Microsoft Power BI vs QlikView vs XLCubed comparison

Microsoft and Qlik are both solutions in the Reporting category. Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.0, while Qlik is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.4. Microsoft holds a 17.3% mindshare in RT, compared to Qlik’s 4.0% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Qlik users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Power BI

Read 327 Microsoft Power BI reviews

23,151 Views
9,260 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

QlikView

Read 163 QlikView reviews

3,983 Views
2,270 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

XLCubed

Read 2 XLCubed reviews

439 Views
307 Comparison Views

50% willing to recommend

Microsoft Power BI

QlikView

XLCubed

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Microsoft Power BI, QlikView, and XLCubed based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Salesforce, Domo and others in Reporting.

To learn more, read our detailed Reporting Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Reporting

January 2026

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Helped 881,757 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 17.3%, down from 26.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of QlikView is 4.0%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of XLCubed is 0.9%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Reporting Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Power BI	17.3%
QlikView	4.0%
XLCubed	0.9%
Other	77.8%

Reporting

Featured Reviews

Livia Vasilescu

HR Manager at PPB

Use advanced data preparation features in analytics projects

Microsoft Power BI can be quite slow when working with data sources that aren't from a data warehouse or a more robust source or data artifact. When working with exports, which we do frequently, the load takes considerable time. This occurs with any BI tool, and it's related to our working methods due to limitations within the area. In HR, we typically use exports because we have numerous data sources. Ideally, Microsoft Power BI would have a no-code or low-code solution for the data sources to be built by the actual developers or development team. This would eliminate the need to work directly with exports. We would have a middle ground to create a warehouse without all the infrastructure, as building a warehouse within an organization can require substantial resources, both in time and personnel.

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Morne Ayres

Managing Director at Hurricnae

Rapid development and flexibility transform commercial decision-making processes

In QlikView, I believe the improvement that should be made is to bring the costs down, as you'll have to be competitive with Power BI, aiming for at least a 30% reduction to stop the hemorrhaging to Power BI, considering that you're losing a lot of customers to Power BI. Reducing costs is the main improvement needed, as this is the biggest burden currently faced in the South African market, with Microsoft converting QlikView customers due to the perceived cost reduction. I am aware of several big corporations, such as Sanofi and Aspen Pharmacare, which have left QlikView due to cost issues.

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it_user1391316

Head of Finance Systems at NHS

Cost effective with great capability, performance, flexibility and visuals

In general, we're happy with the solution but we're always looking to see what else is out there. The thing we've struggled with is our partnership with Tagetik UK, the consultants, and the issue we had gaining access to consultants to develop the solution on our behalf. Thankfully we connected directly with XLCubed and now have a pretty close and good relationship with them so the earlier problem we had of actually getting resources to help us develop has now been solved. One of the things that we've been asking for and would like as an additional feature is a sort of benchmarking functionality. The ability to be able to benchmark, directly against the company digital corporate numbers. That said, there seems to be improved functionality within the latest release that could help us develop that further.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It seems stable. I haven't heard of any difficulties from my clients that utilize Power BI."

"It provides easy integration with Office tools."

"It's a great tool for visualization data, and it's free for engineers."

"Technical support has been great."

"With Power BI, you're able to store your data within spreadsheets and SharePoints, and then have Power BI pull the data out and report on it. So we actually saved a ton of money not needing to load the data into databases, which is a big prerequisite for many other reporting tools."

"Implementation is very quick and the solution is very user-friendly."

"The initial setup is easy."

"The most valuable feature is shareability, where we can publish work to the cloud and share it with team members."

More Microsoft Power BI pros

"The user interface and dashboards are very good."

"It is a stable product."

"It excels in supporting database connections and various database types."

"We use QlikView for its cost-effectiveness and ease of integration with databases."

"The product’s most valuable feature is its ability to view the entire data available for analysis."

"The in-memory feature gives us better insight. It's also easy to drill down into the information and select information."

"The most useful feature of QlikView for me is the QVD concept."

"This is a very cool application with endless options of creativity and visuals."

More QlikView pros

"I am looking forward to testing their full graphics that are available, as they looked very interesting in the demo."

"Great capability, performance, flexibility, visuals, and the solution is also very cost effective."

Cons

"I cannot comment on the stability as we haven't yet used it for a big project."

"We found out that you can't share a report with others unless you have an additional package. That caught us off guard. It came as a program that somebody could go in, build a report, and show it, but you can't share it without having additional licenses."

"Real-time updating needs improvement."

"You do need to do some hard coding for certain things in Microsoft BI."

"An area for improvement is data refresh functionality"

"The solution could improve by providing more free visuals. A lot of them are very nice but you have to purchase them."

"It seems that the solution could use more analytics to help users draw more contextual business insights. Right now, you need other solutions for that."

"The solution could improve by having more attractive graphical charts."

More Microsoft Power BI cons

"Error handling."

"QlikView certainly lacks in its ability to share visualizations or create visualizations easily."

"They should offer the capability to directly access data from SaaS environments, as it would simplify the migration process, and while it may seem like a minor enhancement, it would be beneficial to our clients."

"It would be beneficial to have AI or ML features in QlikView."

"Needs improvement with UI transparency."

"This solution would be improved with the inclusion of a feature that would allow us to add a common library of (our) commands used in load scripts and expressions, so with a keyword, we would get a drop down to select the command we are looking for, as opposed to the generic help."

"Installation and deployment could be made easier and quicker."

"Improvement in collaboration, between that and publishing of reports and publishing of models."

More QlikView cons

"Would like the ability to be able to benchmark."

"There should be a better or an easier way to establish that connection to external sources."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"No comment."

"All in all, for the price, this is an excellent tool for helping your organization turn mounds of data into useful insights."

"It depends upon the tier of your Office 365 subscription. On E5, which is a Microsoft Azure subscription, you get it for free. If you are on a lower tier, you can subscribe for $10 a month per user, which is really cheap."

"Microsoft Power BI has reasonable pricing."

"Paid for itself in the first month."

"The price of Microsoft BI is reasonable. Other solutions such as SAP Cloud are more expensive."

"The solution is affordable."

"Compared to what's available on the market, I think we pay a fair price."

More Microsoft Power BI pricing and cost advice

"It's reasonably priced and falls on the more affordable side."

"I rate QlikView's pricing a five out of ten."

"Qlik is fairly high in terms of pricing."

"On a scale of one to ten, where one being low price and ten being high price, I rate pricing a four."

"The platform's pricing is considered quite expensive, particularly given the dollar-based pricing."

"QlikView is a reasonably priced solution."

"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."

"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."

More QlikView pricing and cost advice

"I am still using the two-week trial, but at first sight, the price is reasonable."

"14,000 Pounds per year for licensing."

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Comparison Review

it_user79932

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Marketing Services Firm

Performing Arts

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	135
Midsize Enterprise	57
Large Enterprise	165

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	73
Midsize Enterprise	36
Large Enterprise	76

No data available

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...

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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...

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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 ...

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What do you like most about QlikView?

If you correctly use the product for your use cases, it provides value for money.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for QlikView?

I would rate the pricing for QlikView as not cheap, but it is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with QlikView?

We are not using analytics features and possibly predictive analytics and forecasting features in QlikView, although ...

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Comparisons

Amazon QuickSight vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 16% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 13% of the time

Domo vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 5% of the time

Databricks vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 3% of the time

Workday Prism Analytics vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 2% of the time

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Tableau Enterprise vs QlikView

Compared 13% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs QlikView

Compared 7% of the time

MicroStrategy vs QlikView

Compared 6% of the time

Zendesk vs QlikView

Compared 5% of the time

Domo vs QlikView

Compared 5% of the time

More QlikView Competitors

Tableau Enterprise vs XLCubed

Compared 45% of the time

More XLCubed Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI

January 2026

Download Microsoft Power BI product report

Buyer's Guide

QlikView

January 2026

Download QlikView product report

Buyer's Guide

Reporting

January 2026

Download XLCubed product report

Also Known As

SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI

No data available

Overview

Microsoft Power BI is a powerful tool for data analysis and visualization. This tool stands out for its ability to merge and analyze data from various sources. Widely adopted across different industries and departments, Power BI is instrumental in creating visually appealing dashboards and generating insightful business intelligence reports. Its intuitive interface, robust visualization capabilities, and seamless integration with other Microsoft applications empower users to easily create interactive reports and gain valuable insights.

Microsoft

QlikView is a Business Intelligence tool that allows you to keep tabs on all of your business-related information in a clean, clear, and easy to access database that is intuitive to build and simple to navigate. It is ideal for business owners who wish to improve overall output by creating the most productive system possible.

Qlik

Produce insightful, interactive reports on, company-wide metrics for any business audience. Now all in Excel.
Pixel-perfect financial reporting with the skill sets you already have. No IT required.
Meet XLCubed: The data-connected Excel add-in for all your reporting needs.

Fluence Technologies

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

Canon, Gatorade, Amcor, Panasonic, Fila, Cambridge University Hospitals, Global Retail Bank, North Yorkshire Police department, Lanoo Group Publishers, and AonGroep Nederland.

Marshalls Ltd, BP Exploration and Production, Thorntons, Ted Baker, Bristol-Myers, Rank Group, ING Bank Genve, Cargill Value Investment, Chloride Power, Auchan, Erste, UEFA, Novartis, Porsche Informatik, Raiffeisen Bank International

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Salesforce, Domo and others in Reporting. Updated: January 2026.

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