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Knowage vs Qlik Sense comparison

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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 (22nd)
Qlik Sense
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
126
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (6th), Embedded BI (3rd), AI Data Analysis (15th)
 

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 1.0% compared to last year.
Qlik Sense, on the other hand, focuses on Data Visualization, holds 4.7% mindshare, down 8.3% since last year.
Reporting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Knowage2.0%
Tableau Enterprise13.7%
Microsoft Power BI12.7%
Other71.6%
Reporting
Data Visualization Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qlik Sense4.7%
Tableau Enterprise9.3%
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence3.8%
Other82.2%
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

"The embedding feature is great."
"The most valuable features to us are application implementation, development, and analysis."
"Being able to schedule necessary jobs needed for production jobs and programming run times"
"The most valuable feature of SpagoBI is that it is open source and 100% free without limits."
"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."
"Customer Service: Excellent."
"It's very easy to get the historical reports you need based on the business requirements and this helps our executives for taking decisions."
"I would use SpagoBI if a company wants to use a free tool that has enough features."
"The solution is stable and reliable."
"Among Tableau, QlikView, and Qlik Sense, I prefer QlikView, due to its higher customization capabilities, its associative nature, and its ETL features."
"Qlik Sense is a mission-critical environment - the directors can't make their work happen without it."
"The solution is scalable."
"The product is reasonably priced."
"End users can adjust their analysis with a few simple clicks."
"Reporting is a valuable feature of the solution."
"Some of the valuable areas of this solution include producing individual reports and closing the gap."
 

Cons

"Development of SpagoBI has now been moved to Knowage. Users interested in further developments of the platform will have to look there."
"We had stability issues."
"Unfortunately, many interesting features do not work when you are using a custom database for storing the metadata."
"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."
"The only challenge here is that it's a Java-based platform. It requires very high technical skills."
"We are not happy with the poor graphic user interface. It looks a bit old and sometimes it is not properly user friendly."
"Many things need to be improved, most of all robustness."
"The demands of some jobs would slow Spago and lock the site, preventing any other job from processing."
"The only issue with scalability that I can see is that you can't export more than 1,000,000 cells at a time."
"Currently, we are not very happy with the iPad or iPhone app because it is not working as we want."
"The only thing I would say that comes up is that sometimes it can be a bit buggy."
"Better visualization options on charts such as pivot tables, and better control over total lines in the pivot and straight tables without the need to download extensions to accomplish this task."
"The navigation is quite clunky and outdated."
"Reload time is a limit since everyone wants real-time data."
"There is room for improvement in the learning curve when getting started, but training resources have been growing."
"More freedom for custom visuals and dashboard creation would be an improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It allows the implementation of an effective reporting system using internal skills at a limited upfront cost."
"Knowage is open-source, and an enterprise edition is also available."
"The product is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"QlikSense offers a Hybrid environment architecture, which is very cost effective based on where the enterprise data resides."
"Currently, our ROI is clear and concise decision-making. This timely addition will easily add $15 million to our bottom line in 2017."
"Licensing is quite good, easy, but slightly expensive."
"You will spend more time on educating your staff than licensing the product."
"Qlik Sense is pretty good in terms of price."
"It is a little expensive for the Italian market. Normally, Qlik Sense has two types and costs. The medium cost is around 700 euros per year."
"The new licensing model is much better."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
22%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
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

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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: September 2026.
912,818 professionals have used our research since 2012.