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Qlik Sense vs SAP Crystal Reports 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
6.4
Qlik Sense delivers cost-effective, time-saving solutions with significant ROI through enhanced decision-making and improved data-driven strategies.
Sentiment score
7.1
SAP Crystal Reports delivers over 1000% ROI through Visual Studio integration, boosting sales despite training and database understanding costs.
In my organization, we moved from OBI to Qlik Sense due to limitations with OBI, resulting in very high ROI.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.4
Qlik Sense customer service is helpful but slow; users benefit from community support and professional consulting assistance.
Sentiment score
6.0
SAP Crystal Reports' support varies; some praise it, others turn to online communities or face scheduling and complexity challenges.
While tech support is comprehensive, the stability of Qlik Sense means I generally do not need it.
In Turkey, the consultant firms are very professional, and they support you.
Technical support requires improvement.
 

Scalability Issues

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
7.9
SAP Crystal Reports excels in scalability for large enterprises, but smaller setups may face SDK and cost challenges.
Qlik Sense helps analyze data and can handle larger amounts of data compared to other BI tools.
It performs well in terms of performance and load compared to others.
It is extensible.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Qlik Sense is praised for stability and reliability, though some issues arise with capacity growth or initial versions.
Sentiment score
7.4
SAP Crystal Reports stability improved since 2011, with updates resolving crash issues, though some memory problems persist.
The stability is very good.
 

Room For Improvement

Qlik Sense users desire enhancements in data handling, analytics, customization, interoperability, and cost-effectiveness, citing several areas for improvement.
SAP Crystal Reports needs improvements in customization, interface, exporting, and compatibility for better user efficiency and experience.
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.
Power BI has better visualizations and interactions with updates in 2023 that provide ease of use.
 

Setup Cost

Qlik Sense pricing is complex, with higher costs than competitors, requiring thorough analysis and negotiation for optimization.
SAP Crystal Reports can be costly, but discounts and free software help manage expenses, requiring careful license model evaluation.
Among the BI tools and data analytics tools, Qlik is the most expensive.
Compared to Power BI, it is definitely costly.
Core-based licensing operates on a subscription mode, allowing unlimited users.
 

Valuable Features

Qlik Sense offers swift data handling, user-friendly design, powerful visualizations, and seamless integrations, enhancing user experience and collaboration.
SAP Crystal Reports offers flexible custom report creation with easy database connectivity, export options, and Business Objects integration.
From an end-user perspective, it's convenient and performance-oriented, providing something meaningful from all the organization's data.
The platform also includes AI/ML features for predictive modeling through a no-code component, allowing business users to create and deploy AutoML models without depending on data scientists.
It has an interactive interface with Qlik graphs, pivot, and interactivity, which makes it easier to use than other tools.
 

Categories and Ranking

Qlik Sense
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
119
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (4th), Embedded BI (3rd)
SAP Crystal Reports
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Qlik Sense is designed for Data Visualization and holds a mindshare of 7.0%, down 9.4% compared to last year.
SAP Crystal Reports, on the other hand, focuses on Reporting, holds 2.6% mindshare, down 3.3% since last year.
Data Visualization
Reporting
 

Featured Reviews

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.
GhulamMustafa - PeerSpot reviewer
Data management and graphs help with decision-making and good at customization
The overall environment is the best. Data management, graphs, and layout – everything is the best, in my opinion. It is good at customization in context with Crystal Reports. I use Crystal Reports on the front end, and SQL Server on the back end. So we can build any kind of report and face no difficulties in our routine reporting. So, flexibility is of great importance to me.
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
31%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 do you like most about Qlik Sense?
The most valuable features of Qlik Sense are its speed and seamless development of web technologies.
What needs improvement with SAP Crystal Reports?
Maybe some Power BI-related features could be added, like dashboards or direct editing in reports. We use query language to build reports; this area could be improved more.
What is your primary use case for SAP Crystal Reports?
We use SAP Crystal Reports for reporting. We use it for financial reports like statements of accounts, trial balances, and other management reports, salary slips, and many other purposes.
What do you like most about SAP Crystal Reports?
We use SAP Crystal Reports for operational reporting.
 

Also Known As

QlikSense
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Abbvie, Airbus, Barclays, BT Openreach, BMW, Daimler AG, HSBC, IKEA, Nationwide Building Society, Royal Mail Group, Sanofi, Siemens, Wendy'', Vodafone, Volvo
City of Buenos Aires, ASR Group, Citrix, EarlySense, Usha International Limited, Automotive Resources International (ARI), LivePerson, Coelba (Grupo Neoenergia), RZD Russian Railways, National Basketball Association - NBA, TALLY WEiJL, El Machetazo, Young Heroes, Mozzart, Mitsui Knowledge Industry (MKI) , Surgutneftegas Open Joint Stock Company, The VELUX Group, AOK Bundesverband, AL-KO KOBER GROUP
Find out what your peers are saying about Salesforce, Splunk, Qlik and others in Data Visualization. Updated: June 2025.
860,632 professionals have used our research since 2012.