If you are trying to decide between Qlik Sense and Qlik Cloud, licensing is one of the first places to start. It affects how you budget, how you grow, and how you explain costs to finance and leadership.
This post focuses only on licensing. It compares how Qlik Sense (on-prem) and Qlik Cloud Analytics think about users, capacity, and what is included in different plan tiers. Future posts in this series will cover architecture, features, integration, and mobile.
If you need help working through this in your own environment, you can always reach out to us at Arc Qlik Consulting Services.
What We Mean by Qlik Sense vs Qlik Cloud
Before diving into licensing, it helps to clarify the products.
Qlik Sense (On Prem) Qlik Sense in this article refers to the traditional on-premises deployment that you install and manage yourself, either on your own servers or in an infrastructure as a service environment.
Licensing here is traditionally based on:
User types, such as creators versus viewers
Server or site licenses and infrastructure capacity
You mainly think about how many people will create content, how many will consume it, and what hardware you need to run it.
Qlik Cloud Analytics Qlik Cloud Analytics is the software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that Qlik offers. You do not manage the underlying infrastructure. You subscribe to a plan.
Licensing in Qlik Cloud is based on:
Plan tiers such as Starter, Standard, Premium, and Enterprise
Capacity for data that you analyze, measured in gigabytes
Included features such as reporting, automations, predictive capabilities, app sizes, and access options
You mainly think about how much data you will analyze and what level of capability you need.
User-Based vs Capacity-Based Licensing
At a high level, Qlik Sense and Qlik Cloud use different lenses for licensing.
Qlik Sense (On Prem)
Primary Focus
Users and infrastructure
You typically size around:
Number of professional creators
Number of analyzers or consumers
Number of sites and servers
Monitoring and control
Licensing is enforced through user assignment, access rules, and server capacity
Capacity for data that is loaded and stored for analysis
Plan tier that controls features and limits
You typically size around:
Total volume of data for analysis across your tenant in a year
Which plan level matches your feature needs and growth
Monitoring and control
Admins watch capacity use for data for analysis
Qlik provides alerts as you approach your plan capacity
You can upgrade capacity or move to a higher plan when needed
A simple way to think about it:
Platform
Main Licensing Focus
What You Size Around
Qlik Sense (On Prem)
Users and infrastructure
Creators, viewers, servers
Qlik Cloud Analytics
Capacity and plan tier
Data for analysis, features, scale
Qlik Cloud Plan Tiers and What They Include
The Qlik Cloud Analytics plans are structured into tiers. Below is a summary of what is included in each, based on the current pricing page. This is a functional overview, not a copy of the site content, and not a list of prices.
Qlik Cloud Starter
Designed for small businesses and very small teams.
Key characteristics:
Fixed number of users included
Fixed amount of data for analysis included
No option to purchase extra data capacity beyond what is included
Included capabilities:
Analytics with interactive visualizations and dashboards
AI-powered insight features that come with Qlik Cloud Analytics plans
Standard connectors to hundreds of data sources
Ability to move data into Qlik Cloud for relational and software as a service sources through Qlik Talend Cloud
Sharing and collaboration within the team
Max app size limit on the smaller side, such as 5 GB per app
Community level support
Starter is a good fit for small companies that want to try Qlik Cloud in a contained way.
Qlik Cloud Standard
Designed for small teams and groups that need more flexibility than Starter.
Key characteristics:
Includes user access across the tenant
Starts with a base amount of data for analysis
You can purchase additional capacity in defined increments, such as 25 GB blocks
Included capabilities, in addition to Starter:
Use of unstructured data to drive insight
Report generation and delivery
No code automation builder that can trigger actions across connected systems
Managed and shared spaces that improve governance and collaboration
Personal space for each user, such as 1 GB per user
Augmented analytics that helps users explore data more effectively
24×7 critical support
Standard is typically where many departmental and mid-sized deployments start.
Qlik Cloud Premium
Designed for broader rollout across a business with more advanced requirements.
Key characteristics:
Starts with more data for analysis than Standard
Allows additional capacity to be purchased in larger increments, such as both 25 GB and 250 GB blocks
Included capabilities, in addition to everything in Standard:
Predictive analytics powered by automated machine learning tools
More capacity for generative style capabilities
Anonymous or public access for dashboards and content
Deeper data integration options:
Additional Qlik Talend Cloud data sources including SAP, mainframe, and legacy systems
Seamless extraction from SAP into Qlik Cloud
Data lineage connectors for better visibility into data flows
Higher max app size, such as 10 GB per app
Guided customer success onboarding
Premium is usually a match for organizations that want Qlik Cloud to be a central analytics platform, not just a small team tool.
Qlik Cloud Enterprise
Designed for large enterprises that need maximum scale and flexibility.
Key characteristics:
Starts at a much higher data for analysis capacity
Tailored for large deployments and broader enterprise standards
Included capabilities, in addition to everything in Premium:
More capacity bundled into:
Reporting
Automations
Public or anonymous access
Assistants and predictive models
Dataset sizes and number of models
Larger default app sizes, such as 15 GB, with options to support very large apps, up to tens of gigabytes per app with additional purchases
More personal space per user, such as 3 GB
Multi-region tenants for global deployments
Personalized customer success plans and onboarding
Enterprise is targeted at organizations that want to standardize on Qlik Cloud at scale.
A simple summary table:
Plan
Sized Around
Ideal For
Highlights
Starter
Fixed users and fixed data capacity
Small business, pilots
Core analytics, dashboards, smaller apps, community
Standard
Data capacity expandable in steps
Teams and departments
User access for all, automations, reporting, spaces
Premium
Larger capacity and advanced features
Mid to large organizations
Predictive, more GenAI capacity, public access, SAP
Enterprise
Large capacity and scaled features
Large enterprises
Very large apps, more automations, multi-region, CSP
How Qlik Cloud Measures and Monitors Usage
Qlik Cloud uses a capacity-based model, which Qlik compares to a cell phone plan in the pricing FAQ.
Capacity-based means you pay a fixed fee for a set amount of capacity.
This gives more predictable costs than true consumption models, where monthly bills can swing up and down.
Data for analysis as the main metric
You estimate how much data you will load and store for analysis over a year.
That total is what the plan is sized around.
What happens when you approach capacity
You keep full access to your environment.
You receive alerts as you get close to your limit.
You can choose to:
Upgrade to a higher capacity
Upgrade to a higher plan
Additional charges only appear if you go above the limits of your plan without adjusting it.
How admins monitor usage
Admins can view current capacity use
They can see which apps or datasets are driving usage
They can use this information to plan clean-up, archiving, or upgrades
You can picture it as a progress bar labeled Data For Analysis that moves from comfortable, to approaching the limit, to an upgrade suggested.
Comparing Licensing in Practice
Most teams want to know how this affects real decisions.
How You Think About Sizing
Qlik Sense (On Prem)
You tend to ask:
How many people will build apps, dashboards, and data models
How many people will consume those apps
How many environments and servers you need to support development, test, and production
User types and server footprint drive licensing and infrastructure costs.
Qlik Cloud Analytics
You tend to ask:
How much data will we analyze across all apps over a year
How fast that data volume is likely to grow
Which plan level we need for:
Reporting and scheduled outputs
Automations and triggers
Public access or external users
Predictive capabilities
SAP and advanced lineage
A practical comparison:
Question
Qlik Sense (On Prem)
Qlik Cloud Analytics
How many creators vs viewers do we have
Main sizing driver
Still important but not the main metric
How large are our datasets
Drives hardware requirements
Drives plan and data for analysis capacity
Do we need external or public dashboards
Requires custom patterns or add ons
Included with Premium and Enterprise plans
How large are our apps
Handled through server tuning
Controlled by app size limits by plan tier
Governance and Tenants
Plan tiers in Qlik Cloud also influence:
How many collaboration and managed spaces you use
How much personal space each user has
Whether you can run tenants across multiple regions
The level of onboarding and customer success support that comes bundled
These governance aspects become more important as analytics shifts from a single team to a company-wide platform.
If you are planning a hybrid setup or a staged migration from Qlik Sense to Qlik Cloud, it can be useful to map both licensing models side by side. This is where a short working session with a partner can help. You can learn more about our services at:
There is no single right answer. Both Qlik Sense and Qlik Cloud can make sense, depending on context.
Situations where Qlik Cloud licensing is often attractive:
You want predictable yearly costs based on capacity, not variable month-to-month bills
Your number of viewers is growing quickly and you want to simplify user-based calculations
You plan to take advantage of:
Built in reporting and automated distribution
Automations that trigger actions in other systems
Predictive capabilities that are available in higher tiers
Public or external sharing of dashboards
Situations where Qlik Sense on premises may still be important:
Strong regulatory or residency requirements tied to existing data centers
A heavily tuned on-premises environment that will be part of a long-term migration path
Existing investments in infrastructure that you plan to use for several more years
A common pattern is to run both during a transition period and to move workloads gradually.
How To Start Comparing Licensing For Your Organization
If you are trying to make this decision for your own team, a simple checklist helps.
Inventory your users
How many true creators do you have
How many consumers
Which groups will need access in the next 12 to 24 months
Estimate your data for analysis
Total size of your current analytics datasets
Expected growth over the next few years
How often full reloads or history loads occur
List feature needs
Reporting and scheduled distribution
Automations and workflows
Public or customer-facing dashboards
SAP and complex source systems
Regulatory or residency requirements
Map to models
How this fits with your current Qlik Sense licensing
Which Qlik Cloud plan tier feels like a realistic starting point
You can use the “Compare all plan features” section on the Qlik pricing page to fill in detailed questions for internal review.
If you want a second set of eyes, our team at Arc can help you run concrete scenarios. You can connect with us at Contact Arc.
What Comes Next In The Series
This article focused only on licensing. In the rest of this Qlik Sense vs Qlik Cloud series, we will cover:
Architecture and deployment differences
Feature and capability comparisons
Integration and data movement
Mobile and embedded analytics
If you want to follow along, you can keep an eye on the Qlik category on our blog.
In the meantime, if you are in the middle of a licensing decision or a Qlik Cloud migration and want a simple way to talk it through, we are happy to help.
If you are new to Qlik, it can be hard to know what to do first. You may have access to a Qlik Cloud tenant, or you might be thinking about starting a trial, but you are not sure how to turn that into real progress.
This short beginner roadmap gives you a simple plan for your first week with Qlik. You do not need to learn every feature. You just need a clear place to start, a safe environment to click around in, and a few basic wins to build confidence.
If you want to follow along with a video version, you can pair this guide with our Qlik Beginner Roadmap video as you go.
Before you can learn Qlik, you need a place to practice. This can be a trial, a company tenant, or a sandbox provided by a partner. The key is to have somewhere you can safely build and test without worrying about breaking production reports.
Here are common options:
Option
What It Is
Best For
Qlik Cloud free trial
A 30-day trial of Qlik Cloud Analytics
Individuals and small teams who want to try Qlik
Company Qlik Cloud tenant
Your organization’s existing Qlik Cloud environment
Employees joining an existing analytics program
Partner sandbox
A Qlik environment set up and managed by a consulting partner
Teams that want structure, guardrails, and guidance
If your team needs help choosing between Qlik Cloud options or setting up tenants and spaces, you can explore our Qlik Consulting Services and Qlik Support.
Step 2: Join the Right Learning Resources
Learning Qlik is easier when you are not doing it alone. Good resources give you examples, answers, and a place to ask questions when you get stuck.
These resources will be your support system as you move beyond your first week and into more advanced topics.
Step 3: Get Comfortable With the Qlik Cloud Interface
Once you have access to Qlik Cloud, spend 30 to 60 minutes just exploring the interface. You do not need to build anything complex on day one. The goal is to feel comfortable clicking around.
Here are a few things to look for:
Where you see spaces or streams that hold content.
Where apps are listed and how to open them.
Where to add or upload data, such as an Excel file.
Where sheets and visualizations live inside an app.
Think of this like walking around a new office building. You are not trying to memorize every room. You just want to know where the main areas are and how to get back to the front door.
Your next goal is to get real data into Qlik, even if it is small and simple. An Excel file is a great place to start because it is familiar and easy to control.
You can use a basic file with columns like:
Date
Product
Region
Sales Amount
At a high level, your steps will look like this:
Open Qlik Cloud and go to the space where you are allowed to build.
Create a new app or open an empty starter app.
Choose the option to add data or upload a file.
Select your Excel file and let Qlik read the fields.
Confirm that Qlik shows a simple preview of the table with your columns.
You are not building a full data model or complex transformations here. You are just taking the first step of seeing your own data inside Qlik.
As you get more comfortable, it helps to understand the main pieces inside Qlik Cloud. You do not need every detail, but a simple mental model will make things easier when you work with your team or talk with admins.
Here are four core concepts in plain language:
Concept
Simple Description
Beginner Tip
Spaces / Streams
Areas that hold apps and content for groups of users
Ask which space is safe for your testing and practice
Apps
Containers that hold data, sheets, and visualizations
Start with one app for your first Excel file and charts
Data Connections
Saved links to data sources such as files, databases, or APIs
Begin with a single file before adding more sources
Users and Security
Rules that control who can see and change content
Confirm your role and permissions with your admin
In many organizations, these pieces are part of a broader data strategy that includes integration, governance, and reporting. If you want to see how Qlik fits into that bigger picture, you can explore our Data Strategy Consulting services or industry pages for Healthcare, Government, and Education.
Beginner Checklist: Your First Week With Qlik Cloud
To keep things simple, here is a quick checklist you can use to track your first week. You do not need to do everything in one day. Spread it out and give yourself time to explore.
In your first week:
Join Arc Academy for Qlik on Skool.
Follow Qlik and Arc Analytics on LinkedIn.
Get access to a Qlik environment:
Qlik Cloud trial
Company tenant
Partner sandbox
Log in and explore the Qlik Cloud interface for 30 to 60 minutes.
Load one Excel file as sample data into a new or existing app.
Build one simple bar chart using that data.
Learn where your spaces, apps, data connections, and user settings are managed.
If you can check all these boxes, you are officially started with Qlik. You may not feel like an expert yet, but you have done the most important part: moving from “someday” to hands-on practice.
What Comes Next in Qlik Cloud
After your first week, you can start to:
Add more data sources beyond Excel.
Build multiple sheets and more complex visualizations.
Learn about data modeling and transformations.
Work with IT or a partner on governance, security, and performance.
Your first week with Qlik does not need to be perfect. It just needs to move you closer to clear, useful insight from your data. In our next guide and video, we will walk through the most common mistakes beginners make with Qlik and how you can avoid them.
If you have heard the name Qlik but are not sure what it does or whether it fits your needs, this guide will help. Qlik is a business intelligence tool that helps people see and understand their data. It is used by companies in many industries to make better decisions faster.
This post will explain what Qlik is, what it does, and who uses it. By the end, you will have a clearer picture of whether Qlik might be a good fit for your team.
Qlik is a software platform that turns raw data into visual dashboards and reports. Instead of looking at rows and columns in a spreadsheet, you can see charts, graphs, and maps that show patterns and trends.
The main goal of Qlik is to help people answer questions about their business. Questions like:
Which products are selling the most?
Where are we losing customers?
How long does it take to complete a process?
What is our revenue this quarter compared to last year?
Qlik pulls data from different sources, such as databases, spreadsheets, and cloud apps. It then organizes that data so you can explore it, filter it, and share it with others. You do not need to be a data scientist to use Qlik. If you know what questions you want to answer, Qlik can help you find the answers.
Qlik does three main things: it connects to your data, it helps you explore that data, and it lets you share what you find.
1. Connect to Your Data
Qlik can pull data from many places. This includes databases like SQL Server, cloud tools like Salesforce, spreadsheets like Excel, and even web APIs. Once connected, Qlik brings all that data into one place so you can see the full picture.
2. Explore and Analyze
Qlik uses something called associative analytics. This means you can click on any part of a chart or table, and Qlik will show you how that selection relates to everything else. For example, if you click on a region, you can instantly see sales, customers, and products for that region. You do not have to build a new report every time you have a new question.
3. Share Insights
Once you build a dashboard or report, you can share it with your team. People can view it on their computer, tablet, or phone. They can also interact with it, filtering and exploring on their own. This makes it easier for everyone to stay on the same page.
Qlik is used by people in many different roles and industries. Here are some of the most common groups:
Business Leaders and Executives
Leaders use Qlik to see high-level metrics in one place. They can track revenue, costs, customer satisfaction, and other key numbers without waiting for a monthly report. Qlik helps them make faster, more informed decisions.
Managers and Department Heads
Managers use Qlik to monitor team performance, spot problems, and plan ahead. For example, a sales manager might use Qlik to see which reps are hitting their targets and which products are lagging. An operations manager might use it to track delivery times or inventory levels.
Analysts and Data Teams
Analysts use Qlik to dig deeper into data and find insights. They build dashboards, run reports, and answer questions from other teams. Qlik gives them a flexible tool to explore data without writing complex code.
Frontline Staff
Frontline workers use Qlik to see simple, focused views that guide their daily work. For example, a nurse might use a Qlik dashboard to see patient wait times, or a warehouse worker might use it to see order status.
Which Industries Use Qlik?
Qlik is used across many industries. Here are a few examples:
There are many business intelligence tools available. Here are a few reasons why companies choose Qlik:
Associative analytics: Qlik lets you explore data freely without being locked into a fixed path.
Fast performance: Qlik can handle large amounts of data and still respond quickly.
Cloud and on-premise options: You can run Qlik in the cloud or on your own servers.
Strong community: Qlik has a large user community, lots of training resources, and many partners who can help.
If you are comparing Qlik to other tools, it helps to think about your specific needs. What questions do you want to answer? Who will use the tool? How much data do you have? These questions will guide your choice.
Join a community: Connect with other Qlik users to ask questions and learn from their experience. Arc Academy for Qlik on Skool
Get support: If you need help with setup, training, or building dashboards, reach out to a Qlik partner. Arc Qlik Consulting Services
Start small: Pick one or two questions you want to answer. Build a simple dashboard. Learn as you go.
You do not need to master everything on day one. The most important thing is to start exploring and see how Qlik can help your team make better decisions.For more guidance, you can also check out our post on How To Get Started With Qlik in 2026.
If you are new to Qlik, it can be hard to know where to begin. There are many tools and many features, but you do not need to learn them all on day one. This short guide will give you a few simple things to think about as you get started.
You can follow along with the video series on our YouTube channel. As you go, you can also try Qlik for yourself and learn with others:
Qlik is a tool that helps you turn data into clear pictures and simple stories. Instead of digging through long spreadsheets, you can look at charts and dashboards that show what is going on in your business.
You do not have to be a data expert to use Qlik. The most important thing is to know what you care about. For example, you might want to see which products are selling best, how long customers wait, or where your team is falling behind. Qlik helps you see these answers in one place so you can make better choices.
You may hear two names: Qlik Sense and Qlik Cloud. Here is the simple way to think about them.
Qlik Sense is the name many people know from the last few years. It has been used to build dashboards and apps in many companies. Qlik Cloud is the newer, cloud-based home for Qlik. It runs in the cloud, so your team does not have to manage as much hardware or do as many updates.
If you are just starting now, Qlik Cloud is usually the best place to begin. It is easier to reach from anywhere, it gets new features faster, and it is what we focus on in our guides and videos. If you already use Qlik Sense or are not sure which one fits your plans, we can help you think it through at Arc Qlik Consulting Services or Arc Qlik Support.
What Is Qlik In 2026?
Qlik is changing. When you start now, you are not just learning today’s tool. You are getting ready for where Qlik is going.
By 2026, more work with Qlik will happen in the cloud. It will be easier to see numbers close to real time instead of waiting for a monthly report. Qlik will also be more connected to other tools you already use, so data can flow more smoothly across your systems.
Most of all, Qlik will be more than just “nice dashboards.” It will help you see what happened, what is happening right now, and what might happen next. When you plan your Qlik journey, try to think about the next few years, not just the next few weeks. If you want a partner to plan that path, you can explore Qlik Talend Data Fabric and Cloud Services.
Who Uses Qlik?
People in many roles and industries use Qlik every day. Business leaders use it to see key numbers in one place. Managers use it to track performance and spot problems. Analysts use it to dig deeper into data and share insights. Frontline staff use it to see simple views that guide their daily work.
Qlik is also common in healthcare, government, and education. You can see some of those use cases here:
As you get started, it helps to ask a few questions. Who needs to see the numbers? Who will own the main questions you want to answer? Who can help build and support Qlik over time? You do not need perfect answers, but even a simple picture of “who” will guide better choices
Getting Access
To get started, you need two things: a place to work and people to help you.
A free 30-day Qlik Cloud Analytics trial gives you a safe place to explore. You can log in, click around, and see if the tool fits your style without a big commitment. You can start that here: Free 30-day trial for Qlik Cloud Analytics
Support matters too. Joining Arc Academy for Qlik lets you learn with others, ask questions, and get guidance: Arc Academy for Qlik on Skool
You can also reach out to our team for help with training and setup through Training and Contact Us.
As you begin, write down one or two questions you want Qlik to answer. Start your trial, join the community, and follow along with the first video. Your first steps do not have to be perfect. They just need to move you closer to clear, useful insight from your data.
In today’s data-driven economy, analytics platforms aren’t just about dashboards — they’re about enabling smarter, faster decisions that fuel real business growth with ROI. Choosing between Qlik Sense (on-premise) and Qlik Cloud (cloud-native) isn’t simply a technical debate — it’s about how your organization can maximize ROI from data.
At Arc Analytics, we help businesses navigate these decisions daily. This guide breaks down the strengths of both Qlik options, showcases where Qlik Cloud creates new opportunities, and explains how a hybrid approach might unlock the best of both worlds.
The Core Difference: On-Premise Control vs. Cloud Agility
Qlik Sense (On-Premise): Best suited for organizations with strict security, compliance, or legacy systems. You retain full control over infrastructure while enjoying Qlik’s powerful associative data engine.
Qlik Cloud (Cloud-Native): A flexible, continuously evolving platform that delivers scalability, accessibility, and advanced analytics. Updates roll out automatically, reducing IT overhead and giving teams instant access to new features.
This core choice — control vs agility — frames today’s analytics strategies.
Why Businesses are Moving to Qlik Cloud
Qlik Cloud isn’t just Qlik Sense in the cloud. It’s a next-generation platform designed to enhance ROI and reduce friction in just about every phase of analytics.
🚨 Proactive Insights with Qlik Alerting
Set real-time, data-driven alerts to act the moment thresholds are crossed or anomalies appear.
📊 Advanced Qlik Reporting Suite
Automated, polished, and customizable reports that ensure insights are delivered to the right people, exactly when they need them.
🔄 Drag-and-Drop Data Flows
Reduce IT bottlenecks with visual data preparation for analysts and business users — no heavy scripting required.
👥 Seamless Collaboration
Enable true real-time co-authoring and dashboard sharing across teams, locations, and devices.
📈 Elastic Scalability
Scale instantly to meet spikes in data volume or user demand. No more waiting on hardware expansions.
🔒 Enterprise-Grade Security
Far from being a risk, Qlik Cloud meets rigorous security standards, often exceeding what smaller enterprise IT setups can provide.
🤖 AI + Machine Learning Insights
Go beyond dashboards with AI-powered predictions and ML-driven insights.
🌍 Broad Data Connectivity
Unify cloud and on-premise sources into one analytics environment.
Unlocking ROI with Automation, Qlik Answers, and Qlik Predict
One of the most transformative ROI drivers in Qlik Cloud is the ability to automate and modernize how users interact with data:
Qlik Automation connects processes, apps, and triggers, removing manual tasks from your team’s workload.
Qlik Answers lets users ask questions in natural language and get instant, contextual insights — expanding analytics adoption to the entire workforce.
Qlik Predict leverages machine learning to forecast trends and give businesses predictive power, not just reactive dashboards.
These SaaS-native tools go far beyond cost savings — they unlock entirely new value streams, driving adoption, speeding decisions, and creating competitive differentiation.
Migrating from Qlik Sense to Qlik Cloud can be daunting without the right expertise. This is where Arc Analytics’ Qlik Migration Services give you a competitive edge.
We specialize in:
Ensuring zero downtime migration.
Rebuilding complex Qlik apps in the cloud for performance gains.
Training teams for success in Qlik Cloud environments.
Notably, Qlik itself recently launched the Qlik Sense to Qlik Cloud Migration Tool (May 2025), giving organizations an official, streamlined path to migrate apps, data connections, and user roles. We combine this tool with our strategic approach for the smoothest possible transition.
Hybrid Approaches: Best of Both Worlds
For many enterprises, the smartest path isn’t choosing one — it’s choosing both.
Keep sensitive workloads in Qlik Sense on-premise for compliance.
Use Qlik Cloud for innovation, new projects, or global accessibility.
Minimize costs with licensing options that allow a hybrid setup at only ~30% additional cost.
This approach unlocks incremental ROI without forcing a “rip-and-replace” investment.
High-Level Licensing & ROI Comparison
Feature/Model
Qlik Sense (On-Premise)
Qlik Cloud (SaaS)
Licensing Model
Core-based (per CPU/core)
Capacity-based (data volume & users)
Infrastructure Costs
Requires hardware, maintenance, IT resources
Included in subscription (no infrastructure overhead)
Scalability
Limited to available cores & hardware
Elastic, scales on-demand
Updates & Upgrades
Manual patching & downtime
Continuous updates built-in
Security & Compliance
Controlled on-prem, internal governance
Enterprise-grade, built-in compliance frameworks
Total Cost of Ownership
High upfront + ongoing infra costs
Predictable subscription, pay for usage
ROI Focus
Infrastructure investment heavy
Data-driven outcomes & business agility
Takeaway: With Qlik Sense, ROI is partly consumed by infrastructure cost and IT overhead. With Qlik Cloud, that same investment is redirected toward automation, innovation, and user adoption — where business ROI is truly measured.
The ROI Equation
Migrating to Qlik Cloud doesn’t replace your past Qlik investment — it amplifies it. By combining proactive alerts, advanced reporting, Qlik Automation workflows, Qlik Answers for natural language analysis, and Qlik Predict for machine learning insights, companies can:
Improve decision-making speed.
Reduce IT overhead and manual reporting.
Empower every department with data-driven culture.
Stay future-ready as Qlik continues innovating.
Ready to Maximize Your Qlik ROI?
Whether full migration or hybrid, Arc Analytics is your partner in unlocking more value from Qlik.
While the Qlik platform has maintained and supported libraries developer libraries in JavaScript and .NET/C# for several years, they have more recently released a library for interacting with Qlik in Python. They call it the Platform SDK, which is also available as a TypeScript library.
The Python library is essentially a set of Python classes and methods that mirror the structures and functions of the Qlik QRS and Engine APIs, also providing some conveniences around authentication and WebSocket connections. The library is open for anyone to download and use thanks to its permissive MIT license.
The use cases for the Qlik Python SDK include being able to write automation scripts for repetitive admin tasks, load app and object data into a Pandas dataframe, and even creating reports built off of app or log data.
Installing the library is very simple — just make sure you are using at least Python 3.8:
python3 -m pip install --upgrade qlik-sdk
Let’s look at some examples of how we can use the library. Below, we import a few classes from the qlik_sdk library and then create some variables to hold our Qlik Cloud tenant URL and API key. We’ll use the API key to authenticate with a bearer token but an OAuth2.0 implementation is also available. Learn how to generate an API key here. The tenant URL and API key are then used to create an Apps object, which provides some high-level methods for interacting with app documents in Qlik Cloud.
from qlik_sdk import Apps, AuthType, Config# connect to Qlik enginebase_url ="https://your-tenant.us.qlikcloud.com/"api_key ="xxxxxx"apps = Apps(Config(host=base_url, auth_type=AuthType.APIKey, api_key=api_key))
Now that we’ve got our authentication situated, let’s add some code to interact with a Qlik app and its contents. First, let’s import a new class, NxPage, which describes a hypercube page (more about Qlik hypercubes here). Then let’s create a new function, get_qlik_obj_data(), to define the steps for getting data from a Qlik object, like a table or bar chart. In this function, we can take an app parameter and an obj_id parameter to open an WebSocket connection to the specified app, get the app layout, get the size of the object’s hypercube, and then fetch the data for that hypercube:
from qlik_sdk.apis.Qix import NxPageapp = apps.get("xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx")def get_qlik_obj_data(app: NxApp, obj_id: str) ->list:"""Get data from an object in a Qlik app."""# opens a websocket connection against the Engine API and gets the app hypercubewith app.open(): tbl_obj = app.get_object(obj_id) tbl_layout = tbl_obj.get_layout() tbl_size = tbl_layout.qHyperCube.qSize tbl_hc = tbl_obj.get_hyper_cube_data("/qHyperCubeDef", [NxPage(qHeight=tbl_size.qcy, qWidth=tbl_size.qcx, qLeft=0, qTop=0)], )return tbl_hcobj_data = get_qlik_obj_data(app=app, obj_id="xxxxxx")
This code would end up returning a list of data pages, something like this:
The cell value is shown as 282 in the qText property. We may note, though, that we can’t readily identify the field that this value represents.
Let’s add some code to make the resulting dataset include the fields for each cell value. We can do that by adding a get_ordered_cols_qlik_hc() function to get the ordered list of columns in each of these NxCellRows items.
This function will ultimately take a straight hypercube as an argument and do the following:
Get the list of dimensions and measures and then combine them into one list.
Reorder that list to match the correct column order as defined in the hypercube’s qColumnOrder property.
Return that ordered column list.
Then in our get_qlik_obj_data() function, we use our new get_ordered_cols_qlik_hc() function to get our columns. From there we iterate through each row of each data page in the hypercube and create a new dictionary object for each cell and then adding those dictionaries to a list for each row.
New and updated code shown in bold:
from qlik_sdk.apis.Qix import NxPage, HyperCubedef get_ordered_cols_qlik_hc(hc: HyperCube) ->list:"""get ordered columns from Qlik hypercube."""# get object columns dim_names = [d.qFallbackTitle for d in hc.qDimensionInfo] meas_names = [m.qFallbackTitle for m in hc.qMeasureInfo] obj_cols = dim_names.copy() obj_cols.extend(meas_names)# order column array to match hypercube column order new_cols = [] new_col_order = hc.qColumnOrderfor c in new_col_order: new_cols.append(obj_cols[c])return new_colsdef get_qlik_obj_data(app: NxApp, obj_id: str) ->list:""""""# opens a websocket connection against the Engine API and gets the app hypercubewith app.open(): tbl_obj = app.get_object(obj_id) tbl_layout = tbl_obj.get_layout() tbl_size = tbl_layout.qHyperCube.qSize tbl_hc = tbl_obj.get_hyper_cube_data("/qHyperCubeDef", [NxPage(qHeight=tbl_size.qcy, qWidth=tbl_size.qcx, qLeft=0, qTop=0)], ) hc_cols = get_ordered_cols_qlik_hc(tbl_layout.qHyperCube)# traverse data pages and store dict for each row hc_cols_count =len(hc_cols) tbl_data = []for data_page in tbl_hc:for rows in data_page.qMatrix: row = {hc_cols[i]: rows[i].qText for i inrange(hc_cols_count)} tbl_data.append(row)return tbl_dataobj_data = get_qlik_obj_data(app=app, obj_id="xxxxxx")
This will get us the desired field: value format that will allow us to better analyze the output, like so:
Arc Analytics is a full-service data analytics and integration consultancy based in Charlotte, NC, USA, specializing in the Qlik platform. Browse the posts below for practical Qlik tips, migration guidance, and real-world use cases from our consulting work.
