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QlikView vs SAP Crystal Reports comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

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
6.5
QlikView offers quick returns and valuable insights despite perceived costs, challenging ROI calculation but often realized within six months.
Sentiment score
5.7
SAP Crystal Reports greatly enhances ERP reporting and efficiency, offering ROI over 1000%, despite costly user training.
The biggest return on investment is the time saving for the customer.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.1
QlikView's customer service is praised for responsiveness, community support, and efficiency, though experiences may vary by location.
Sentiment score
5.7
SAP Crystal Reports customer support is inconsistent, with mixed reviews, leading users to favor online resources and self-help solutions.
I would rate the customer support a solid 10.
I have not encountered any problems requiring assistance.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.0
QlikView is scalable with proper hardware, though high user counts may require infrastructure enhancements and favor Qlik Sense.
Sentiment score
7.6
SAP Crystal Reports supports scalability and is suitable for medium to large enterprises, with room for scalability improvements.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
QlikView is praised for stability and robustness, with some resource intensity issues during heavy data processing but overall reliable.
Sentiment score
7.1
SAP Crystal Reports is stable on Windows, with Unix challenges and improved performance on specialized servers post-2011.
 

Room For Improvement

QlikView's outdated interface, scalability issues, and high costs drive users towards modern tools like Tableau, Power BI, and Qlik Sense.
SAP Crystal Reports needs better visualization, modern tech integration, improved analytics, compatibility, and enhanced documentation and support.
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.
Integration of a real-time preview and a live preview panel that updates instantly while designing the reports would make it much easier to use.
Enabling better practices and testing to enhance data accuracy and efficiency for company sectors.
If it is closed due to any problem, it should be able to recover where I left off, similar to Excel, which should be a feature for SAP Crystal Reports.
 

Setup Cost

QlikView's pricing varies significantly, with high setup and user costs compared to Power BI and SAP Crystal Reports.
SAP Crystal Reports pricing perceptions vary; some find it costly, but discounts and volume deals can reduce expenses.
The license cost per user or per year for QlikView is about 500 Euros annually.
 

Valuable Features

QlikView offers dynamic dashboards, self-service BI, and rapid data visualization with its Associative Query Logic and user-friendly interface.
SAP Crystal Reports provides flexible data connectivity, custom design, and efficient reporting, enhancing decision-making and client communication.
The best features in QlikView are rapid development, the fact that I can do what I want in QlikView, and full control along with ease of use.
SAP Crystal Reports has had a very positive impact and benefits. It's a powerful tool to design any kind of report if you have knowledge of the database, and it can attach to both HANA and SQL databases.
The efficiency gained by our organization from SAP Crystal Reports is measurable through multiple export formats such as PDF and Excel.
The best features SAP Crystal Reports offers are powerful data connectivity, customized report design, interactive and visual reports, import, export, sharing options, and automation and scheduling.
 

Categories and Ranking

QlikView
Ranking in Reporting
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
162
Ranking in other categories
Embedded BI (4th)
SAP Crystal Reports
Ranking in Reporting
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of QlikView is 4.4%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Crystal Reports is 2.7%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Reporting Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
QlikView4.4%
SAP Crystal Reports2.7%
Other92.9%
Reporting
 

Featured Reviews

Arjun Meda - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful for data visualization and business intelligence
Many of the features in Qlik Sense need to be available and reintroduced in QlikView. I believe many of the features have been added to QlikView after the layout containers were introduced. QlikView used to be a way more customizable tool than Qlik Sense is in the present time. Improvements are required in the hide and unhide functionality that falls under the layout container feature that has been used in my company in recent times. Hiding off the apps in the app overview tab based on the access was a really good feature that needs to be introduced back in the product since I see that, at the moment, there are multiple groups on the tool, owing to which multiple changes on the QMC part is required to handle the solution. Only the person with access to the dashboard in QlikView could have a link to the dashboard through QlikView's hub or access points. With Qlik Sense, one can see whatever is available in the stream. If a user wants to control everything in the product, then there is no need to make multiple changes in the QMC at the individual app level. The aforementioned area can be considered to improve Qlik Sense.
MUHAMMAD_IMRAN - PeerSpot reviewer
Crystal Reports enables comprehensive data visualization but requires consistent integration practices for optimal accuracy
SAP Crystal Reports provides a clear picture for customer and vendor orders, showing whether orders are pending and delivering receivable and payable statuses, which allows understanding different scenarios categorically for client needs, ultimately satisfying both customers and clients. The efficiency gained by our organization from SAP Crystal Reports is measurable through multiple export formats such as PDF and Excel, which makes accessing and understanding data from the database easier. The ability to generate different formats facilitates better data analysis, although occasionally advanced features such as workbench center directly enhance the experience. The impact of SAP Crystal Reports' dynamic parameters significantly affects the customization and flexibility of reports, allowing adjustments to parameters based on client needs, such as date, users, and ledger views, ensuring data is correctly collected and formatted according to the client's requirements.
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867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business73
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise75
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise22
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about QlikView?
If you correctly use the product for your use cases, it provides value for money.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for QlikView?
The license cost per user or per year for QlikView is about 500 Euros annually, and since we are South African-based, that needs to be multiplied.
What needs improvement with QlikView?
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 t...
What needs improvement with SAP Crystal Reports?
SAP Crystal Reports could be improved with more modern user-friendly interfaces and better integration with cloud platforms and AI tools. It would be beneficial to have easier integration with Azur...
What is your primary use case for SAP Crystal Reports?
I have been using SAP Crystal Reports for six months. I am using SAP Crystal Reports to develop data-driven reports and use customer data printing. When I use SAP Crystal Reports for customer data ...
What do you like most about SAP Crystal Reports?
We use SAP Crystal Reports for operational reporting.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Canon, Gatorade, Amcor, Panasonic, Fila, Cambridge University Hospitals, Global Retail Bank, North Yorkshire Police department, Lanoo Group Publishers, and AonGroep Nederland.
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 QlikView vs. SAP Crystal Reports and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.