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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 (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Looker is designed for Embedded BI and holds a mindshare of 8.9%, down 12.2% compared to last year.
Salesforce Einstein Analytics, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 1.1% mindshare, down 1.7% since last year.
Embedded BI
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

"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."
"It's quite effortless to navigate through various applications and review their updated data in real-time."
"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."
"I would rate the stability a ten out of ten. I didn't face any issues with stability."
"It is a pretty stable solution because it is a cloud-based product."
"From a developer's perspective, the way the functionality's being handled is great."
"We have found the scalability to be very good."
"There is definitely a lot of ROI in it."
"The tool is a cloud-based solution capable of integrating any kind of data in the world."
"The way Salesforce Einstein Analytics is structured in terms of the work assignments and the user profile is very good."
"Tableau CRM is a very capable solution. It is easy to use, user-friendly, and integrates well."
"The most valuable features of Salesforce Einstein Analytics are the flexibility around the deployment, overall capabilities, user-friendliness, and interactiveness with the tools that came built with it."
"The solution scales extremely well."
"The fact that the solution is visually appealing because of its lightning interfaces can be considered one of its most valuable features"
 

Cons

"Integrations with other BI tools could be better."
"The product does not have documented material."
"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."
"It needs to be more user-friendly."
"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 visualization capability of the product is limited."
"Stability needs improvement."
"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."
"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."
"The product is expensive."
"The price of Salesforce Einstein Analytics is quite a bit expensive for the region of Mexico. I think the price of the product could be better."
"There are some offerings like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Marketing Cloud that have very useful online learning options. There need to be more avenues for self-learning with this particular solution. That would be useful."
"Einstein Analytics could incorporate something like SFIA 8 to help users understand the underlying skill sets."
"There is a learning curve associated with Salesforce Einstein Analytics, particularly since users need to learn a new language."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Looker is expensive and could be made better by reducing it."
"It is cheap."
"It's not cheap, but it's not expensive for big companies."
"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."
"Salesforce has a subscription-based licensing structure, where it's between $20 to $75 per month, per user."
"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."
"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."
"Price-wise, Salesforce Einstein Analytics is an expensive tool."
"The solution is expensive."
"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
13%
Educational Organization
10%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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, MicroStrategy, Qlik and others in Embedded BI. Updated: June 2025.
860,711 professionals have used our research since 2012.