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Knowage vs QlikView comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

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
Ranking in Reporting
23rd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (33rd)
QlikView
Ranking in Reporting
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
163
Ranking in other categories
Embedded BI (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Knowage is 1.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of QlikView is 3.8%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Reporting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
QlikView3.8%
Knowage1.9%
Other94.3%
Reporting
 

Featured Reviews

BS
Software Engineer at syntegra
Open-source with great embedding capabilities but the dashboards could be better
I know the initial setup is pretty straightforward. It doesn't take a long time to deploy. Even on your own personal computer, when you want to try it out, it doesn't take too long to get it running. For the initial setup, I'd say it's maybe a four out of five in terms of how easy it is. You need to add these Java dependencies and so forth, which can be a bit boring, however, it's almost perfect. To deploy Knowage usually takes about a day. In terms of the implementation strategy, it's just following the instructions that they give us on the installation and then just knowing how to handle the process. Usually, there is a group of engineers who do that for us and manage the server itself. If a team is knowledgeable, then it doesn't take a long time. When you need a new instance, it's very quick. The implementation strategy is based on just following instructions on the installation process from Knowage. For deployment and maintenance, we need just maybe two people simply to monitor the traffic coming in. However, it's maintained by people who were doing other jobs like maintaining our other server. They just monitor the Knowage server and make sure that it's up and running and that there are no bugs. There are not too many bugs coming out from the debugger.
SG
Financial Controller with task of Business Intelligence Implementation at a wholesaler/distributor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Daily invoice analytics has become streamlined and complex data modeling is now simplified
We are not using analytics features and possibly predictive analytics and forecasting features in QlikView, although they are available. QlikView is very flexible, but we are currently using only tabular presentation of data because that is what we need. Presenting a large volume of data in QlikView with graphics can be overwhelming for the majority of people who want to see a lot of information in one picture. It would be beneficial to have AI or ML features in QlikView. However, I think they will decommission QlikView, and AI features are already available in Qlik Sense, so you would need to migrate to that platform.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"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."
"The concept of engines is quite powerful allowing the user to work with report authoring/provisioning tools of their choice."
"It's a great product. It has a lot more features than many other BI tools. You can get the most out of machine learning, the best connectivity to Python, and it cuts across enterprise sections."
"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 embedding feature is great."
"Nice features available in SpagoBI compared with other open-source BI are Auditing, Collaborative BI, Query By Example, and User Profiling."
"Customer Service: Excellent."
"I would use SpagoBI if a company wants to use a free tool that has enough features."
"It gives intuitive data insights to improve and optimize our global supply chain (help drive and build strategy to improve on-time delivery, reduce quality and damage returns, etc.), with a few simple clicks to drill down to the details (down to the SKU level and call centre conversation details with customers)."
"Technical support is good."
"The most valuable aspect is its extensive library on Microsoft, providing a robust framework for implementation."
"Our sales reps use dashboards for reporting latest inventory quantities on a real-time basis, which is critical for the business."
"We realised instant value through data discovery not previously possible with traditional BI."
"QlikView's associative data model is the key feature of this application, which makes it superior amongst other competitors."
"It has user-friendly data visualization features, supporting our decision-making process with its business intelligence capabilities"
"The data model helps my organization to recognize and identify the problem of our clients’ data."
 

Cons

"Tomcat configuration was tricky in earlier versions."
"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."
"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."
"The demands of some jobs would slow Spago and lock the site, preventing any other job from processing."
"As all software and especially the open-source ones have always something that can work better, in this case, SpagoBI is slightly difficult to implement."
"I faced difficulties when using the email feature and documentation was scant."
"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 system needs some technical expertise to set up and can be expensive, but once set up, it works well."
"There are two reasons for my rating. First, the interactivity options are limited and, second, modelling options are not available."
"Sometimes large files are difficult to read and QlikView crashes midway."
"Performance sometimes is a concern. Occasionally, it hangs while running a script and it bounces out."
"It requires a lot of RAM on the PC."
"Deployment with a big data cloud is a challenge so far."
"By comparing with the latest data discovery tools like Tableau, Qlik Sense and Sisense, the layout and colors are not eye catching enough."
"Due to in memory technology, when datasets get really huge, rendering of graphs can take some time or even return out of memory."
 

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."
"Pricing is a bit too high and I think licenses should be unlimited."
"It has an annual license. It is expensive as compared to other competitive tools that do more for less. In South African rands, we pay about 100,000 to 200,000 a year."
"QlikView pricing and licensing is on the high side for a small sized company, but it's competitive among its peers."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one being low price and ten being high price, I rate pricing a four."
"Its licensing costs are moderate, but it can get expensive due to the numerous add-ons available like those for printing."
"The pricing is too high compared to the other solutions on the market."
"The setup costs for QlikView are fair as are the yearly maintenance fees. The licensing becomes a bit more expensive and requires some planning for onboarding."
"The platform's pricing is considered quite expensive, particularly given the dollar-based pricing."
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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
Construction Company
19%
University
9%
Marketing Services Firm
9%
Retailer
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
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 Business73
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise76
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for QlikView?
I would rate the pricing for QlikView as not cheap, but it is reasonable.
What needs improvement with QlikView?
We are not using analytics features and possibly predictive analytics and forecasting features in QlikView, although they are available. QlikView is very flexible, but we are currently using only t...
What is your primary use case for QlikView?
The primary use case involves analyzing data on a daily invoice level with QlikView. Building metrics using simple language, similar to what you have in Excel, is what I have found most valuable in...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

SpagoBI
No data available
 

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
Canon, Gatorade, Amcor, Panasonic, Fila, Cambridge University Hospitals, Global Retail Bank, North Yorkshire Police department, Lanoo Group Publishers, and AonGroep Nederland.
Find out what your peers are saying about Knowage vs. QlikView and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
886,576 professionals have used our research since 2012.