MicroStrategy vs Qlik Sense

MicroStrategy is a strong contender in the enterprise BI market that its customers praise for a multitude of reasons: its robust drag-and-drop reporting tool, strong data visualizations and dashboards and accessibility through web and mobile apps. Overall, more than 87.5% of users said that the platform is easy to use, with a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface that eliminates the need for coding in SQL. However, the solution is not without its drawbacks, most notably a time-consuming implementation process. It also struggles with performance issues, with its reliance on powerful hardware often leading to slow-downs. All of the users for whom the price was an issue said that the solution is expensive, though some of these users said that it offered great value and that prospective buyers shouldn’t shy away from costs. Finally, when it comes to learning how to use the tool, around 80% of users found its learning curve quite steep, and available resources lacking. Some users note that the free online classes were nice, but offered more refresher information than useful, new information, and that the available education and documentation isn’t comprehensive or up-to-date. While the front-end is user-friendly, many users note that the back-end developer mode has an even steeper learning curve and is quite difficult to navigate. In summary, MicroStrategy is a BI solution certainly worth consideration, especially for companies looking for a web-based tool with strong reporting capabilities and a user-friendly interface.

Qlik Sense is a powerful cloud-based BI application that performs quick and insightful analytics. Its associative engine and in-memory processing enable remarkably fast queries and analyses. Most users are satisfied with its data analysis and data visualization functions. They cite the tool’s ability to unearth deep connections between data points and display them in interactive, responsive visualizations, accessible from all devices. It excels in connecting to large data sets, as several reviewers note. Featuring drag-and-drop functionality, the platform is user-friendly; though some reviewers note it’s still less simple to use than some competitors’ solutions, and writing scripts and queries can be difficult. While it’s a strong analysis tool overall, it has a high learning curve to unlock its more powerful features; users can find this difficult to overcome due to lack of good training material, especially videos. As such, businesses with IT resources might find this tool more useful. On the flip side, many users say customizing visualizations is difficult or impossible. The solution lacks a number of desired features, and depends on plug-ins from the older QlikView offering to add functionality. However, these plug-ins can incur additional costs or sometimes lack compatibility with Qlik Sense. Additionally, small to medium-sized businesses might find the pricing models to be restrictive. Some users find it difficult to configure security capabilities, and version control isn’t available. Users mention it’s difficult to export information to share with others or use in presentations. Overall, even with its drawbacks, Qlik Sense is an extremely capable platform that offers a myriad of fast and powerful data analysis and visualization capabilities worth consideration.