Lightdash vs Qlik Sense
Lightdash and Qlik Sense are both BI & dashboards tools. Lightdash is aimed at developers and small businesses, while Qlik Sense is aimed at enterprise and small businesses. Qlik Sense costs less, from $300/mo versus $3000/mo for Lightdash. Only Lightdash has a free plan.
BI built on dbt metrics
Enterprise BI with an associative engine and AI answers on top
| Pricing | Open source · $3000 | Paid · $300 |
| Starting price | $3000/mo | $300/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | No |
| Free trial | 21 days | 30 days |
| Built for | Developers, Small businesses | Enterprise, Small businesses |
| Platforms | web | web, windows, ios, android |
| Country | GB · 2020 | US · 1993 |
| Rating | — | — |
Choose Lightdash if
Data teams using dbt who want a semantic-layer BI.
- Governed metrics in code
- Tight dbt integration
- Unlimited viewers
Look elsewhere if: Teams without dbt (Metabase).
Choose Qlik Sense if
Mid-size and large companies with complex, multi-source data that want governed self-service analytics for many users.
- Associative exploration surfaces gaps that query-based BI tools hide
- Capacity pricing means adding viewers on Standard costs nothing extra
- Strong data integration heritage, including SAP and Talend connectors
Look elsewhere if: Small teams on a tight budget or Microsoft-centric companies that only need standard reports (Power BI, Looker Studio, Metabase).
Lightdash vs Qlik Sense pricing
Lightdash
- Open Source$0Self-hosted, core BI features, community Slack support
- Cloud Pro$3,000/moNo per-seat pricing, unlimited users, AI agents, onboarding
- EnterpriseCustomCloud or on-prem, SSO/SAML/SCIM, SOC 2, HIPAA
Qlik Sense
- Starter$300/moBilled annually; 10 users, fixed 10 GB of data for analysis
- Standard$825/moBilled annually; 25 GB data, no charge for extra users
- Premium$2,750/moBilled annually; 50 GB data, AutoML predictions, public access
- EnterpriseCustomFrom 250 GB of data, multi-region tenants, quote only
Lightdash · Key features
- Metrics defined in dbt YAML
- Self-serve exploration for business users
- Dashboards and scheduled deliveries
- AI analyst for natural language queries
- Embedding
- Open source and cloud
Cons
- Requires dbt
- Cloud pricing starts high
- Visualization less rich than Tableau
Qlik Sense · Key features
- Associative engine that shows related and unrelated values on every selection
- Qlik Answers chat over dashboards, data models and unstructured documents
- Discovery Agent that monitors key measures and surfaces anomalies
- MCP server so third-party assistants can query governed Qlik data
- Qlik Predict AutoML for forecasting and what-if analysis
- Load script and data manager for joining SAP, cloud warehouses and files
Cons
- Entry price of $300 per month billed annually is high for small teams
- Load scripting and data modeling take real training to master
- Visual customization is less flexible than Tableau
Lightdash vs Qlik Sense: FAQ
Which is cheaper, Lightdash or Qlik Sense?
Qlik Sense starts at $300/mo and Lightdash at $3000/mo. Both prices are checked on the vendors' own pricing pages.
Do Lightdash and Qlik Sense have a free plan?
Lightdash has a free plan. Qlik Sense has no free plan, a 30-day free trial.