When Microsoft launched Power BI in 2013, stalwarts like Tableau dominated business intelligence (BI) and analytics software. Qlik Sense arrived on the scene a year later, in 2014, and posed stiff competition to Power BI with its advanced analytics features.
Now the Power BI vs. Tableau vs. Qlik Sense comparison is a common point of discussion in industry circles. According to our analysts’ in-depth research, Power BI is the winner, with Qlik Sense coming in a close second. Let’s see why.
Compare Power BI, Tableau and Qlik Sense Against Your Needs
What This Article Covers
Power BI has a rich suite of query and visualization modules — Power Pivot, Power Query and Power View. It offers the advantage of the Microsoft Suite, working seamlessly with other vendor products.
Thanks to a rich graphics library and excellent computing power, Tableau has powerful visualization capabilities, even for complex volumes.
Qlik Sense is next-gen QlikView, wrapped in a modern, self-service BI platform with a robust associative engine. It’s popular for independent app building and visualization.
Features Comparison
Power BI is in demand for limited dataset processing at an affordable price. Tableau is adept at complex data computing and can easily handle large volumes, while Qlik Sense is popular for advanced analytics.
Instead of a Qlik vs. Tableau vs. Power BI comparison, we discuss Qlik Sense vs. Tableau vs. Power BI here. Let’s dive in.
Data Management
Source connectivity, data blending, profiling, and designing and tracking data pipeline workflows are essential data management attributes. All the tools support this feature in our QlikView vs. Tableau vs. Power BI comparison.
![Power BI Data Management](https://www.selecthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Power-BI-Data-Management-V4.jpg)
Back-end data management serves up the desired insight on demand. Source
Power BI
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Tableau
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The platform has two data management modules — Prep Builder and Prep Conductor.
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Qlik Sense
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The Winner: All three products tie for data management.
Analyst Rating | ||
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Power BI – 100 | Tableau – 100 | Qlik Sense – 100 |
Compare Power BI, Tableau and Qlik Sense Against Your Needs
Dashboards and Data Visualization
Templates, interactivity, self-service capabilities and data refreshes help you derive accurate insight. Customization and formatting options enable personalized visualizations.
Get a free comparison scorecard for BI software with our Express App.
Power BI
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Tableau
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Qlik Sense
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The Winner: Tableau wins, thanks to comprehensive dashboard and data visualization capabilities.
Analyst Rating | ||
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Power BI – 94 | Tableau – 100 | Qlik Sense – 100 |
Reporting
Generating reports is the endgame of business intelligence. Data exploration and insight sharing, versioning, and access permissions through user management and data governance are essential attributes of BI tools.
In the QlikView vs. Power BI vs. Tableau comparison, all three products are popular enterprise reporting tools, providing managed and ad hoc reporting.
![Power BI Reporting](https://www.selecthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Power-BI-Reporting-V4.jpg)
Retail analysis made simpler with Power BI visualizations.
Power BI
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Tableau
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Qlik Sense
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The Winner: Tableau emerges as the winner for reporting with built-in versioning and subscription-based report delivery.
Analyst Rating | ||
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Power BI – 89 | Tableau – 93 | Qlik Sense – 88 |
Data Querying
It involves live source connections, data transformations and batch uploads. Comparing Power BI, Tableau and Qlik Sense, all products support high-speed queries through in-memory analysis.
![Tableau Data Querying](https://www.selecthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Tableau-Data-Querying-V4.jpg)
Fast data querying enables deep-dive data exploration with open-ended questions.
Power BI
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Tableau
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Qlik Sense
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The Winner: Tableau wins, thanks to batch updates and powerful visual querying.
Analyst Rating | ||
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Power BI – 90 | Tableau – 99 | Qlik Sense – 92 |
Advanced Analytics
It includes predictive modeling, regression analysis, period-over-period comparisons, text mining and sentiment analysis. All three tools have simple and advanced statistical functions for scenario simulation and what-if analysis.
Power BI
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Tableau
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Qlik Sense
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None. In our analysis, Qlik Sense supports core advanced analytics capabilities. |
The Winner: Qlik Sense leads the pack with its support for PMML and easy integration with third-party tools.
Analyst Rating
Analyst Rating | ||
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Power BI – 85 | Tableau – 75 | Qlik Sense – 95 |
Augmented Analytics
Predictive data modeling, contextual insight, text and voice searches and guided analysis augment your BI tool’s capabilities.
As part of augmented analytics, AI, deep learning and machine learning drive high-speed queries by learning from user searches and previous recommendations.
![Machine Learning Power BI](https://www.selecthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/machine_learning_Power_BI.png)
Build and train ML models and apply them to other datasets. Source
Power BI
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None. In our analysis, Power BI fully supports core augmented analytics capabilities. |
Tableau
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Qlik Sense
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The Winner: Power BI leads the pack for augmented analytics thanks to its full, out-of-the-box support of core features.
Analyst Rating
Analyst Rating | ||
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Power BI – 69 | Tableau – 18 | Qlik Sense – 67 |
Embedded Analytics
Some attributes of embedded BI tools are white labeling, customization, multi-tenant support, data security, and report embeddability into websites and apps.
Embeddable platforms provide a nifty solution for companies looking to add analytics to their software or service without building in-house.
Power BI
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None. In our analysis, Power BI fully supports core embedded analytics capabilities. |
Tableau
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None. In our analysis, Tableau fully supports core embedded analytics capabilities. |
Qlik Sense
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The Winner: Power BI wins for embedded analytics.
Analyst Rating
Analyst Rating | ||
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Power BI – 100 | Tableau – 91 | Qlik Sense – 78 |
IoT Analytics
It’s the science of gathering and analyzing information from internet-connected devices like computers, laptops, mobile devices, thermostats, virtual assistants, machine sensors and smartwatches.
Embedded applications, websites and web apps contribute valuable data to IoT analytics.
Power BI
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Tableau
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Qlik Sense
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The Winner: Qlik Sense wins for IoT analytics.
Analyst Rating
Analyst Rating | ||
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Power BI – 60 | Tableau – 50 | Qlik Sense – 82 |
Geospatial Visualizations and Analysis
Integration with Bing, ArcGIS and Google Maps, geospatial functions, spatial analysis, and forward and reverse geocoding are useful for location visualization.
![Tableau Maps](https://www.selecthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Tableau_Maps-1024x618.png)
Add the “where” to your “why” with geospatial analytics in Tableau. Source
Power BI
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Tableau
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Qlik Sense
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The Winner: Tableau takes the lead in geospatial visualizations and analysis with integrations in various formats, interactive visualizations and its powerful map search function.
Analyst Rating | ||
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Power BI – 86 | Tableau – 100 | Qlik Sense – 76 |
Mobile BI
Dashboard and report access on laptops, mobile phones and tablets is essential if you need to stay in touch with your business when away from the office.
Responsive, shareable reports with live collaboration may not be available with all BI tools, so ask vendors if it’s on your wishlist. Offline access is an asset in low internet connectivity areas.
![Power BI Android Table Set Alert Condition](https://www.selecthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Power-BI-Android-Table-Set-Alert-Condition.jpg)
Choose threshold value and notification frequency for mobile BI. Source
Power BI
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Tableau
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Qlik Sense
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The Winner: Power BI leads in this category.
Analyst Rating
Analyst Rating | ||
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Power BI – 100 | Tableau – 71 | Qlik Sense – 93 |
Platform Functions
Rich platform functionality includes collaborative workspaces, globalization support and database write-backs.
A decentralized analytics environment promotes security and data privacy, including quick recovery from outages and breaches. All three solutions provide this functionality. Let’s see how they fare for the other platform attributes.
![Power BI vs Tableau vs Qlik Sense Qlik Notes](https://www.selecthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Power-BI-vs-Tableau-vs-Qlik-Sense-Qlik-Notes.jpg)
Capture and share insights using Notes in Qlik Sense. Source
Power BI
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Tableau
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Qlik Sense
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The Winner: Power BI and Tableau tie for the winner’s position in this category.
Analyst Rating
Analyst Rating | ||
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Power BI – 100 | Tableau – 100 | Qlik Sense – 92 |
Which BI Tool Wins?
Of 11 functional requirements, Power BI is the winner, leading for five requirements.
- Data management (ties with Tableau and Qlik Sense)
- Augmented analytics
- Embedded analytics
- Mobile insight
- Platform functionality (ties with Tableau)
Tableau wins the top spot for:
- Dashboards and data visualization
- Reporting
- Data querying
- Geospatial visualization and analytics
Qlik Sense is ahead of the other two in providing:
- IoT analytics
- Advanced analytics
Refer to the comparison table above.
Get a feature-by-feature scorecard from our Jumpstart platform.
For a complete product cost comparison, check out our free pricing guide. Software pricing will vary depending on the feature set, add-ons and deployment model.
Compare Power BI, Tableau and Qlik Sense Against Your Needs
FAQs
Is Tableau better than Power BI?
Advantages of Tableau
- Known for its visualization capabilities.
- Has a more user-friendly interface with drag-and-drop visuals.
- Can handle large datasets easily.
- Uses MDX (Multidimensional Expressions), usable in more reporting scenarios than DAX, the language of Power BI.
![Einstein Discovery Tableau Extension](https://www.selecthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Einstein-Discovery-Tableau-Extension.jpg)
Analyzing payment trends with auto-suggestions for the next steps in Tableau with Einstein Discovery. Source
Advantages of Power BI
- Excellent for all users — intuitive for beginners and offers more robust functionality for advanced users.
- Performs faster for limited datasets.
- More affordable with lower-priced paid options.
![Power BI Dashboard](https://www.selecthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Power-BI-Dashboard-V4.jpg)
A procurement analysis dashboard in Power BI. Source
Both products offer a free trial.
Tableau is a market leader in visualizations and can handle large data volumes. Power BI might be a natural choice if you have Microsoft products or work with limited datasets.
Additionally, Power BI can be a better fit if you’re on a stringent budget.
Should I opt for Qlik Sense or QlikView?
It depends on your business needs, though both solutions provide BI and analytics.
QlikView
- Based on guided analytics.
- Developers have greater control over app design and customization.
- Only QlikView document developers can create data models, charts and formulas, delivering them to analysts for data exploration. It offers analysts limited visualization capabilities.
![QS Insight Advisor](https://www.selecthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/QS-Insight-Advisor.jpg)
View the desired metrics by typing text queries with the Insight Advisor. Source
Qlik Sense
- Provides self-service data discovery.
- Empowers analysts to create new apps and visualizations, leading to more engaged users.
- Easier to use on touch screens and responsive to different screen sizes.
For QlikView users, the vendor offers a cost-effective upgrade to Qlik Sense.
Should I learn Python or Power BI?
Python is a general-purpose programming language with rich libraries and frameworks. Data analysis is one of the many tasks it supports using functions and visualizations in addition to machine learning algorithms.
If your role requires building interactive visualizations and reports without extensive programming, Power BI might be a better fit. It integrates well with Microsoft products, including Excel and SQL Server.
Does Tableau require coding?
No. Exploring ready-made visualizations is easy for consumers, but deep-dive analysis requires technical experience. A proprietary technology, VizQL, enables querying and visualization building using drag-and-drop user actions.
Data analysts with technical knowledge and skills may find it easier to learn. Creating custom calculations in Tableau can seem like math, but it doesn’t require conventional coding.
How long does it take to learn Tableau or Power BI?
The time to scale to either of these systems depends on your prior technical experience, learning speed and the level of expertise you want to achieve. Data users consider Power BI more intuitive, while Tableau requires some technical expertise.
Achieving the desired proficiency level may take a few weeks to months of dedicated learning and practice. Prior experience with data analysis or visualization tools can help you scale faster.
Compare Power BI, Tableau and Qlik Sense Against Your Needs
Next Steps
Power BI is affordable for business users, which puts it within reach of small and mid-sized businesses. Tableau is designed for data analysts, so there’s a learning curve. Qlik Sense is pricier but has competitive analytics capabilities.
The above comparative analysis should give you an idea of BI tools’ capabilities.
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What did you think of our Power BI vs. Tableau vs. Qlik Sense comparison? Which features are on your must-have list? Please share with us in the comments below!
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