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Qlik Sense vs TIBCO Spotfire vs Tableau 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
Users see fast returns with Tableau, noting time savings and efficiency, though initial costs and adoption can be challenging.
Sentiment score
6.6
TIBCO Spotfire boosts productivity through reduced maintenance and enhanced analysis, justifying its cost with aligned organizational adoption.
In my organization, we moved from OBI to Qlik Sense due to limitations with OBI, resulting in very high ROI.
This saves a significant amount of time, particularly for reports that would have needed around fifty people.
The ROI of using Tableau extends to its seamless integration across various platforms, as it's from Salesforce and thus not limited to any specific cloud provider.
Tableau is saving me time, money, and resources, which I would rate as ten.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
Qlik Sense customer service is helpful but slow; users benefit from community support and professional consulting assistance.
Sentiment score
7.1
Tableau's customer service is generally rated positively, but response time and effectiveness can vary by region and support package.
Sentiment score
7.1
TIBCO Spotfire customer service is praised for responsiveness and knowledge, with ratings ranging from 7 to 9 out of 10.
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.
They provide quick email and phone responses and have Thai-speaking personnel.
There should be consistent standards for all users.
The technical support for Tableau is quite good.
TIBCO's support, especially for integration products, is swift.
 

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
6.7
Tableau is highly scalable, flexible, and integrates well but may face performance issues and license cost concerns.
Sentiment score
7.3
TIBCO Spotfire offers strong scalability, supporting large datasets and real-time processing, though setup and updates may pose challenges.
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.
Tableau is easy to use across various dimensions, whether on-premises or on the cloud.
The solution is fully scalable and performs well even with large datasets, provided there is proper supporting hardware.
Tableau is easy to scale.
 

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
7.3
Tableau is stable but may face issues with large data sets, updates, and network infrastructure, usually resolved by support.
Sentiment score
6.6
TIBCO Spotfire is reliable but may face stability issues with complex tasks, dataset size, and improper real-time data integration.
The stability is very good.
The application hangs after continuous use due to the buildup of cache.
I rate the stability a five or six because Tableau updates very often with new versions or patches.
There are no significant stability issues as long as the product's capabilities are understood and not overly pushed.
 

Room For Improvement

Qlik Sense users desire enhancements in data handling, analytics, customization, interoperability, and cost-effectiveness, citing several areas for improvement.
Tableau struggles with cost, complexity, performance, and integration, needing better analytics, interoperability, and more user-friendly features.
TIBCO Spotfire struggles with customization, user-friendliness, data integration, and requires enhancements in training, support, and mobile functionality.
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.
We cannot send the entire Excel file reports via email within Tableau.
The product owner should enhance its benefits or clarify its role.
It sometimes requires extensive investigation to determine why the data does not appear correctly.
TIBCO Spotfire and ClickView need improvement in scheduling, which is critical yet lacking in quality.
 

Setup Cost

Qlik Sense pricing is complex, with higher costs than competitors, requiring thorough analysis and negotiation for optimization.
Enterprise buyers should weigh Tableau's pricing models and costs against its features, ROI, and competitors like Power BI.
TIBCO Spotfire's pricing is high yet competitive, offering value with comprehensive features despite challenges in transparency and negotiation.
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.
Power BI as a much cheaper alternative.
A license for 150 users costs around $17,000 USD per year.
Looker is known to be quite expensive.
TIBCO Spotfire's pricing is high, particularly in traditional markets like Turkey, impacting market penetration.
 

Valuable Features

Qlik Sense offers swift data handling, user-friendly design, powerful visualizations, and seamless integrations, enhancing user experience and collaboration.
Tableau provides intuitive data visualization, seamless integration, and scalability, enabling easy report creation and insightful decision-making with minimal IT support.
TIBCO Spotfire excels in interactive visualizations, real-time analytics, and seamless integration, praised for handling large datasets efficiently.
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.
A significant feature for me is the real-time connection to data sources because it effectively manages large data sets.
Tableau serves as a stable dashboarding tool for higher management, aiding in quick decision-making.
Building hyper extracts and visualization capabilities make Tableau a robust tool for data analysis.
TIBCO Spotfire integrates with R and Python, offering a differentiator from the competition.
 

Mindshare comparison

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

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.
Nattawat Choosuwan - PeerSpot reviewer
Real-time data connection enhances workflow and decision-making process
An area for improvement in Tableau is the Explorer license type. It is not as useful, and the product owner should enhance its benefits or clarify its role. Additionally, the frequent updates with many versions available for download can be confusing and could affect stability. They should avoid providing access to older versions on their website.
Fuad Mammadli - PeerSpot reviewer
A scalable tool to create dashboards for financial reporting
I have experience with Qlik. Our company moved from Qlik to TIBCO, as the latter provided us with easier options to make dashboards. We consider TIBCO to be better for our company in some of the areas related to automation and analytics. The data monitoring team in our company prefers TIBCO.
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Comparison Review

it_user6330 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 2, 2013
MicroStrategy vs. Tableau
After a recent presentation, several attendees asked me about the applications of Visual Insights and Tableau. Many companies are investing in both tools and are trying to figure out the right tool for specific applications Tableau has found its sweet-spot as an agile discovery tool that analysts…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
44%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
37%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
Energy/Utilities Company
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 ...
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...
What do you like most about Qlik Sense?
The most valuable features of Qlik Sense are its speed and seamless development of web technologies.
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...
Which would you choose - Tableau or SAP Analytics Cloud?
Tableau is easy to set up and maintain. In about a day it is possible for the entire platform to be deployed for use....
What do you like most about Tableau?
Tableau is a fantastic tool that provides impressive dashboards and customized reports.
What do you like most about TIBCO Spotfire?
TIBCO Spotfire is easy to use. We initiated Spotfire as POC, with support from a tech team based in South Africa. Whi...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TIBCO Spotfire?
TIBCO Spotfire's pricing is high, particularly in traditional markets like Turkey, impacting market penetration. Ther...
What needs improvement with TIBCO Spotfire?
ClickView ( /products/clickview-reviews ) offered more visually appealing visualizations. TIBCO Spotfire and ClickVie...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

QlikSense
Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online
Spotfire
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Abbvie, Airbus, Barclays, BT Openreach, BMW, Daimler AG, HSBC, IKEA, Nationwide Building Society, Royal Mail Group, Sanofi, Siemens, Wendy'', Vodafone, Volvo
Accenture, Adobe, Amazon.com, Bank of America, Charles Schwab Corp, Citigroup, Coca-Cola Company, Cornell University, Dell, Deloitte, Duke University, eBay, Exxon Mobil, Fannie Mae, Ferrari, French Red Cross, Goldman Sachs, Google, Government of Canada, HP, Intel, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Macy's, Merck, The New York Times, PayPal, Pfizer, US Army, US Air Force, Skype, and Walmart.
Allergan, ASSS de Montreal, Avantium, Blue River, Bank of Montreal, Citibank, FrieslandCampina, Hellmann Logistics, Merck, Novartis
Find out what your peers are saying about Salesforce, Splunk, Qlik and others in Data Visualization. Updated: May 2025.
857,585 professionals have used our research since 2012.