Qlik Alternative: Which Tool is Better for Your Analytics?

GoodData's users handle ETL externally, moving data to their data warehouse before connecting to the platform to utilize external ETL tools for broader data stack integration. Various blueprints, such as Data Pipelines as Code, streamline data integration and connectivity to the platform. Users can leverage tools like Meltano for extraction and loading, dbt for transformation, and many more, facilitating easy connection to GoodData.

Qlik's solution includes Qlik Cloud Data Integration, which offers real-time data movement from diverse sources without manual intervention. It transforms data into consumption-ready formats and automates tasks through a no-code editor. Despite its user-friendly and drag-and-drop features, data preparation could be complex — especially with multiple sources or unstructured data, which may require deeper expertise or IT support.

In GoodData, users can create and manage data models in multiple ways, including auto-generation in LDM Modeler, which is manageable via APIs and Python SDK. Users can also modify models through SQL datasets (Last Mile ETL) without affecting the data warehouse. GoodData provides the simplest way to deal with your data model by following data modeling best practices. You can check your data and data model accuracy in advance with AI capabilities like Data Profiling and Enhanced Model Validation.

In Qlik, you can modify your logical data model in multiple ways. The simplest method is through the Data Load Editor via modifying SQL queries. Alternatively, you can edit it in the Qlik Data Integration service. In Qlik Sense, the Data Manager feature allows for a quick data review and facilitates changes such as adding calculated fields, modifying attributes, making joins, and more.

GoodData uses FlexCache to optimize data processing by caching frequent computations and aggregations in dashboards. This feature, which uses Apache Arrow's columnar format, enhances performance, scalability, and cost efficiency. Users can benefit from reduced data warehousing costs, efficient data growth management, and easy scalability.

GoodData’s alternative, Qlik, offers basic analytics storage (like other analytics tools). However, the performance (or response time) relies on Qlik's associative model, which doesn't confine users to predefined hierarchies. Instead, it maps associations between data to fully explore and understand their relationships. Data is stored in an optimized binary format for better performance with large datasets. However, issues may arise, particularly during daily bulk data loading, potentially causing file multiplication.

The GoodData platform provides a wide range of chart types and supports custom plugins for enhanced visualization. Users can effortlessly create customizable visualizations to suit their preferences. The highly adaptable UI empowers users to build dashboards with interactive navigation and manage all elements through code.

In Qlik, users can interactively explore diverse visualizations, but if you need further customization options, they are limited and managed by extensions which require extra costs. Enhanced native customization capabilities are needed for greater flexibility, particularly when it comes to layout and design elements. Some users face challenges with design responsiveness and would like more control over layout and design features.

As an alternative to Quik, GoodData enables scalable analytics across workspaces via its multi-tenant architecture, without hardware management. Its inheritance model based on workspace hierarchy ensures efficient deployment of changes. Utilizing a semantic layer and metrics store as a single source of truth, GoodData offers shared services across tenants, complemented by a flexible pricing model for multi-user access. User permissions are manageable both through the UI and APIs.

Qlik offers multi-tenant provisioning: each tenant has their own logically separated deployment, similar to GoodData. However, in Qlik, user (tenant) management is limited to APIs, which could potentially affect the user experience. The pricing model, which includes a dedicated capacity, poses challenges in predicting future capacity usage, potentially leading to additional charges when capacity limits are exceeded.

GoodData's strength lies in its versatile embedding options (from the less flexible IFrame, through Web components, to the very flexible React SDK), including programmatic embedding with a fully customizable interface. These capabilities, like white labeling and “as code” management, allow customization and flexible integration, ensuring a unified user experience and efficient embedding of analytics into apps.

Qlik offers diverse embedding options, like IFrame and JavaScript libraries, but lacks highly customizable dashboards and visualizations, which can frustrate users. The complexity of Qlik's service for basic data manipulations is also a common issue, with Qlik Sense's open APIs making embedding easier compared to QlikView, which requires specific development skill

GoodData workspaces provide user-friendly tools for exploration and dashboard creation, enabling users to independently gain insights and make informed decisions. The semantic layer ensures a consistent understanding of data across all users, including self-service users. Additionally, AI features like FlexAI Chat Assistant and Self-Service Data Science expedite the process of obtaining answers and leveraging machine learning in dashboards.

Qlik's self-service feature enables users to analyze data without IT assistance, allowing for easy dashboard creation. However, users may find the tool requires more training and coding knowledge than initially expected. Qlik also incorporates AI for dashboard exploration and predictive analysis.

In GoodData, the analytics as code, open source focus, and FlexQuery foundation power the integration of AI features via large language models (LLMs), and translate technical expressions for non-technical users through a semantic layer. The platform also supports the use of public models like OpenAI ChatGPT 4.0 to enhance its AI capabilities. To try these AI features, you can sign up for the GoodData free trial.

Qlik AutoML provides AI-enhanced analytics that enables real-time access to generative content through connectors like OpenAI for in-context insights and answers. This integration enhances existing features, broadening context and driving deeper insights. It supports various use cases like generating natural language.

GoodData offers flexible and transparent pricing to accommodate various budgets and use cases. For internal uses, the pricing is based on user adoption, with a low-cost tier available for startups. For external uses, the per-workspace model ensures predictable pricing based on the number of workspaces. There are no limitations on user access per workspace, making it ideal for B2B analytics products.

Qlik employs a capacity-based pricing model, with costs tied to data stored in Qlik Cloud Analytics. Additional charges may apply if usage exceeds the allocated capacity. Nevertheless, the inflexibility and additional expenses, particularly for features such as alerting or broad user access, pose challenges for many users.