Difference Between Power BI, Tableau, and Qlikview
Power BI, Tableau, and QlikView are all industry-leading business intelligence (BI) tools used for data visualization, analysis, and reporting. Power BI is a business analytics service that enables users to connect to various data sources, transform and clean data, create interactive reports and dashboards, and share insights with others at an affordable price. Tableau is a data visualization and business intelligence tool that helps people visualize and draw insights based on their data. It is great for complex datasets and large volumes. Qlik Sense is best for advanced analytics. It allows users to create interactive dashboards, analyze data, and explore data relationships. QlikView is designed for data discovery and self-service BI.
Let us now look at the three tools in detail to understand their various uses.
Table of Contents
Differences
Suppose you want a tool that provides excellent visualization with data analysis capabilities and drill-down options. Whether it’s Power BI, Tableau, or QlikView, all three stand out with flying colors. However, there are several differences between these business intelligence tools across various parameters, as highlighted below:
- Easiness of access
- Tableau doesn’t need any prior hands-on experience to get started.
- Power BI requires prior knowledge of DAX (Data Analysis and Expression) and Excel formulae to start using it.
- QlikView requires prior knowledge of scripting language and familiarity with data modeling concepts.
- Visualization Capabilities
- Tableau provides excellent data visualization capabilities in terms of visuals, analysis, dashboards, and storytelling insights compared to Power BI and QlikView.
- Power BI supports visualization through many in-built visuals and third-party apps, i.e., AppSource, from which users can download interactive visuals.
- Conversely, QlikView provides excellent drill-down capabilities with dashboard and reporting features through self-service tools.
- Advanced Analytics offerings & integration into tools
- Tableau has a number of in-built advanced analytics capabilities to support statistical analysis, machine learning, and AI capabilities. It also supports easy integration with external tools for real-time analytics and has a faster processing time compared to other tools.Power BI also supports several statistical analyses through in-built DAX capabilities, and you can use the calculated columns and measures to support calculations.
- QlikView falls out in this offering compared to the other two BI tools.
- User Interface Overview
- Tableau has an easy-to-navigate and drag-and-drop user interface that makes the GUI navigation quite enriching and simple.
- Power BI, on the other hand, is a simple GUI with limited features compared to Tableau.
- QlikView has a user-friendly interface that is easy to navigate but remains below Power BI.
- Data Connectivity & Transformation
- With Tableau, you can connect and import multiple data sources for reporting requirements. Tableau has an internal method called cubing techniques for data connectivity and integration.Power BI supports many different data sources across different formats and automatically creates a data model for reporting.
- QlikView works based on in-memory principles to model the data for reporting.
- Pricing & Product Offerings
- Tableau offers different pricing models based on the product offerings and users (individuals/organizations)
- Tableau Creator – $70.00 1 User Per Month
- Tableau Explorer – $42.00 1 User Per Month
- Tableau Viewer – $15.00 1 User Per Month
- Power BI offers THREE different pricing models based on the product offerings and users
- Power BI Desktop – Free of cost for the users regardless of individual or organization
- Power BI Pro – $9.99 1 User Per Month. It comes with a free trial period of 60 days
- Power BI Premium – For Individual users, $20 Per Month and storage plans starting with $4995 Per Month
- Qlik Sense Business is billed $30 1 User Per Month
- Tableau offers different pricing models based on the product offerings and users (individuals/organizations)
What is Power BI?
Power BI is a cloud-based business intelligence and data visualization tool provided by Microsoft. It allows users to connect to various data sources, transform and model data, create interactive reports and dashboards, and share insights with others.
With Power BI, users can easily combine data from different sources, such as Excel spreadsheets, databases, and cloud-based services like Salesforce and Google Analytics. The data can then be transformed and modeled to create interactive visuals and reports, which can be shared with other users in the organization.
Power BI also includes various features to help users gain insights from their data, including natural language processing, AI-powered visualizations, and predictive analytics. These features enable users to identify trends, uncover patterns, and make data-driven decisions.
Power BI comes in different flavors that include
- Power BI Desktop: Create reports or Visualizations
- Power BI Service: A self-service platform for sharing and collaboration
- Power BI Mobile: Tool for mobile access
What is Tableau?
Tableau is a data visualization and business intelligence platform founded in 2003 during a computer science project to improve the flow of analysis and enable data access through visual representation. It enables users to connect to various data sources, create interactive and visually appealing dashboards, and explore data for insights. Tableau is known for its flexibility in data visualization and exploration.
Tableau is one of the world’s leading analytics platforms, providing end-to-end integrated data management, governance, visualization, storytelling, and excellent ways of collaborating across the different platforms.
What is QlikView?
QlikView is a first-generation business intelligence solution and data discovery platform developed by Qlik. It offers powerful data modeling capabilities and allows users to create interactive data dashboards, reports, and visualizations. QlikView focuses on in-memory data processing and associative data modeling.
QlikView comes with features such as
Comparative Table (key Differences)
Power BI, Tableau, and QlikView have several similarities and differences. Here, we have highlighted the key differences between these three products in a comparative table.
| Category | Power BI | Tableau | Qlikview |
|---|---|---|---|
| Advanced Analytics Ability | Analytics and predictive modeling are fundamental skills that combine well with R and Python. | Includes specific advanced analytics tools and allows for external integration. | It has very few options for interacting with outside programs and doesn’t offer any advanced analytics features. |
| Business Intelligence Capability | It enables data manipulation prior to the data import. | It offers excellent visualization capability. | Drill-down capabilities facilitate data discovery |
| Convenience of usage | To use Power BI effectively, Microsoft Excel and DAX knowledge are necessary. | It provides a drag-and-drop interface that is easy to use. | It is difficult to use without any prior understanding of data models and scripting |
| Data Connectivity Options | It interacts with data directly and doesn’t need any additional models. | Tableau uses the cubing approach and features a warehouse. | It utilizes the in-memory approach and is data warehouse-free. |
| Data Storage | All users are permitted a maximum of 10 GB of cloud storage. | Workbooks and extracts are offered 100 GB of cloud storage. | 500 GB of cloud storage is available in total. A single software may be 250 MB in size. |
| Ease of Implementation | Power BI is only offered as a SaaS model. | Tableau offers flexible options for quick and easy implementation. | QlikView’s implementation process is quite slow. |
| Product/Feature Offerings | Power BI only provides two licensing options such as Power BI Pro and Power BI Premium | There are many solutions available from Tableau, including Tableau Creator and Tableau Desktop. | QlikView offers two choices i.e. Qlik Sense Business and Qlik Sense Enterprise with added options for development and integration |
| Pricing Options | The cost of Power BI is very low, with the starting price of Power BI Pro license of $9.99/user/month. | The price of the Tableau suite of products can be as high as $70/user/month for Tableau creator. | There is a combination of fixed and variable prices for the Qlik suite of products. The Qlik Sense Business is billed at $20/month/user. |
| Tool Integration | In terms of integration, Power BI is superior. It integrates with multiple data sources of different kinds. | It supports multiple integration points with external tools but the support is not as extensive compared to Power BI. | It provides no robust capabilities for integrating with external tools. |
| Automation Options | Workflow automation is done with Power BI using APIs and Power Automate. | Using several APIs like DocumentAPI, Webhooks, etc., Tableau Server enables users to automate and manage workbooks, data sources, and users on a dynamic basis. | The NPrinting platform for managing subscriptions and reports, as well as extensions and scripts for automating business operations, are all included in QlikView. |
| Natural Language Processing options | Power BI supports text and speech data analytics with Q&A functionality. Cortana integration enables voice-activated search engine results. | With Ask Data, Tableau only offers text-based natural language search. | Along with offering user search benefits, the Qlik Insight bot also aids in decision-making using data and natural language. |
| Maps or geospatial data manipulation | Power Query or DAX techniques in Power BI support geographic functionality such as Maps. | Users can perform in-depth spatial analysis and mix spatial data with text and spreadsheet data using Tableau’s geographic functions, such as MakeLine, MakePoint, Distance, and others. | A wide range of aggregation and non-aggregation functions specific to geographic computations are offered by QlikView’s extensive support for geospatial functions, which adhere to GeoJSON specifications. |
Similarities
While there are several differences between these tools, they share common objectives of providing business intelligence and data visualization capabilities. They all offer features for connecting to data sources, creating interactive reports and dashboards, and sharing insights with users. Some of these common features are highlighted below.
| Features | Power BI | Tableau | QlikView |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free/Trial Version | Power BI Desktop is free to use | Tableau Desktop has a free version that comes with basic features | QlikSense free version comes with limited features |
| Data Connection Options | Supports multiple data connections including big data and cloud | Supports many data sources and has integration into big data | Supports a large number of data sources with big data support |
| Advanced Analytics | Supports integration to R/Python | Supports integration to AI and ML | Supports advanced analytics with scripting language |
| Ability to Query Data | Yes with Data View | Yes | Yes |
| Data Security Features | Supports Row-level security features | Has several data security features for privacy | Supports multiple data protection and security features |
| Data Visualization | Supports in-built and third-party apps for data visualization | Has native support for multiple visualization options | Multiple data visualization options are available |
| Dashboard & Reports | Supports creating interactive dashboards and reports | Excellent support for dashboard creation and interactive reports | Supports self-service tools for dashboards and report creation |
| Collaboration & Sharing | Achieves through publishing to Power BI service | Supports collaboration and sharing of reports and dashboards | Achieves through Qlik apps |
| Natural Language Processing (NLP) Support | Supports NLP through Power BI Q&A | Supports NLP | Provides support for NLP |
| Mobile Layout | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Geospatial Visualization Support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Easy GUI Navigation | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Cloud Support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
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