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Microsoft Power BI vs Qlik Sense vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform 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
7.9
Microsoft Power BI is cost-effective, user-friendly, and efficient, enhancing BI capabilities and saving time and money.
Sentiment score
6.4
Qlik Sense delivers cost-effective, time-saving solutions with significant ROI through enhanced decision-making and improved data-driven strategies.
Sentiment score
6.6
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform's ROI varies by usage and integration, with potential returns within 6-12 months if deployed properly.
In a world surrounded by data, tools that allow navigation of large data volumes ensure decisions are data-driven.
Power BI is easy to deploy within an hour, providing robust security against data leaks.
In my organization, we moved from OBI to Qlik Sense due to limitations with OBI, resulting in very high ROI.
For most of my clients using the on-premises version of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform, the return on investment is positive due to its affordability and ability to handle diverse reporting needs while automating information distribution.
I have seen a return on investment so far in the form of saved time and resources.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.7
Microsoft Power BI customer service is responsive and effective, but users frequently rely on forums for quicker solutions.
Sentiment score
5.4
Qlik Sense customer service is helpful but slow; users benefit from community support and professional consulting assistance.
Sentiment score
6.5
SAP BusinessObjects support varies from poor to excellent; forums and community resources are valuable despite connectivity issues.
The significant drawback I notice is that Microsoft's size makes it hard to get specific change requests addressed unless they involve a bug.
We have a partnership with Microsoft, involving multiple weekly calls with dedicated personnel to ensure our satisfaction.
The support is good because there is also a community available.
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.
I would rate their technical support as excellent.
I have experience with SAP technical support and have supported customers, including those in financial services.
Sometimes, they forward my ticket to the technical team, especially when my issue involves technical aspects that basis people may not be familiar with.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.0
Microsoft Power BI is scalable, integrates well with Azure, but faces challenges with large datasets and concurrent users.
Sentiment score
7.8
Qlik Sense offers impressive scalability, effective resource management, and consistent performance across enterprises, despite data export and licensing limitations.
Sentiment score
7.8
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform offers seamless scaling and integration, supporting enterprise-level deployments with reliable performance across various organizations.
You expect only a small percentage of users concurrently, but beyond a thousand concurrent users, it becomes difficult to manage.
With increasing AI capabilities, architectural developments within Microsoft, and tools like Fabric, I expect Power BI to scale accordingly.
As more data is processed, performance issues may arise.
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.
I rate the scalability of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform as a nine due to performance issues related to optimizing parts.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Microsoft Power BI is stable and reliable, excelling with smaller datasets but may need resources for larger ones.
Sentiment score
7.8
Qlik Sense is praised for stability and reliability, though some issues arise with capacity growth or initial versions.
Sentiment score
7.0
SAP BusinessObjects' stability varies with configuration; though resilient, complexity and issues impact reliability compared to competitors.
In terms of stability, there's no data loss or leakage, and precautions are well-managed by Microsoft.
We typically do not have problems with end-user tools like Excel and Power BI.
It is very stable for small data, but with big data, there are performance challenges.
The stability is very good.
When they tried upgrading from 4.2 to 4.3, they found it buggy in some reports, which was quite problematic.
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Power BI faces criticism for Windows dependency, interface complexity, limited features, and challenges in integration and pricing.
Qlik Sense users desire enhancements in data handling, analytics, customization, interoperability, and cost-effectiveness, citing several areas for improvement.
The SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform struggles with integration, complexity, performance, and usability, needing improvement in cloud integration and support.
This makes Power BI difficult to manage as loading times can reach one or two minutes, which is problematic today.
Access was more logical in how it distinguished between data and its formatting.
Microsoft updates Power BI monthly based on user community feedback.
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.
I've worked with other tools, for example, Microsoft Power BI, which is visualization-wise very strong.
SAP BusinessObjects is expected to be phased out by 2027 as reports are moving to SAP Analytics Cloud.
I would appreciate integration with Outlook as an additional feature in the future to make it closer to a perfect score.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Power BI provides cost-effective pricing options, with plans ranging from free to $4,995 monthly, competing with Tableau and Cognos.
Qlik Sense pricing is complex, with higher costs than competitors, requiring thorough analysis and negotiation for optimization.
SAP BusinessObjects is costly for enterprises, with complex licensing, yearly fees, and high implementation costs compared to Power BI.
I found the setup cost to be expensive
Power BI isn't very cheap, however, it is economical compared to other solutions available.
The pricing for Microsoft Power BI is low, which is a good selling point.
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.
The price is very competitive and reliable.
I rate the pricing for SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform as a seven or eight.
 

Valuable Features

Power BI offers seamless Microsoft integration, data visualization, and self-service tools, enhancing data-driven decisions with flexibility and affordability.
Qlik Sense offers swift data handling, user-friendly design, powerful visualizations, and seamless integrations, enhancing user experience and collaboration.
SAP BusinessObjects provides flexible, secure, user-friendly BI tools, enabling efficient report creation and insightful analytics integration with databases.
In today's data-driven environment, these tools are of substantial value, particularly for large enterprises with numerous processes that require extensive data analysis.
Within the organization, Microsoft Power BI is used to create dashboards and gain insights into data, enhancing data-driven decision-making.
The solution makes it easy for me to develop reports and publish them.
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.
For calculations, SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform outperforms all other tools such as Power BI and Tableau, showing more accuracy, reliability, and flexibility compared to all other BI tools worldwide.
The best feature about it for me, and for them, is the fact that you have a universe that is well made.
The important features include a dashboard and reporting capabilities through SAP Analytics Cloud, which I consider to be a better version than the initial BusinessObjects platform.
 

Mindshare comparison

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
Data Visualization
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Shoury Priyanshu - PeerSpot reviewer
Facilitates seamless data aggregation with some outdated visual elements hindering user appeal
Real-time data integration is an area for improvement. Although I've worked on several solutions involving real-time integration, it's not very user-friendly and often lags, especially with over a million data rows. This makes Power BI difficult to manage as loading times can reach one or two minutes, which is problematic today. There are challenges with scalability, requiring multiple pages in dashboards to manage these issues. Visualization could be improved as it appears outdated. Users, especially newcomers, find it unappealing and not user-friendly.
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.
Declan Dempsey - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides efficient data reporting while needing easier deployment and improved interface
Users tend to put everything into Excel, though I try to discourage this. The best feature about it for me, and for them, is the fact that you have a universe that is well made. This means you don't have those months that get assigned. You can just get to the point and get a report very quickly. Unfortunately, in some ways, it's a double-edged sword because it becomes more of a self-service ETL, even for the reporting team. If you have a decent universe and you just want to quickly get something together, it's very usable. Compared to Click, you can drop those reports very quickly.
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Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
Educational Organization
22%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
35%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 wou...
Is Power BI a complete platform or only a visualization tool?
Power BI is an advanced visualization tool oriented to big data with a very complete set of widgets to visualize info...
How does Oracle OBIEE compare with Microsoft BI?
Oracle OBIEE is great in allowing design and creativity per the individual needs of the organization. Dashboards are ...
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 ...
What do you like most about Qlik Sense?
The most valuable features of Qlik Sense are its speed and seamless development of web technologies.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qlik Sense?
Costs depend on the deal. They offer various licensing metrics based on our needs. For small or large organizations n...
Tableau vs. Business Objects - Which is a better solution for visualization and analysis?
Both tools have their positives and negatives. First, I should mention that I am relatively new to Tableau. I have be...
What do you like most about SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform?
What I like the most about SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform is that it has significantly improved our decision-making ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform?
I rate the pricing for SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform as a seven or eight.
 

Also Known As

SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI
QlikSense
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform, SAP BusinessObjects, Business Objects
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Accenture Adidas Aetna AIG Airbus Alibaba Allstate Amazon American Express Aon AT&T Audi Bank of America BASF Bayer Berkshire Hathaway Boeing Coca-Cola Comcast Cisco Coca-Cola Dell Disney Emirates Equinix FedEx Ford GE Google H&M Home Depot Honda IBM Intel JPMorgan Chase Kellogg's Kroger L'Oréal McDonald's Merck MetLife Microsoft Nike Oracle P&G PepsiCo Procter & Gamble Prudential Financial SAP Siemens Snapchat Spotify Starbucks Target Toyota T-Mobile Unilever Visa Walmart WeWork World Bank Xerox
Abbvie, Airbus, Barclays, BT Openreach, BMW, Daimler AG, HSBC, IKEA, Nationwide Building Society, Royal Mail Group, Sanofi, Siemens, Wendy'', Vodafone, Volvo
SRAM, Kennametal, Fairfax Water, British American Tobacco, Velux, and FedEx.
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