SAS vs. QlikView

If you’re looking for a business intelligence (BI) software you can count on, you might want to consider SAS or QlikView. These solutions have proven themselves time and again when it comes to providing BI capabilities to businesses worldwide.

SAS is a market leader in the business intelligence and analytics industry. It has a set of comprehensive features to attend to every aspect of business intelligence needs. QlikView is a user-friendly, top-rated business intelligence software with beneficial features that are easy to learn.

In this article, we’ll compare the key features of SAS and QlikView to help you gain a better understanding of what each BI software can add to your company.

Use our Product Selection Tool if you want to explore more than two BI solutions. You can get a list of up to five recommended BI software for free.

SAS vs. QlikView: An overview

SAS is the BI solution for innumerable businesses. It’s the trusted software of big names such as Google, Netflix, Twitter, and Accenture. SAS has robust features for data visualization, analytics, reporting, collaboration, and self-service analytics and has a native mobile application. SAS was designed for medium to large enterprises. It has high-end priced plans.

QlikView, although not as big as SAS, has also made its mark on the business intelligence field. It currently has more than 50,000 users in 100 countries around the world. QlikView is the BI solution used by Samsung, Cisco, and Lenovo. This software has features for data visualization, custom reporting, advanced reporting, natural search, and has a mobile application. QlikView has average pricing and offers a free plan. It can get too expensive for small businesses in the long run, so it’s better suited for mid-sized to large corporations.

Read also: Tableau vs. Spotfire: Business Intelligence for the Non-IT Guru

Comparing the features

SAS and QlikView both have features for reporting, data visualization, and mobile application:

Reporting

SAS has a self-service, ad-hoc reporting environment that lets you create distribution-quality reports and analytics dashboards without advanced programming skills. Self-service data preparation can be done in SAS, too. This BI software has capabilities for data access, mashup, filtering, and data transformation. Simple reports, enhanced reports, and customized reports can be created in SAS. Simple reports show the values of all the variables and the observations in the data set. Enhanced reports are detailed reports wherein you can format the columns and sum the numeric variables. With customized reports, you can tailor some of the appearance of the reports. For example, you can change the style of the output and add descriptive titles and footnotes.

QlikView has a Report Editor that users can take advantage of in creating complicated reports with multiple charts and tables. Using the editor, users can group a number of different sheet objects together on one or more pages with full control of page layout, including headers and footers. There are four different types of reports in QlikView: user reports, document reports, individual server reports, and shared server reports. User reports are only accessible to their owner, document reports can be accessed by any user through the QlikView server, and shared server reports are user reports shared by the users who created them.

Data visualization

SAS lets you present your data more effectively and discover new patterns. Create rich visuals and share insights, fast. Understand data using automated analysis backed by machine learning. SAS lets you quickly spot hidden relationships, too. There are several types of visualizations you can use in SAS, such as box plot, heat map, animated bubble chart, network diagram, and correlation matrix. You can even add your own interactive 3D visualization in SAS.

QlikView offers four different types of visualization, namely comparison charts, composition charts, relationship charts, and distribution charts. Same as with SAS, you can choose from numerous charts and graphs in QlikView in creating your data visualization. These include pie, line, bar, combo, scatter, radar, and gauge charts. Adding custom visualizations can be done in QlikView, too.

Mobile application

The mobile application for SAS is available for Android, iOS, and Windows 10 users. Interact with dashboards, reports, and charts. With the app, users can share insights with stakeholders. Create your own mobile apps. When you create your own customized app, you can personalize it with embedded SAS Visual Analytics content, your corporate logo, and name of your choosing. The SAS mobile app has secure access, giving you confidence that sensitive data is not stored locally. It is accessible online and offline.

QlikView’s native mobile application is available only for iOS users. However, the system is optimized for mobile use, so you can still access QlikView using the phone’s web browser if you are an Android user. The mobile app lets you access fully-interactive QlikView apps, view dynamic data visualization, and collaborate with your teammates. With QlikView’s mobile app, users can engine filter data as well as manage associations. The mobile app is available offline.

Integrations

SAS has native integrations with two applications: Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Excel. If you need third party integrations, you can use the SAS Integration Technologies. Aside from integrating with third party applications, you can develop your own applications using the SAS Integration Technologies.

QlikView can integrate with a lot of applications and solutions for customer relationship management, self-service data analytics, mobile forms, project management, and supply chain management:

• Avercast
• Form.com
• Alteryx
• RoboHead
• Salesforce Sales Cloud

The best BI for you

SAS and QlikView earned the respect of various businesses because of their valuable features. You might want to analyze their key capabilities before deciding which software to purchase.

SAS has more built-in features than QlikView, but these numerous features can quickly overwhelm a new user. If you need a simple and easy-to-use business intelligence tool, SAS might not be the best choice. QlikView, on the other hand, is more user-friendly than SAS. However, this software doesn’t have a native mobile application for Android devices that will allow users to work offline. If you have team members who regularly work outside the office, SAS will be the better choice as it has native mobile applications for Android, iOS, and Windows 10 devices.

If you want to look at more BI software options, use our Product Selection Tool for a list of up to five trusted business intelligence solutions you can use for your organization.