Qlik has a perpetual license model with yearly maintenance and upgrades, while SAS VA has an annual license model. According to Gartner, SAS VA has the highest 3-year total cost of ownership. Qlik is easier for developers and end users to use, especially for creating interactive dashboards, while SAS VA is among the most difficult and time-consuming tools for content creation. Qlik supports massive data volumes through in-memory and direct discovery techniques without requiring data staging, while SAS VA also handles large data volumes.

1. Head-to-Head: Qlik vs. SAS Visual Analytics
Product QlikView SAS Visual Analytics
License Perpetual license, yearly maintenance,
which includes upgrades.
Annual license.
Total Cost of
Ownership
(TCO)
According to Gartner, Qlik’s above-
average scores for ease of use for
developers, particularly when compared
with traditional IT-centric enterprise
vendors, has resulted in better-than-
average implementation costs, IT
developer costs and overall three-year BI
platform ownership costs per user. The
perception that QlikView offers a
relatively low cost of ownership, when
compared with other vendors’ products,
is also evident from the high percentage
of customers that choose QlikView
because of its implementation cost and
associated effort, as well as its TCO.
According to Gartner, highest
3-year cost of ownership.
Content
creation
Customers most often select QlikView
for its ease of use for end users,
particularly in terms of its interactive
dashboards and when compared with
the offerings of the incumbent IT-centric
vendors.
According to Gartner, SAS VA
is one of the most time
consuming to create content
for.
Ease of
implementation
Qlik’s above-average scores for ease of
use for developers, particularly when
compared with traditional IT-centric
enterprise vendors, has resulted in
better-than-average implementation
costs, IT developer costs and overall
three-year BI platform ownership costs
per user.
According to Gartner, among
the most difficult to implement
Touch feature Natural analytics, talk, and touch
capabilities are built into the API so has
sophisticated iPhone/Android touch
functionality.
Mouse-like interactivity
Hardware expenditure Qlik doesn’t require a dedicated
server.
Separate VA server
recommended
Mobile
integration
Anywhere, anytime collaboration –
authored and accessed on any device
with smart visualization that conform to
any device.
Using SAS Visual Analytics
and SAS Mobile BI, users can
easily design, create and share
information.
Data
compression
Data is compressed before being put
into memory
SAS doesn’t compress the data
before putting it in memory,
meaning they can require up to
10 times more memory for the
same data as Qlik Sense
IT needs  One tool for IT to install, configure
and manage.
 One easy tool for end users to access
and interact with multiple types of BI
content.
 Leverage all information assets
easily.
 SAS EBI, SAS VA and SAS
EG are just a few of the end
user tools.
 Server administration and
metadata tools required by IT
to manage BI implementation.
 Expensive data integration

2. tool and data warehouse
project to combine data
sources.
IT Staffing A week of training is usually enough
(source?)
According to Gartner,
many customers report
the greatest barrier to
success with SAS is
finding qualified BI staff.
Leveraging SAS
datasets
 Can leverage SAS data sets content
without the inherent cost or
complexity of SAS.
 Will provide a more engaging user
experience.
 Complex, multi-product
solution that takes significant
time to resource and maintain.
 Lots of user interfaces not
only to learn, but also to
support.
Data volumes Supports massive data volumes through
a hybrid approach of in-memory and
direct discovery and doesn’t require the
data to be staged in advance of building
the application.
Handles massive data volumes.
Microsoft Office
Integration
Qlik Sense allows the creation of slide
based stories that are connected
directly to the data but they are also
interactive and can provide links directly
to source applications for additional
information.
SAS add-on at extra
cost.
Pricing $1,500/token for Qlik Sense. Qlik Sense
Server is free. Tokens can be used in
two ways – one “power user” assigned
to the token, or up to ten hours of
access with up to ten users accessing it.
Unlike most other SAS
products, SAS VA starts at 4
core and yet lists up to 256
core. Predominant entry is 8
core.
Twitter
connector
Already demoed on Star Cruises’
QlikView dashboards. Qualex Asia is a
beta partner with the developer of these
connectors.
N/A
Facebook connector Already demoed on Star Cruises’
QlikView dashboards. Qualex Asia is a
beta partner with the developer of these
connectors.
N/A
Google Analytics
connector
Provides N/A
CRM
Integration
A connector for SugarCRM has been
developed by a third party and it is
available for license.
N/A
Training costs In Manila, QlikView classes cost around
US $800 for a three-day training
session.
Usually about $1K/day
Connectors
market
A simple Google search produces a
vibrant community of developers
creating connectors for Facebook,
Twitter, Google AdSense, Google
BigQuery, MailChimp, Youtube
analytics, Sentiment and Text analytics,
and Blog connectors that will increase
the functionality of Qlik exponentially.
A simple Google search
produces connectors to
Cloudera, not much else.
Mobile App Market QlikMarket is a growing community of
developers and application. Qualex Asia
is developing applications that are
specifically for the casino and hospitality
industry.
SAS BI mobile is
available in the iTunes
and Android app store.

3. Thought Leadership Qualex Asia’s MD Andrew Pearson has
been nominated as a Qlik Luminary so
will be leading Qlik’s expanding casino
footprint.
Personal Edition QlikView has free downloadable
personal versions of the software
N/A
Magic Quadrant
Here is the Gartner Magic Quadrant for both tools: