory forecasting which optimizes our inventory and replenishment rates.
From an end-user perspective, it's convenient and performance-oriented, providing something meaningful from all the organization's data.
It is a single product that I can use as an ETL database, BI, and more.
It has an interactive interface with Qlik graphs, pivot, and interactivity, which makes it easier to use than other tools.
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Planning Analytics
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Business Performance Management (3rd)
Qlik Sense
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
119
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (3rd), Embedded BI (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM Planning Analytics is designed for Business Performance Management and holds a mindshare of 8.4%, down 9.2% compared to last year.
Qlik Sense, on the other hand, focuses on Data Visualization, holds 7.5% mindshare, down 9.8% since last year.
Business Performance Management
Data Visualization
 

Featured Reviews

Gnanavel-Chakkarapani - PeerSpot reviewer
Can easily create dashboards and helps businesses improve forecasting accuracy
The product has improved our company's forecasting accuracy since it serves as a very useful tool for our sales and controller teams as they easily get to enter the inputs using views in TM1, which gets loaded into our main database. If there are sales team members in different parts of the world, like in Hong Kong and Singapore, they may prefer to use IBM Planning Analytics, which is easy to use when compared to the Excel tool. Speaking about planning analytics and data analysis, I would say that our company used to use IBM Cognos Analytics for reporting, where we used to use Cognos Dynamic Cubes so that users can easily use its drag and drop features while getting to see the data for which the users had to wait for two to three minutes prior to its use. In our company, tons of data are loaded into the memory, and users can use Cognos Dynamic Cubes to analyze data and understand it. The AI capabilities of IBM have benefited our planning strategy as they are very useful for business. The tool allows the easy creation of dashboard reports using AI capabilities. No technical knowledge is required for business use cases. It is possible to integrate the product in scenarios where some new integrations are available. I remember that my company used Azure Data Factory to connect Azure, Oracle, and IBM WebSphere Application Server. When it comes to IBM Planning Analytics, it is complex to integrate it with LDAP and or any other authentication tool offered by Microsoft. In our company, some users like to integrate IBM Planning Analytics with the common LDAP or Microsoft AD, which we currently use for all our applications. The authentication part is difficult to configure with IBM Planning Analytics. The maintenance of the product is easy. My company has scheduled maintenance on the product every week, especially during forecast times, so that memories automatically lapse and users can freely access their servers. The use of the tool has had an impact on collaboration within our company's planning team since everyone knows how to easily access the data and publish the results. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
27%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Educational Organization
41%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Planning Analytics?
The most valuable features of IBM Planning Analytics for streamlining planning processes include a unified database where all data are centralized.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Planning Analytics?
While IBM's solutions were costly before, the introduction of SaaS models has reduced prices significantly. Comparatively, IBM rates may be better than those of competitors, such as Hyperion ( /pro...
What needs improvement with IBM Planning Analytics?
IBM is behind competitors like Tableau ( /products/tableau-reviews ) and Power BI in terms of visualization. Their visuals are less innovative and practical with fewer varieties. IBM's visualizatio...
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.
 

Also Known As

Cognos TM1, IBM Cognos TM1
QlikSense
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ManpowerGroup, Convergys, AIG, Orchard Brands, Citibank, InterGen, Northwestern University, EF Education First, Ironside, Bazan Group, CSOB Insurance, Macquarie Group, Charles Stanley, SATO, Government of Sint Maarten, BMW Financial Services
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 Oracle, Anaplan, IBM and others in Business Performance Management. Updated: May 2025.
858,327 professionals have used our research since 2012.