# Microsoft BI vs QlikView



## Mer333 (Mar 17, 2015)

There is a question came to my mind. How is Microsoft BI complex compare to QlikView? What is the pros and cons? I don't have any experience with QlikView but heard that it uses in many companies. 
Has anyone tried both applications?

Very appreciate for your answers.


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## vlevacic (Mar 18, 2015)

So I have experience with both of the tools, since I had to demo at my company to explore the differences between them and I am certified in QlikView (so I will be more biased towards QlikView of course ) and I'll try to explain things from my perspective.

First of all.. I assume you mean QlikView Desktop because Qlik, a company behind QlikView has number of other products, and recently came out with Qlik Sense, which targets market similar to tools like Tableu, so more focused on ease of use and visualizations across variety of platforms.

That said, I will answer your question about QlikView Desktop.

QlikView Desktop comes with prebuilt scripting languague which is top class.. it's like SQL (but I find it easier to use) and has tons of functionality around data management, cleaning and eventually what you neet to do in QlikView... build data model by joining data from various data sources.

While in Power BI you create your own apps with extending Excel and creating behind-the-scene model, in QlikView you use the scripting language and all your data (including Excel) resides outside of the QlikView application. You use reload button to extract that data from outside into QlikView application (but there are also variations here, you can store that data externally into special QVD files etc...)

I find that much better since I can easily sort out different Excels in folders, give people in organization access to these folders, and change scripts in QlikView that load the data and model at one place

So the way you build the model is different, you have more power and better control through scripting.

Second difference is, the tools like slicer you have in Excel, this is just a slight of hint what you can do with QLikView's associative analysis. QlikView is built all around that kind of logic, you click something, everything changes according to selection... then on a top of that you have many more ways to visualize data, an there is this thing called set analysis which is such a powerful tool in QlikView (books written about it) that you can do amazing things in representing the data. Also, QlikView is very very fast with large data sets.

I almost exclusively use QlikView for Data analysis in company projects, even to check how customer's data is modeled or if it needs cleaning etc.

I would use PowerBI in case to do simpler my-own analysis or, Microsoft Power BI is built into some other enterprise softwares like ERPs where models come out of the place (product cross-sales from MS)

I have course on the topic on Udemy and there is a free chapter you can see about associative model difference between Excel and Qlikview here, so if you are interested check it out (I have put discounted coupon to it)

https://www.udemy.com/qlikview/?couponCode=THE29DEAL


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## Mer333 (Mar 19, 2015)

Nice promotion. =) I expected something like this. =) Though it's not an answer. As Microsoft BI complex I understand Power Pivot, Power Query, Power View, Power BI and even SSAS and Sharepoint. Not only Power BI as a service for publication.
So what can I do with QlikView that isn't possible using those tools? And contrariwise. I can also transform data from multiple sources... Power View is the same as what you described like "everything changes according to selection" with, perhaps, less flexible visualization. Qlik Sense is an interesting thing you mention... What is really Microsoft lack of is a variety of visualisation.


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## vlevacic (Mar 19, 2015)

Well, from the data modelling, you definitely miss the SSIS  You need to prepare the data warehouse for the SSAS in any more complex scenario... You can do almost everything imaginable on MS BI tools (except maybe some extra large databases processing etc...), but so can you do it with QlikView, in one tool and much faster... Microsoft is kinda strict in a way you use these tools, there is a methodology behind building cubes, behind how you use SSIS, and QlikView is much more flexible.

Then you need to visualize it somehow. You can do that in Excel, this is where as you mention, Microsoft doesn't have really a great tool for visualization. I might look into Tableu if somebody prepared me cubes, or Qlik Sense, but if I don't have my data prepared I would choose QlikView almost anytime first.

And then... I am comparing QlikView Desktop, not even QlikView Server which is a BI platform and allows people across organization to view reports, create their own analysis, admins control security through it, reload data from central place, check on performance, people can share their analysis and collaborate with each other and do that all in their browsers or mobile devices.

Excel's advantage - it's free and widespread and in certain scenarios might be good enough - but Power BI and these things you mention, these are for power users. I was not able to let people really use it in practice as much as I hoped.


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## Mer333 (Mar 19, 2015)

Why couldn't I just step away from cubes and use tabular modeling in SSAS which is almost the same as PowerPivot modeling using DAX? To argue or support what you saying I really need more experience with these tools or a person who has one. The only problem is that it's kind of meaningless to learn a few different BI systems from my point of view... And since I already know DAX... And why do you think that QlikView engine is faster? Is there any benchmarks available?


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## jucasti (Dec 28, 2015)

Hi vlevacic ,

I'm very interested in take your course.  I have some dudes because you talk like qlikview could replace enterprise datawarehouse in the organizations.  So, I really like to get your course.  It is possible to get a couponcode updated???

Regards,

Julián Castiblanco P.




vlevacic said:


> So I have experience with both of the tools, since I had to demo at my company to explore the differences between them and I am certified in QlikView (so I will be more biased towards QlikView of course ) and I'll try to explain things from my perspective.
> 
> First of all.. I assume you mean QlikView Desktop because Qlik, a company behind QlikView has number of other products, and recently came out with Qlik Sense, which targets market similar to tools like Tableu, so more focused on ease of use and visualizations across variety of platforms.
> 
> ...


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