Qlik Sense vs QlikView

Qlik has finally released its long awaited Qlik Sense platform on 17th September 2014. Qlik Sense is a next-generation self-service data visualization application from Qlik (see more here What is Qlik Sense?). According to Qlik, Qlik Sense is built on the QIX Associative Data Indexing engine, the second generation of Qlik’s proven and patented engine technology.

It has some dramatic changes compared to QlikView, such as drag-and-drop visualization, server side dashboard development and distribution, a token based pricing (Qlik Sense pricing), overhauled data extraction, integrated maps, new charts, etc.

Is Qlik Sense new QlikView or QlikView 12? The answer is no. Qlik started the project as QlikView,Next which was implying that the next product will be the new version of QlikView which is on version 11 released in 2011. But Qlik has changed the name to Qlik Sense. It makes sense because this product is different. Not entirely but different.

Conceptually, Qlik Sense and QlikView targets different types of BI. Here is the semi-official explanation of QlikView versus Qlik Sense which is taken from Qlik Community:

QlikView is a tool for situations where you want prepared business applications, i.e. applications created by developers who put a lot of thought into the data model, the layout, the charts and the formula; and deliver the applications to end-users who consume the applications. Qlik calls this Guided Analytics. The end-user has total freedom to explore data, select, drill down and navigate in the information, and can this way discover both questions and answers in the data. The end-user is however limited when it comes to creating new visualizations. This type of situation will without doubt be common for many, many years to come. For more information on Qlik View, refer to our What is QlikView? QlikView Overview post. 

Qlik Sense is a tool for situations where you don’t want to pre-can so much. Instead you want the user to have the freedom to create a layout of his own and in it, new visualizations; charts that the developer couldn’t imagine that the user wants to see. You want Self-service data discovery, which means a much more active, modern, engaged user. In addition, Qlik Sense is much easier to use when you have a touch screen, and is adaptive to different screen sizes and form factors. On the whole, Qlik Sense is a much more modern tool. (Source : Qlik Sense or Qlik View)

To find out more about Qlik Sense you can check Qlik Sense for beginners.

Technically, Qlik Sense seems to use the same data engine and expression syntax in the back-end. Front end is entirely different. But what would be the road map than? Would Qlik Sense and QlikView merge? There is no official roadmap for now but here are sum hints for the future from Henric Cronström, VP for Product in QlikView:

One of the main goals for Qlik Sense was to have one unified client that could run on anything  (=html5). Another goal was to generalize the chart drawing code, so that more graph types could be implemented (=extensions). A third goal was that the client needed to be adaptable to screen sizes and form factors.

These three goals meant total incompatibility with the existing C++ client, and - unfortunately - only a partial backward compatibility. So, we had to start developing from scratch, but to re-implement all functionality from QlikView 11 in a new tool would take a very long time. And, we just haven't done it yet...

I am not allowed to tell you what we have planned for the future, but I can see several possible scenarios: Merge the two products. Or, QlikView disappears because Qlik Sense is so much better. Or, the two products continue in parallel: QlikView survives and flourishes since it is much more flexible and allows for a much greater customization and Application building.

We will see. I can only promise that Qlik will listen to the customers and make decisions based on the feedback. (Source : Qlik Sense or Qlik View)

What I understand (as many does) from this post is that Qlik is actually working to merge both products but it is still WIP. It seems very likely that both products will merge since Qlik also did not made any major upgrade to its now aging QlikView 11. Maybe QlikView 12 will never be a reality and instead we will see a new Qlik Sense version (a server) which handles all QlikView and Qlik Sense applications on a single platform.

A must have QlikView reference.

Qlik Sense for Beginners