Choosing InetSoft StyleBI over Qlik Sense
Selecting Business Intelligence (BI) solutions for an organization is hard, risky, and inherently biased. But the process is made easier by the G2 Crowd review platform with its real-time, transparent and unbiased user reviews. This helps an organization to objectively assess what is best by leveraging the wisdom of the crowd, limiting the risk, and finding out what works. The reviews are validated by G2 Crowd thereby helping organizations make better buying decisions.
G2 Crowd recently compared InetSoft StyleBI and Qlik Sense across 30 categories. InetSoft outranked Qlik Sense in most of these categories, which will be detailed below.
A Qlik Sense Alternative with Enhanced Self Service
InetSoft has done extremely well in general usage ratings - Meeting Requirements, Ease of Use, Ease of Setup, Ease of Admin, Quality of Support, Ease of Doing Business With, and Product Direction. The speed with which dashboards and reports can be churned out has been a great reason for reviewers to recommend Style Intelligence. InetSoft also scored big under Quality of Support with its very responsive support staff and quick resolution of customer queries. The Product Direction parameter was also ranked favorably with the extensive "how to" reference videos on numerous topics and the mentoring service from InetSoft to kick-start an organization's efforts in the BI space.
Dashboards and Scorecards were the categories where StyleBI was lauded for its robustness and described as a complete and powerful go-to tool for visual data analysis. These categories were evaluated under the Reports section aimed to strengthen an organization's reporting by balancing the visual images and the reports in the right proportions to gain valuable insights into critical decisions making.
StyleBI uses the same metadata layer for its reports and dashboards. The advantage of this is that users can put formulas in one place and the dashboards and reports will update their results, providing a single version of truth. This was evident in the Self Service category where Calculated Fields and Data Column Filtering were won by InetSoft. Self-service reporting is the natural and prudent evolution of information management. The benefits of decreased time to information and the broadening of information access are key drivers for competitive success of any organization.
List of Areas Where InetSoft Ranked Higher than Qlik Sense
The detailed list of categories & parameters of how InetSoft StyleBI scored over Qlik Sense is presented below. Please click here or the G2 logo to go over the individual reviews.
- Meets Requirements
- Ease of Use
- Ease of Setup
- Ease of Admin
- Quality of Support
- Ease of Doing Business With
- Product Direction (% Positive)
- Data Visualization
- Big Data Service
- Score Cards
- Dashboards
- WYSIWYG Report Design
- Integration APIs
- Calculated Fields
- Data Column Filtering
- User, Role, and Access Management
- Sandbox / Test Environments
Make Better Decisions with Data Visualization
Another major category win against Qlik Sense is in Data Visualization and Big Data Services, under the Advanced Analytics section. StyleBI's data caching technology enables the management of large volumes of data. The tool also offers various data displays like tabbed interfaces, sliders, calendars etc. StyleBI's capability to provide a balanced BI Platform was well served by these two Advanced Analytics parameters. Prediction (proactive) rather than reporting (reactive), will be the focus of any organization in the current times where analytics of customers' spending behavior are of vital importance.
The Building Reports category saw InetSoft's StyleBI win over Qlik Sense in WYSIWYG Report Design, and Integration APIs, clearly exhibiting InetSoft's capability to mash up disparate data sources and schedule reports automatically. Why is this category of reporting critical? This will help any organization to change reports on the fly. The benefits and flexibility of the StyleBI platform result in enabling an incredibly powerful and distributed development environment that allows all levels of the organization visibility and access to data.
InetSoft helps Organizations with Fact Based Decision Making
G2 Crowd also revealed that InetSoft offered better value in the User, Role, and Access Management parameter due to InetSoft's extensible and open architecture that lends itself to superb customization through Java and Javascript.
StyleBI helps any organization to become better at fact based decision making without too much reliance on IT to access critical information. InetSoft helps to eliminate costly delays in decision-making and thereby the unnecessary strain on the IT department.
StyleBI offers a business environment in which business users no longer need to rely on IT, but instead can access and manipulate data on their own. With InetSoft's connectors, the users have the flexibility to tie up with any new data on the run and the ability to do business user level data mashups. This solution allows users to rapidly add new sources from disparate data locations and analyze data side-by-side through both dashboards and reports.
While Qlik Sense is a powerful analytics platform with an associative engine and strong self-service capabilities, StyleBI differentiates itself through lightweight embedding, flexible customization, and operational simplicity that benefit product teams, OEM partners, and organizations seeking rapid integration of analytics into applications.
Embedding and OEM-Focused Integration
StyleBI was architected with embedding as a primary use case. It provides APIs, SDKs, and easily consumable UI components designed for white-labeling and deep integration with SaaS products. This makes it straightforward to integrate dashboards into multi-tenant applications without the heavier platform dependencies typical of Qlik Sense. For teams prioritizing embedded analytics and seamless UX integration, the inetsoft vs qlik sense comparison often favors StyleBI for lower integration friction and better control over the embedded experience.
Lightweight Footprint and Deployment Flexibility
InetSoft emphasizes a compact runtime that can be deployed in containers, on-premises, or in lightweight cloud instances with minimal infrastructure overhead. This contrasts with Qlik Sense’s enterprise-oriented deployment model that can require more extensive provisioning and governance. The inetsoft vs qlik sense comparison shows StyleBI delivering faster proof-of-concept cycles and reduced operational cost for smaller teams or product-centric deployments.
Developer Control and Customization
StyleBI exposes granular customization through CSS-like theming, extension points, and JavaScript APIs that let developers tailor UI behavior and visual styling precisely. This developer-centric approach enables pixel-perfect embedding and bespoke interactions inside third-party applications. Qlik Sense offers extensibility but its extension framework and mashup approach can be heavier and more constrained for tight product embedding scenarios, a core point in the inetsoft vs qlik sense comparison.
Rapid Dashboarding and Template-Driven Design
StyleBI focuses on rapid dashboard creation with reusable templates and widget libraries that non-technical users can adapt quickly. Its templating model supports consistent embedded experiences across tenants without complex rework. Qlik Sense emphasizes associative exploration and guided analytics, which excels for broader BI deployments but can slow time-to-value when the need is to deliver numerous branded, embedded dashboards fast.
Data Connectivity and Real-Time Options
StyleBI supports flexible data access patterns including in-memory mashups, cached datasets, and direct queries, enabling pragmatic choices for latency and scale depending on the use case. This flexibility simplifies connecting varied sources for embedded apps. Qlik Sense’s engine provides strong in-memory processing and complex data modeling, but the inetsoft vs qlik sense comparison often shows StyleBI as more agile when quick, mixed-source integration is the priority.
Operational Simplicity and Maintenance
Maintenance and upgrade processes for StyleBI are designed to be straightforward with smaller operational teams in mind. The platform targets predictable upgrades and simpler administration for embedded deployments. Qlik Sense provides enterprise-grade governance and capabilities but typically requires larger BI operations investment, which makes StyleBI preferable in the inetsoft vs qlik sense comparison where low operational overhead matters.
When evaluating inetsoft vs qlik sense comparison, choose StyleBI when your priorities are embedding, developer control, fast templated dashboards, flexible data access, and lightweight operations. Qlik Sense remains a robust choice for broad enterprise analytics and associative exploration, but for product teams and OEM scenarios that need tight integration and speed, StyleBI’s functional advantages are compelling.