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AI Analytics

AI analytics refers to the use of machine learning to automate processes, analyze data, derive insights, and make predictions or recommendations.

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Top Data Analytics
Tools of 2024

Whether your top priority is improving decision-making, profitability, productivity, or outpacing competitors, there are mountains of studies backing up the importance of data (and data analytics tools) in achieving these goals.

But with so many options available, how do you know which data analytics tool is right for your organization? In this Qlik article, we will share our top five picks for data analytics tools that we believe are leading the industry in 2024.­

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5 BEST DATA ANALYTICS TOOLS

Qlik Sense®Microsoft Power BITableauLookerSisense

What Is a Data Analytics Tool?

A data analytics tool is a piece of software that collects, processes, and analyzes data — transforming it into actionable insights.

Why Are Data Analytics Tools Important?

  • Accelerates Data-Driven Decision Making: These tools quickly transform complex data into actionable insights, enabling businesses to make decisions based on data rather than assumptions. For example, the Mayborn Group used Qlik’s Promotional Evaluation app to rapidly assess the financial impact of promotional activities, maximizing their marketing ROI.

  • Enables Monitoring & Analysis: With these tools, organizations can keep an eye on important metrics across the board as they happen. This lets companies adjust their strategies on the fly. Domino's Pizza is a great example here. They used Qlik to generate insights quickly, which helped them run more smoothly, get orders out faster, and keep customers happier.

  • Provides a Competitive Advantage: By combining internal data with market information, businesses can spot trends, understand what customers are saying, and stay a step ahead. Lenovo did just that. They used Qlik to fine-tune their global supply chain, which meant they could deliver products faster and run more efficiently than their competitors.

Criteria for Choosing a Data Analytics Tool

When you're choosing a data analytics tool, here are some key things to consider:

  • How well does it play with others? Choose a tool that can easily connect to your existing data sources and systems. It should be flexible enough to work in different IT setups, whether you're all in the cloud, on-premises, or somewhere in between.

  • Can it grow with you? As your organization expands, your data will too. Make sure the tool can handle larger and more complex data sets without slowing down.

  • Does it have advanced features? Look for a platform that offers AI-powered insights and can do predictive modeling automatically. These features let people do advanced analytics even if they're not tech experts.

  • Is it user-friendly? Go for a solution that lets users create analyses and visualizations without needing to code. Customizable dashboards and the ability to ask questions in plain language should make it easy for team members with different skill levels to explore data.

1. Qlik Sense®

Qlik Sense® is a leading data analytics platform that combines data from multiple sources into a coherent view. A powerful associative engine allows users to explore data interactively, while data streaming capabilities provide up-to-the-minute insights.

What sets Qlik Sense® apart is its ability to scale efficiently for enterprise use. It’s able to handle large, complex data sets without compromising performance—an important trait when you’re relying on your data to make critical business decisions.

The platform offers a suite of data analytics tools for visualization, exploration, and reporting. It also features Qlik Answers, an AI copilot that goes beyond simple queries to analyze both structured and unstructured data.

Users can ask complex questions in natural language and receive detailed insights drawn from multiple data sources, regardless of their technical skills.

Qlik Sense dashboard showing sales data analysis. A bar chart displays sales by product in the Nordic countries.

Key Features

  • Data Streaming: Delivers live access to data from multiple sources, ensuring up-to-date insights for immediate decision-making.

  • Data Warehouse Automation: Automates the entire lifecycle of data warehousing — from integration to deployment. This is particularly valuable for organizations dealing with multiple data silos and extensive ETL (extract, transform, load) processes.

  • Embedded Analytics: Embeds analytics directly into business applications to give users access to insights within the context of their workflows.

  • Visualizations & Dashboards: Creates customizable and interactive dashboards that allow for deep data exploration. Supports everything from high-level overviews to granular data analysis.

  • AutoML: Builds predictive models with minimal coding, making advanced analytics accessible to non-technical users. This helps users create data-driven strategies without extensive machine-learning knowledge.

  • Qlik Answers: Uses natural language processing (NLP) to allow users to ask questions about their data and receive insights in plain language.

Pricing

Qlik Sense® offers four plans:

Starter

Bring industry leading analytics to Small Business.

$200/mo

For 10 Users, billed annually (additional individual users available for purchase)

Contact Us

Includes 10 Users and 25 GB data for analysis (additional users available for purchase - no additional data capacity available for purchase). Fixed 25 GB of data for analysis.

  • AI-powered analytics

  • Connect and combine 100s of data sources with standard connectors

  • Interactive data visualizations and dashboards

  • Move data to Qlik Cloud Analytics with Qlik Talend Cloud for relational and SaaS data sources

  • Share analytics and collaborate with your team

  • 5 GB max app size

  • Qlik Community Support

Standard

Bring industry leading analytics with AI to small teams and groups.

$825/mo

For 25 GB data, billed annually (additional GB available for purchase)

Contact Us

Starts with 25 GB of data for analysis.

Purchase additional capacity in 25 GB increments

  • User access for all

  • AI-powered analytics

  • Leverage unstructured data and GenAI for deeper insights

  • Automate report generation and delivery

  • No code automation builder triggers dynamic actions across systems

  • Connect and combine 100s of data sources

  • Create interactive visualizations and dashboards

  • Managed and shared spaces for governance and collaboration

  • Get 1 GB of Personal Space

  • Use augmented advanced analytics

  • Share analytics with your team

  • Move data to Qlik Cloud Analytics with Qlik Talend Cloud for relational and SaaS data sources

  • 5 GB max app size

  • 24x7 critical customer support

MOST POPULAR

Premium

Put AI and analytics to work across your organization with premium capabilities.

$2,750/mo

For 50 GB data, billed annually (additional GB available for purchase)

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Starts with 50 GB of data for analysis.

Purchase additional capacity in 25 GB packs or 250 GB packs

Everything in Standard, plus:

  • Predictive analytics powered by automated machine learning

  • Additional GenAI capacity

  • Anonymous access (public access)

  • Connect additional Qlik Talend Cloud data sources (cloud, SAP - Mainframe & legacy)

  • Seamless data extraction from SAP systems into Qlik Cloud

  • Data lineage connectors

  • 10 GB max app size

  • Guided customer success onboarding

Enterprise

Get maximum flexibility and scale for your organization with enterprise AI and analytics capabilities.

Get a Quote

Contact Us

Starts at 250 GB of data for analysis.

Everything in Premium, plus:

  • Adds scale for large customer deployments

  • Greater quantities of included capabilities – Reporting, Automations, Public Access, AI Assistant, Machine Learning Models and Data Set Size

  • 15 GB Apps as standard

  • Larger Apps support, up to 40 GB, more apps and up to 50 GB per app with additional purchase

  • 3 GB of Personal Space

  • Multi-Region tenants

  • Personalized customer success plan and onboarding

Need a custom plan or to host on your own IT infrastructure?

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Not sure which plan is right for you? Our sales team is always happy to help. Reach out to schedule a demo or start with a free trial and see Qlik Sense® in action.

Note: Pricing accurate as of December 3rd, 2024.

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Excellent integration capabilities across multiple data sources.

  • Scalable for both small businesses and large enterprises.

  • User-friendly interface with strong self-service analytics features.

  • Supports everyone from business users creating simple visualizations to data scientists implementing complex analytical processing.

Cons

  • Pricing can be complex for small businesses.

2. Microsoft Power BI

Its seamless integration with products like Excel, Fabric, and Teams makes it an attractive choice for companies looking to enhance their data workflows without significantly disrupting their tech stacks (or employee training programs).

Beyond the ecosystem, Power BI stands out for its balance of affordability and functionality — it’s a tool that businesses of all sizes can benefit from. However, for enterprise-level scalability and advanced analytics, Power BI needs to be combined with Microsoft Fabric components like its data science tools and enhanced analytics suite.

On its own, Power BI is fairly limited in terms of what it can handle for large-scale data processing and advanced analytical needs.

Key Features

  • Integration with Microsoft Products: Power BI seamlessly integrates with other Microsoft products like Excel, Fabric, and Teams, enhancing collaboration and data sharing.

  • Custom Dashboards: Allows the creation of dashboards with interactive visuals.

  • Data Sharing: The Power BI Service allows users to share reports and dashboards with others in their organization easily, facilitating collaboration.

  • AI-Powered Insights: The tool includes AI features that provide automated insights, such as trend analysis and anomaly detection, making it easier to derive meaningful conclusions from data.

  • Basic Data Alerts: Users can set simple threshold-based alerts for individual chart points — a standard feature across analytics platforms.

  • Interactive Visualizations: Provides a range of customizable charts, graphs, and maps for visual representation of data.

  • Data Transformation: Offers Power Query for data cleaning and transformation. This feature is particularly useful for handling unstructured or incomplete data sets.

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Seamless integration with Microsoft products.

  • User-friendly for those familiar with the Microsoft ecosystem.

Cons

  • Advanced features may require a steeper learning curve.

  • Less flexibility when integrating with non-Microsoft platforms.

3. Tableau

Tableau is a visualization-focused analytics tool known for creating visually appealing, presentation-ready dashboards.

While it excels at creating infographic-style visualizations for reports and presentations, it's important to note that its enterprise-scale capabilities and advanced analytics features are more limited compared to other platforms in this list.

The software integrates seamlessly with existing data systems in organizations of all sizes, supporting both cloud and on-premises environments. Plus, the drag-and-drop interface helps non-technical users build visualizations quickly, while advanced features satisfy the needs of data experts.

Key Features

  • Data Visualization: Offers some of the most popular data visualization capabilities in the market, particularly excelling at infographic-style visualizations for presentations and reports.

  • Data Prep Tools: Offers basic data preparation capabilities split between Tableau Desktop and Tableau Prep Builder. While suitable for tactical use cases and smaller data volumes, more complex enterprise-scale data preparation often requires third-party tools like Alteryx.

  • Drag-and-Drop Interface: Tableau offers an intuitive drag-and-drop interface for building visualizations, making it accessible to users with different technical skills.

  • Storytelling: Users can create "story" presentations to guide viewers through data insights in a narrative format.

Platform Plans

  • Tableau Server/Cloud (Standard): Base platform with core analytics capabilities

  • Tableau Enterprise: Adds enhanced security, governance, and data management features

  • Tableau+: Comprehensive solution including advanced management tools, Tableau Pulse premium features, and AI-powered analytics

User License Types

Tableau+ expands Tableau Enterprise capabilities by integrating with the Salesforce ecosystem. It includes credits for Salesforce Data Cloud integration and access to Salesforce's generative AI capabilities through Copilot & Agent credits.

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Industry-leading visualization capabilities.

  • Easy to share and embed dashboards in various platforms.

  • Great for data storytelling and presentations.

Cons

  • Requires significant technical expertise, especially for data preparation and advanced features.

  • Complex data prep workflow often requires juggling between Tableau Desktop and Tableau Prep.

4. Looker

Looker, now part of Google Cloud, is a data platform that emphasizes backend data modeling and organization over visualization capabilities.

Its strength lies in connecting directly to data warehouses and providing a robust modeling layer through LookML, making it particularly valuable for organizations that prioritize data governance and modeling over visual analytics. While it offers basic visualization and alerting features, its primary value comes from its backend capabilities and Google Cloud integration.

Key Features

  • Live Data Access: Connects directly to data warehouses, providing current data without extraction or movement.

  • Data Modeling: Leverages LookML modeling language for defining data relationships and metrics in a reusable way, focusing on backend data organization rather than visualization.

  • Google Cloud Integration: Seamlessly integrates with Google Cloud services, making it particularly strong for organizations invested in the Google ecosystem.

  • Backend-Focused Data Governance: Provides centralized access controls and security management.

  • Basic Alerting: Includes standard chart monitoring alerts similar to other platforms, allowing basic threshold monitoring.

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Excellent integration with Google Cloud.

  • Live data access is possible without the need to extract data first.

  • Highly customizable reports.

Cons

  • Advanced features may require more technical expertise.

5. Sisense

Sisense is an extensive data analytics tool known for its ability to combine data from multiple sources and simplify complex analytics. It offers customizable dashboards and a wide range of visualization options that allows businesses to combine data from multiple sources and create custom, interactive reports.

Companies like Air Canada use Sisense to integrate and analyze data from various operational and customer service sources. Sisense’s powerful analytics capabilities enable Air Canada to consolidate performance metrics and gain real-time insights into its flight operations and customer feedback.

This data-driven approach helps the airline enhance decision-making, optimize operational efficiency, and improve overall customer service.

Key Features

  • Data Integration: Connects to a wide variety of data sources, including databases, cloud services, and third-party applications for seamless data integration.

  • Custom Dashboards: Provides customizable dashboards tailored to business needs.

  • In-Chip Technology: Utilizes in-chip processing for faster data querying and analytics, significantly improving performance.

  • Collaboration Features: Facilitates sharing and collaboration among teams, enabling users to comment and discuss insights directly within the platform.

  • Natural Language Querying: Enables users to ask questions in natural language, simplifying data exploration and analysis.

  • AI and Machine Learning: Integrates AI and machine learning capabilities for predictive analytics and automated insights.

  • Embedded Analytics: Supports embedding analytics and visualizations into other applications or websites, enhancing user experience.

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Strong data integration capabilities.

  • Scalable for large businesses.

  • Industry-leading embedded analytics capabilities

  • Fast data processing with in-chip technology.

Cons

  • It is not as user-friendly as some competitors.

  • Less flexibility when integrating with non-Microsoft platforms.

  • Lots of features require add-ons

  • Advanced features may require additional training.

Data Analytics Tools Comparison Table

Attribute

Qlik Sense®

Microsoft Power BI

Tableau

Looker

Sisense

Advanced Data Visualization

Comprehensive out-of-box visualization library

Rich visualization capabilities

Limited visualization capabilities

Many chart types require add-ons

Interactive Dashboards

Native, intuitive interactivity

Requires significant configuration

Requires significant development

Basic interactivity only

Requires extensive configuration and add-ons

Augmented
Analytics (AI/ML)

Integrated AI assistant, AutoML, Qlik Answers

Basic AI
features through Fabric

Limited AI/ML (requires Tableau+ or Einstein Discovery)

Limited AI capabilities

Built-in AI and ML capabilities

Data Integration

Robust native connectors and data combining

Strong within Microsoft ecosystem

Requires significant data prep

Limited to direct database connections

Strong data integration

Scalability

Enterprise-ready without additional cost

Requires costly Fabric components

Requires significant investment in management tools

Scales with data warehouse

Performance issues at high volumes

User-Friendly Interface

Intuitive for all skill levels

Familiar Microsoft interface

User-friendly interface

Requires technical expertise

Requires coding for most features

Live Data Access

Limited live data capabilities

Strong live query support

Advanced live connection options

Native live query support

Good live data processing

Mobile BI Support

Basic mobile capabilities

Limited mobile interactivity

Limited mobile support

Basic mobile app functionality

Embedded Analytics

Advanced embedding into applications

Basic embedding capabilities

Can embed dashboards

Supports embedding analytics

Strong embedded analytics focus

Governed Self-Service

Robust governance with centralized control

Less centralized governance

Limited governance, desktop-based authoring

Ensures data governance through access controls

Provides data governance features

Conclusion

Data analytics tools like Qlik are essential for businesses that want to make data-driven decisions, stay competitive, and predict future trends. By leveraging the advanced capabilities of these platforms, organizations can accelerate decision-making, optimize performance, and gain deeper insights into their operations.

As the data world continues to evolve, investing in the right analytics platform will empower organizations to harness the power of data and turn insights into action. Whether you’re a small business or a large enterprise, the right data analytics tool will help you make smarter decisions faster.

Ready to see Qlik in action? Schedule a demo or start your free trial today.