No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Knowage 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Knowage
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (34th), Reporting (21st)
Qlik Sense
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
126
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (6th), Embedded BI (2nd), AI Data Analysis (16th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Knowage is designed for Reporting and holds a mindshare of 2.0%, up 0.9% compared to last year.
Qlik Sense, on the other hand, focuses on Data Visualization, holds 4.9% mindshare, down 8.4% since last year.
Reporting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Knowage2.0%
Tableau Enterprise13.9%
Microsoft Power BI12.9%
Other71.2%
Reporting
Data Visualization Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qlik Sense4.9%
Tableau Enterprise9.5%
Domo3.8%
Other81.8%
Data Visualization
 

Featured Reviews

AM
Margin Assurance Analyst at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
A stable open source suite for modern business analytics with a useful replication feature
It would be better if more resources were available to help us learn how to use it. I wanted to use Knowage for a more extended period, but learning materials around the product were not really available and were not really straightforward. I've also seen inconsistencies between versions. For example, under the tools, especially in the cockpit, the way you create reports is now different. You will also find some configurations within a particular state, like a line chart, which differs from version to version. I think consistency is an essential feature in a product, especially for business intelligence products.
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

"Being able to schedule necessary jobs needed for production jobs and programming run times"
"In terms of ROI, much better than any other solution when it offer full fledged features in open source, planned to have direct contact with SpagoBI for better support."
"I can't name the features the way the Knowage community calls them because I still don't know the lingo. However, I can describe them. I like the ability to join more than one report, set all fields on one end, and replicate that on the other reports. I like that a lot. I think it's one of the features that got me using Knowage. They have tables, and I like that too. They took SQL scripts and many other scripts and enabled them to even correlate with Python. That's also one of the best things about Knowage. You could also decide to get information per user role, and this is also a feature that I like in Knowage."
"The concept of engines is quite powerful allowing the user to work with report authoring/provisioning tools of their choice."
"It improves sales and products, which motivates employees."
"The embedding feature is great."
"I am satisfied with the product in general given what the company invested in it, which was just our time."
"We can easily do our own customizations."
"I am very happy with Qlik and the solutions they offer, as it allows for great flexibility and ease of use."
"Qlik Sense has allowed us to make interactive dashboards quickly and enables self-service for our management team to get answers to questions quickly and efficiently."
"The most valuable features are that Qlik has a very strong ATL available and the capacity to handle large volumes of data."
"Qlik DataMarket"
"Our primary use case for this solution is focused on the pharmaceutical business, and we deploy it on-premises, typically for dashboards, sales charts, and cost of production for marketing with solutions like Salesforce."
"End users can adjust their analysis with a few simple clicks."
"This solution has definitely improved our organization, as people are able to drill down information, see visual maps, and create a robust analysis, enabling teams to make decisions faster than they otherwise could."
"Allowing the users to be able to take snapshots and create their own story without ever leaving the application is a very good feature."
 

Cons

"We expected the community to be bigger than what it currently is."
"The demands of some jobs would slow Spago and lock the site, preventing any other job from processing."
"The support is very meager: We had to break our heads to figure out everything"
"Yes, using Mobile and Desktop Editions, we would sometimes need to restart the service."
"Unfortunately, many interesting features do not work when you are using a custom database for storing the metadata."
"Tomcat configuration was tricky in earlier versions."
"I encountered a lot of issues when I tried to integrate the map in order to realize Intelligent Location Dashboards."
"It would be better if more resources were available to help us learn how to use it. I wanted to use Knowage for a more extended period, but learning materials around the product were not really available and were not really straightforward. I've also seen inconsistencies between versions. For example, under the tools, especially in the cockpit, the way you create reports is now different. You will also find some configurations within a particular state, like a line chart, which differs from version to version. I think consistency is an essential feature in a product, especially for business intelligence products."
"Qlik dashboards are not friendly with end-users, but they have been enhancing this shorted in some recent releases and next releases hopefully."
"The current visualization features feel incomplete compared to what's available with scripting tools."
"Performing data transformations required a lot of programming, which is something that should be made easier."
"One area of improvement is that it doesn't offer an API for accessing processed data stored in the QED files."
"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."
"More visualizations Automated report delivery Cross app data sharing Easy app sharing options with specific users."
"I would like to have the ability to better customize the visuals including changing fonts, sizing, colors, axes, and titles."
"Qlik's data handling could still use some strengthening, flexibility, and overall improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Knowage is open-source, and an enterprise edition is also available."
"It allows the implementation of an effective reporting system using internal skills at a limited upfront cost."
"The costs can initially become quite high. Make sure you have a clear understanding of who will truly use the product as opposed to someone that will simply receive the end report."
"Currently, our ROI is clear and concise decision-making. This timely addition will easily add $15 million to our bottom line in 2017."
"It is the most expensive tool."
"The license mechanism of Qlik is quite complicated and not exchangeable. Such as 2016, they charge licenses by token, 1500$ 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."
"Ultimately, the cost is low, and it implements fast. The limiting factor is how quickly your staff can keep up."
"For on-premise enterprise users, a number of additional features come at a premium cost."
"Licensing is quite good, easy, but slightly expensive."
"You need to pay 5,000 Norwegian kroner per user. Microsoft Power BI is slightly more expensive than Qlik Sense."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Reporting solutions are best for your needs.
910,437 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
24%
Manufacturing Company
7%
University
7%
Retailer
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise6
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

SpagoBI
QlikSense, Qlik Analytics Platform
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

FIAT Group, Italian air navigation service provider, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Telecom Italia, ASL Genovese, San Giovanni Battista University Hospital
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, Salesforce, Plotly and others in Reporting. Updated: August 2026.
910,437 professionals have used our research since 2012.