Qlik Sense

Vorteile: Qlik Sense is a self-service analytical tool based on the same in-memory technology as QlikView. It's associative engine allows for snappy selections, filtering and prompt re-calculation of all charts and aggregations on the fly as the user navigates throughout the dashboard, even on datasets of over 100 million rows.
Qlik Sense focuses more on the self-service aspects of BI, where users are encouraged to build their own Adhoc visualisations without the use of keyboards simply by drag & dropping various elements, making the technology utmost business friendly. Also, as the whole technology is fully web-based, it embeds the latest visualisation libraries (D3, Raphael etc.) and allows for a seamless integration of customised extended JS charts (so-called extensions). The latter enables for unlimited possibilities when it comes to visualisations (http://d3js.org/) and further integration with web-services (R servers, real-time analytics, Hadoop etc.). Also, the Qlik Sense Server deployment is tailored to facilitate a multi-node deployment, allowing for a very scalable enterprise solution, even cloud-based.
The data security technology (Section Access) is the same one as in QlikView and is customisable, secure and robust. All in all, when it comes to deploying a scalable and business-friendly BI solution, which has very presentable dashboards, a fast and robust aggregation engine with extended self-service capabilities, Qlik Sense is currently the best product of its kind on the market.

Nachteile: Qlik Sense is still a new product and not very mature yet, as it has only been released a year and a half ago. The review is based on Qlik Sens version 2.1 which is important to emphasise, because QlikTech is constantly updating the software and publishing releases with enhancements and bugfixes.
Qlik Sense is not the right tool, if you requirement is:
1. To have a guided analytics dashboard, where the user is constraint in the way he views his data.
-> This can be overcome by creating mashup websites, however you will need a web developer to do this.
2. Standardised reporting via Qlik Sense and production of pdf files is not possible (yet).
-> An integration with nPrinting, QlikTech's latest acquisition, could change this and it's on Qlik's roadmap for the next year.
3. Your BI solution needs to accommodate flexible data extraction capabilities (e.g. to Excel). General current disadvantages:
1. The story telling functionality is not mature yet - users have more benefit using PowerPoint directly. In my opinion it's missing a live connection of the snapshots used in the story to the underlying chart objects.
2. Security settings (NOT on data level) are governed centrally via the management console and are complicated to comprehend.
3. No guided analytics aspects, even navigation between sheets can't be controlled.
4. No supported data extraction capabilities. It's almost impossible to get comprehensive extract of it's underlying data, something that was possible with QlikView (Export functionality e.g.)
5. The vendor has little practical knowledge on how Qlik Sense is deployed enterprise wide within a business and is not really able to support.
6. The vendor is focusing more on the data story telling and collaboration aspects of the Qlik technologies and almost imposes those on the business. Personally, I would prefer if QlikTech listened to its customers a little bit more.

Kommentare: An easy and intuitive way to create storyboards for everyone to understand, parting from relative large and difficult to understand and analyze data. The main benefit was a simple way to create quick charts which served as main discussion point with co-workers to make better decisions. So basically a great way to display business information.

Vorteile: First its usability and design. Regarding the User Interface: the application is well designed and I felt like every button and function was where I would expect it to be. The program is responsive and fluid, you always know where you are and what you should do. Having said that, there is some learning curve to the many features, which are a good thing. The program is easy enough to create a histogram with a simple spreadsheet while also allowing for much more complicated statistics and good looking charts, e.g. plotting geo-data, heat-maps, box-plots and so on.
I specially like the ability to write your own aggregation functions and even more the dashboard where you can put different charts and statstics and build an interactive and dynamic kind of storyboard. The interaction works seamless. If you select (in a bar chart) a specific bar or group of bars, the other charts will automatically adjust to show just the relevant/selected data. The program does not hesitate and performs really well, even with large quantities of data. Support is also pretty solid and there is a lot of information and questions already answered on the online forums. It supports many of the standard data sources.

Nachteile: The aforementioned ability to write your own functions has a somewhat steep learning curve. You do have to search online for the primary functions you need (though these are well documented). Unfortunately if your data has to much variables or data points, the charts prioritize the specific variable instead of the whole diagram. What I mean by that is that you can end up with a very large horizontal chart in which you have to scroll horizontally to find the other data instead of 'cramming' all variables into the visible space. This depends on taste, but I did not find any way to change that, which brings me to the next point. The charts are somewhat 'customizable' regarding color and design. However, I've used comparable software which allows for much more flexibility in the structure and formatting of charts. A few times it can get frustrating to use the program, mainly for two reasons. 1. The aforementioned displaying of information in a non-customizable way and 2. the lack of knowledge of how the program really works that hinders you from doing exactly what you want. But of these aspects become less of a problem, the more you use the program.

Kommentare: Qlik Sense is not QlikView. For those of us who have been working with both might seem like the next iteration of the latter. It is not. It uses websockets instead of HTTP and this has a huge impact in performance and usability. The cloud solution is still a work in progress, but for the needs of most users, enough and recommendable. Disclaimer, I'm a former Qlik employee and current Qlik customer.

Vorteile: Proven in-memory engine and robust data extraction language. Drag and drop user interface, responsive, ready to create, not just consume, from mobile devices like tablets. Overall performance and very complete integration with web technologies. Open sourced libraries. Fine-grained user access engine.

Nachteile: Applications are limited to the power of one single computer, although several computers (nodes) can be clustered, they act, at the end, individually (i.e.: not adding up resources from all the servers available). As of version 3.2 lacks a full governance tool and a central library across applications, so what is created for one can be reused in another. Built-in objects are basic, leaving more advanced visualizations to extensions or development of some kind, usually far from the advanced user knowledge (e.g.: widgets).

Vorteile: The first thing you'll notice with Qlik is how easy and quick it is to load some data and get insights. That's down to 3 aspects of the tool. The first is the data manager which allows you to drag and drop data to extract and transform data. The second is augmented intelligence (the cognitive engine) which can build a data model for you if you wish, or simply make recommendations on how to set up relationships in our data. The last is AI in the front end of the product which generates insight at the click of a button; suggesting charts and alternative ways of presenting your data. Within seconds you can load some data, build a model and present some insight. When you want to go further you've got the data load editor which allows you to write an ETL script and take advantage of compressed storage in the form of QVDs. In the front end, end users can see the whole story in their data because Qlik never leaves data behind, unlike linear ETL tools like SQL. End users can navigate data intuitively using green, white and grey colour coding. Qlik Sense makes makes data intuitive and available to everyone.

Nachteile: There is a steeper learning curve than some other tools if you want to use the script editor to write code. This is worth doing though as it gives you greater control over your data. The legends on the map objects do not always correctly describe the maps.

Kommentare: Though it really has its place in the market for simpler deployments, do take care when planning bigger or complex deployments as the servicability of such a deployment is difficult and tricky (but doable).

Vorteile: -Qlik code is easy, Qlikview-code is easy reusable
-InMemory works!
-Lots of help online
-In the end it will get you allmost there...

Nachteile: -Visualisation not on par with 'the other big-ones'. No proper customisation, and a lot of basic visualisations are not available (Band chart, Radar chart, Combi-plot).
-No analitics/statistiscs toolkit.
-Presenting data/apps takes forever in a citrix-environment.
-Developing a set of dashboards/apps in Sense feels clumsy and messy. There is no hierarchy, keeping track of sequential apps.(Extract/Translate/Presentation) is quite a thing. Think debugging...
-No check-in/check-out tooling, no folderstructures for unpublished apps but a cluttered personal workspace so a lot of discipline and creative thinking is needed.
-Building a corporate environment in Sense feels actually quite 'dirty'.