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Looker vs Salesforce Einstein Analytics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Looker
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Embedded BI (6th)
Salesforce Einstein Analytics
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Looker is designed for Embedded BI and holds a mindshare of 8.2%, down 11.3% compared to last year.
Salesforce Einstein Analytics, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 1.0% mindshare, down 1.5% since last year.
Embedded BI Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Looker8.2%
Tableau Enterprise27.4%
Qlik Sense12.0%
Other52.400000000000006%
Embedded BI
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Salesforce Einstein Analytics1.0%
Microsoft Power BI14.5%
Tableau Enterprise11.0%
Other73.5%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Kishore Jhunjhunwala - PeerSpot reviewer
A cloud solution for operational reporting but is expensive
Some basic feature that is available in other reporting tools is missing. Looker has the ability to show more than 5,000 rows for operational reporting. Some reporting tools allow users to scroll down to see more than 5,000 rows, but in Looker, you have to download the entire dataset. Looker should consider adding a scroll-down option to allow users to view large datasets on screen without downloading them. Looker has some options for granting users access as viewers. However, viewers cannot download the entire dataset. Only superusers can download the whole dataset on the Explore screen. This is a big limitation, as you cannot give any user viewer access. You can give access to superuser access, which is a cost to the company.
Sunny Nair - PeerSpot reviewer
Business insights improve with reliable integration but face occasional system downtimes
It is difficult to integrate the modules. The customization is also a little bit complex currently, but it is getting easier as they continue improving the market. There are certain glitches, especially when the modules are upgraded or when there is a source code update, causing the entire tool to go offline. There is downtime which still affects the particular product. I would provide a reliability rating of 70%, with 30% still having scope for improvement.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It is a pretty stable solution because it is a cloud-based product."
"With Looker, I have experienced benefits in terms of usability and shareability."
"The product is easy to use."
"The stability of Looker has been good since I have been using it. However, it depends on what components are being used."
"I would rate the stability a ten out of ten. I didn't face any issues with stability."
"From a developer's perspective, the way the functionality's being handled is great."
"We can centralize all our data models."
"Looker allows you to generate the most optimal SQL queries in a DC through UI actions. We had signed a contract with Google Cloud to use BigQuery. That was the primary reason we adopted Looker. It works better with BigQuery than any other BI platform. We also like how this tool was developed. It was designed with an eye toward microservices architecture."
"Einstein Analytics provides insights into what we are doing and how we are doing it. It tells us what benchmarks we need to hit consistently to achieve our goals. In sales, there is sometimes a disconnect between actions and objectives. We aren't necessarily going to close a deal because we call X number of people. There are some underlying skills that add nuance to these metrics."
"The way Salesforce Einstein Analytics is structured in terms of the work assignments and the user profile is very good."
"The most valuable feature of Salesforce Einstein Analytics is the reporting tools."
"The tool is valuable. It's one of the greatest programs I'm currently working with, and I believe it will continue to be crucial in the next four to five years. It's the future of our operations. Integrating other systems and conducting campaigns is easy. The solution relies heavily on AI."
"The tool is a cloud-based solution capable of integrating any kind of data in the world."
"It's scalable."
"We have found the scalability to be very good."
"It is a comprehensive solution. It has everything in it. I can easily find what I need."
 

Cons

"The main area of concern in Looker is probably related to blending the data from the different sources, including the data present internally in the company and on the cloud."
"Stability needs improvement."
"Looker doesn't connect to Excel, which is a huge disappointment because a lot of data is presented in Excel. Also, it can't consume data directly from REST APIs, which is necessary. Looker needs to expand its horizons when it comes to data sources. The inability to connect to different data sources is hampering our use cases. Currently, it only has an ODBC connection that connects to a database. It needs to connect to other data sources, such as Excel, APIs, and different platforms."
"The integration with different databases must be improved."
"The product does not have documented material."
"It needs to be more user-friendly."
"Integrations with other BI tools could be better."
"The visualization capability of the product is limited."
"Salesforce is working very rigorously on improvements with each release."
"Improvement-wise, I feel the solution must be more robust since it is not exactly ready to handle large data."
"I would advise others not to customize because they rolled out the newer versions, which are every six months. There had to be some significant testing and verification that happened. It is important to have a strong third-party provider that is very experienced. We used Deloitte, but we evaluated Accenture, KPMG, and IBM, but we decided on Deloitte and that was a good decision for us. Having a partner who has a center of excellence or experts that could give you a lot of the tips that they've learned could jumpstart your deployment and stick to the standards."
"When it comes to generating reports, it appears that many users rely on experts to handle technical aspects. For instance, if you require a weekly report displaying accounts transitioning in and out of your modules, it seems challenging to accomplish without consulting experts for assistance. Such tasks should be user-friendly and easily achievable without external assistance."
"The product must be more transparent."
"Einstein Analytics could incorporate something like SFIA 8 to help users understand the underlying skill sets."
"If I could improve Tableau CRM I would make it as powerful as Tableau. Tableau CRM is more integrated and it's on the web, but it has less functionality. It is lacking functionality at this time."
"They have a lot of opportunity to improve BI tools. With Einstein Analytics, we have a very minimal scope."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is cheap."
"Looker is expensive and could be made better by reducing it."
"I do not have to make any payments to use the solution."
"The price of Looker usually depends on the solution's provider, but it is usually cheaper than the other products in the market. Looker is offered at different prices for different companies."
"It's not cheap, but it's not expensive for big companies."
"The solution is expensive."
"Salesforce Einstein Analytics can be considered somewhat expensive, depending on the company's needs. If they want the complete package with all the features, it's pricier. It all comes down to what the company requires from the platform."
"Price-wise, Salesforce Einstein Analytics is an expensive tool."
"Although it was deemed slightly expensive and failed the cost analysis we conducted in our company, we proceeded with the purchase because we desired to have a leading CRM system in the industry."
"The biggest challenge we had was the cost and the licensing. We ended up getting an enterprise licensing agreement(ELA). That took a lot of negotiations and a lot of pressure. We were able to receive a good price for the community licensing they bundled Salesforce Einstein Analytics. They bundled a lot of capabilities with us with the ELA."
"Salesforce has a subscription-based licensing structure, where it's between $20 to $75 per month, per user."
"I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Retailer
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Looker?
With Looker, I have experienced benefits in terms of usability and shareability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Looker?
I do not have to make any payments to use the solution. In the beginning, Looker may work fine for its users. If advanced users who have experience with BI tools use Looker, then they may find it t...
What needs improvement with Looker?
The visualization capability of the product is limited. From an improvement perspective, the product should have more visualization capability. I can't clean data in Looker, and if I try to do it, ...
What do you like most about Salesforce Einstein Analytics?
The tool is valuable. It's one of the greatest programs I'm currently working with, and I believe it will continue to be crucial in the next four to five years. It's the future of our operations. I...
What needs improvement with Salesforce Einstein Analytics?
It is difficult to integrate the modules. The customization is also a little bit complex currently, but it is getting easier as they continue improving the market. There are certain glitches, espec...
What is your primary use case for Salesforce Einstein Analytics?
It is more of an integrated platform where marketing, customer service, and the ticketing system are integrated into each other as a SaaS-based solution, which is what we use. For Marketing Cloud, ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Einstein Analytics, Salesforce Wave Analytics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Yahoo!, Etsy, Kohler, Hipcamp, Hubspot, Kickstarter, Venmo, Dollar Shave Club, 600+ customer
ADS Securities, Alstom Grid, American Express, Barclays Bank, Coca-Cola, CoderDojo, Dubai Multi Commodities Centre, Financial Conduct Authority
Find out what your peers are saying about Salesforce, Qlik, MicroStrategy and others in Embedded BI. Updated: August 2025.
867,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.