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Qlik Sense vs Splunk Security Essentials comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 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

Qlik Sense
Ranking in Data Visualization
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
126
Ranking in other categories
Embedded BI (2nd), AI Data Analysis (16th)
Splunk Security Essentials
Ranking in Data Visualization
14th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
4.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
IT Alerting and Incident Management (14th), Security Incident Response (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Data Visualization category, the mindshare of Qlik Sense is 4.9%, down from 8.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk Security Essentials is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Visualization Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qlik Sense4.9%
Splunk Security Essentials0.8%
Other94.3%
Data Visualization
 

Featured Reviews

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.
reviewer2836941 - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Manager at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Centralized monitoring has given our SOC real-time visibility into security and application activity
When I first implemented Splunk Security Essentials in this environment, it took a week for each log source to onboard and to create use cases and implement the data model, CIM, etc., for production readiness. Training is mandatory, and we need at least the Splunk Security Essentials User certification because it is a very critical resource in the organization, as we are handling security logs. In my organization, Splunk Security Essentials is used not only by the SOC but also for monitoring logs across different teams, as it is important for handling both security and application logs, given its capability to manage unstructured logs. Splunk Security Essentials has dramatically impacted my organization, as without it, we were blind to what is happening from both a security and application perspective, and it provides vital visibility into the organization's operations.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Qlik has made life easier by visualising data."
"It is very easy to use, and the Qlik data engine has been able to handle everything we have thrown at it."
"This tool not only allows for consumption of the data in a visual way, but also allows the user to modify the question to get new answers."
"Qlik has proven to be flexible, powerful, and friendly to both developers and end users."
"Among Tableau, QlikView, and Qlik Sense, I prefer QlikView, due to its higher customization capabilities, its associative nature, and its ETL features."
"Leveraging and reusability of already existing QlikView assets and knowledge."
"The data is incredibly easy to share with colleagues."
"The Qlik Sense cloud insights advisor helps our business users to get the answers to their data questions so that they do not have to rely on IT/BI resources every time they have some data request."
"They have a good catalog of plans to use to resist the attacks."
"The network monitoring feature is particularly valuable for gathering information about users, login times, and other statistics."
"Splunk Security Essentials has impacted my organization in that we have been getting the results that we wanted."
"Splunk Security Essentials has dramatically impacted my organization, as without it, we were blind to what is happening from both a security and application perspective, and it provides vital visibility into the organization's operations."
"I would have to rate Splunk Security Essentials a 10 out of 10 because it's free and there's tons of usable content."
"We are focusing on security to ensure incidents are reported efficiently. In addition to that, for reporting purposes, we are utilizing our dashboards or creating new ones. We will be using free visualization tools for this purpose."
 

Cons

"I wish the product had the ability for slightly more customization. The out-of-the box charts and visualizations are fantastic, but I want to be able to tweak it without having to add outside extensions and widgets."
"There is not much information available. It is not a mainstream tool that many companies use, so if you are doing something that has not been done before, you can find it challenging to get an answer."
"They need to make security rules to access applications and data security easier and customizable."
"Multi-server deployment: not just cloud, but on premise too, and hybrid. Needs lighter protocols to communicate between the different services and with the clients."
"Integrated maps should become part of the Qlik Sense, as opposed to buying an additional module just to power the BI, which has it built-in natively within the application."
"I think Qlik Sense has a better engine than all the three that I've mentioned, but in regards to sharing the analysis, it's clunky; it's not as good."
"It needs a more robust way to connect and share the big-data origin."
"Font management."
"The reporting feature needs to be more user-friendly."
"If I could change one thing about Splunk Security Essentials, it would be pricing. I believe they are still very costly as compared to the competition."
"The price could be improved."
"It takes a lot of time to install Splunk Security Essentials. It's not very difficult, but it requires time."
"The biggest friction points I have with Splunk Security Essentials are the high license costs and user behavior that causes performance issues due to inappropriate wildcard searches."
"They could add more AI content or AI and machine learning."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have 20 licenses for Qlik Sense, and it is a special license that allows people in the whole company to use it over time. You buy this license and there are some minutes that can be used. For example, for the users that used only a few minutes in a month, we use this license. All the people have the ability to work with Qlik Sense. However, the number of licenses is not the number of users. The number of users that uses Qlik Sense is approximately 35 people."
"The cost is not bad considering the flexibility and support you receive from Qlik. I believe it is worth the cost."
"Know your needs when going into the purchasing decision."
"The license mechanism of Qlik is quite complicated and not exchangeable. Such as 2016, they charge licenses by token, 1500$ for a token / 1 user. 2018: they change to 2 kinds of licenses: professional 1500$ / user, analyzer 800$ / user. 2019: they support subscription with 70$ Monthly for professional, 40$ monthly for analyzers, but for those you’re using perpetual licenses, they don't support acquiring more subscription licenses. The maintenance fee yearly are also high, 20% of the perpetual license."
"Start small with tokens. You can always buy more."
"The new licensing model is much better."
"I would rate Qlik's pricing four out of five."
"Understand the break over price point for switching to the Enterprise license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Construction Company
18%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise40
Large Enterprise89
No data available
 

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 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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Splunk Security Essentials?
Our SecOps manager and CISO were more familiar with Splunk, and the price was right. That was probably the primary driver, and we did evaluation as well with strict criteria and Gartner ratings.
What needs improvement with Splunk Security Essentials?
The biggest friction points I have with Splunk Security Essentials are the high license costs and user behavior that causes performance issues due to inappropriate wildcard searches. Additionally, ...
What is your primary use case for Splunk Security Essentials?
My main use case for Splunk Security Essentials is for Enterprise Security, specifically the ES app. Splunk Security Essentials is my primary tool for threat detection and monitoring because as a S...
 

Also Known As

QlikSense, Qlik Analytics Platform
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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Qlik Sense vs. Splunk Security Essentials and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.