Adaptive Insights vs Looker Studio comparison

Workday and Google are both solutions in the Reporting category. Workday is ranked #23, while Google is ranked #11 with an average rating of 7.6. Workday holds a 1.3% mindshare in RT, compared to Google’s 2.7% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Workday users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 83% of Google users who would recommend it.

Adaptive Insights

Read 18 Adaptive Insights reviews

2,069 Views
434 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Looker Studio

Read 16 Looker Studio reviews

1,849 Views
869 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

Adaptive Insights

Looker Studio

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

Adaptive Insights and Looker Studio provide solutions in data analysis and business intelligence with distinctive focal areas. Adaptive Insights is ahead in the realm of financial planning, while Looker Studio excels in data visualization.

Features: Adaptive Insights offers advanced financial modeling, seamless departmental collaboration, and precise forecasting tools. Looker Studio provides dynamic dashboards, robust data exploration capabilities, and supports multiple data sources for comprehensive analysis.

Room for Improvement: Adaptive Insights could enhance user interface intuitiveness, expand integration capabilities with non-financial tools, and improve reporting customization. Looker Studio may benefit from better handling of complex data sets, improved technical support, and more efficient data processing features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Adaptive Insights features a straightforward cloud-based deployment model appreciated for ease of integration with financial systems, coupled with responsive customer support. Looker Studio's cloud-first approach allows broad deployment flexibility and effective customer support, although complex implementations may require technical expertise.

Pricing and ROI: Adaptive Insights involves higher initial setup costs which are offset by significant ROI for finance-focused organizations. Looker Studio presents a more cost-effective solution with lower upfront costs, providing substantial value through its broad analytical and integration capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed Adaptive Insights vs. Looker Studio Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Adaptive Insights vs. Looker Studio

December 2025

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Helped 881,082 peers since 2012

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

Adaptive Insights

Ranking in Reporting

23rd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Performance Management (10th), Financial Performance and Strategy Management (5th), Data Visualization (23rd), ESG Reporting Software (12th)

Looker Studio

Ranking in Reporting

11th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

5.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Adaptive Insights is 1.3%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Looker Studio is 2.7%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Reporting Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Looker Studio	2.7%
Adaptive Insights	1.3%
Other	96.0%

Reporting

Featured Reviews

Andrew Rosenberg

Adaptive Planning Manager at Alight

Adaptive scales well, simple to create new budget versions and models

For the organization I used to work at, it streamlined the process of creating budgets. It's very simple to create a new version and do some more modeling based on your need for planning things like headcount, other expenses, and revenue, everything is configurable within Workday. So that made it easy. Reporting was pretty easy to set up as well. It streamlined the amount of time it took to do the budget as well as kind of making it simple to implement a rolling forecast process. So, it really was more just a productivity increase and time shortening for the budgeting and forecasting process.

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Heron Ziegel

Project Engineer at Quartz Consulting Group

Has supported quick dashboard creation and data sharing but lacks tools for managing multiple reports efficiently

We integrated Looker Studio with other platforms in our data ecosystem; we tried integrating with Sheets, and that went okay, but it could have been better. It could have been better because it needed a very specific format to read the data, so we had to reformat the sheet file. Looker Studio was mostly just helpful in that it provided live updating charts for tracking performance indicators in the organization. Integrating with a database was very difficult because there wasn't a lot of feedback for what was going wrong with the connection. I don't remember if we reached out to support. I didn't personally reach out, but my boss may have. I didn't reach out to support, so I do not have experience with it to rate it. We worked with the free version of Looker Studio initially, and we upgraded at some point to the pro version; I don't remember if we actually paid for it or if it was just a free trial. The pricing was reasonable. I remember doing a price comparison, and it was pretty reasonable, but it did have fewer features than a lot of other software, which was okay for a comparable price but a little cheaper.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The biggest feature is the source of truth for all of our budget and forecast versions."

"Reports are allowed to be edited for aesthetic purposes, which is lacking in a lot of other dashboard tools."

"It helps develop a more unified work format throughout the company."

"Forecasting changes that instantly flow through all financial statements."

"The integration with our payroll system to complete staff modeling during our budget and forecast processes."

"It's very stable."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its dashboard."

"Automated reporting."

More Adaptive Insights pros

"The product's initial setup phase is very simple."

"Looker's ability to perform aggregation before visualization allows for effective data slicing and dicing."

"This has improved our organization by allowing people to see their data and develop visualizations themselves."

"The fact that Looker Studio is free and has a free tier was probably the biggest benefit; it is very accessible and not too difficult to use."

"I find it favorable regarding speed of development, ease of building, and flexibility."

"The best thing about the tool is that it allows you to share information easily and dashboards with colleagues and teammates because it's all online. No matter where you are, as long as you have the Internet, you can connect and use these dashboards. Google made good documentation for this tool. There are many examples of how to use and create dashboards and videos on YouTube. So, I think it's easy to learn."

"The company dashboard is useful because we could share it via a link as a reminder for everyone to check it weekly. We observed the progress of our portfolio from last week to the current week, allowing us to compare revenues."

"Data Studio integrates seamlessly with other Google products, and we can use it with other APIs if we like."

More Looker Studio pros

Cons

"Users continue to become more advanced and are looking for more advanced solutions."

"The integrations could be simpler. It takes quite a bit of internal and IT know-how to set up."

"Their customer support team is slow to respond and not extremely confident."

"Being able to drill down when using OfficeConnect needs work."

"We tried Discovery and OfficeConnect at one point and found them too cumbersome, at the time."

"Better user interface (UI)."

"It's a Workday product; they could do a little bit better to integrate a pure-play integration with Workday, which really doesn't do that."

"Adaptive Insights could improve the data designer interface to make integrations easier to set up."

More Adaptive Insights cons

"The tool should improve on live data integration for quicker data reflection."

"The challenges with Google Data Studio are associated with the security part, making it an area where improvements are required."

"There are issues with integration and I encountered limits and warnings, especially with my pivot table size."

"Looker Studio did not fit our needs for scalability."

"There is a significant degree of sophistication required to compete with Tableau or Cognos."

"Stability and scalability an be improved for a full ten."

"Insisting on forums, blogs and community outreach in communications, and posting videos on an established calendar would be useful."

"When you physically install a product on one machine instead of the cloud, you have a better visibility, best icon quality, etc.. It's more of an issue with how we are adapting to the transition. We are still in the early moments of using this tool, and we need to go deeper to discover some improvements."

More Looker Studio cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Adaptive Insights' pricing is reasonable."

"Pricing is in line with other cloud-based EPM tools. It is a subscription-based model based upon the number of users and site type if it's an admin or end-user type thing."

"Ensure that you have the proper pricing plan in place."

"It's affordable."

"Licensing seems to be worth the cost considering the efficiency Adaptive brings."

"Prior to purchasing licenses, make sure you understand which users will only need planning and which users will need both planning and OfficeConnect."

"Everything is negotiable, but this solution is low cost compared to others."

"Adaptive Insights' pricing is relative to its peer competitors. It's certainly competitive compared to a spreadsheet template that you build in Excel. It can be expensive if you need to have 100-500 budget holders giving input and building financial plans. However, in that case, it becomes an extremely good bargain. Compared to its competitors, it offers an excellent value."

"I think the tool is cheap because you don't need to pay anything for using the tool. However, when connecting and analyzing other data sources, you should consider where to analyze this information because Google Data Studio doesn't handle much data well. You must also consider how you will connect this data to it. In this case, you might need to hire DevOps or a data team to help with these issues."

"The product is available for free."

"The tool is free."

"The solution is free but the Google Looker is expensive."

"The cost is quite affordable based on feature analysis."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

12%

Healthcare Company

Real Estate/Law Firm

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

11%

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	10

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	6

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

What do you like most about Google Data Studio?

The company dashboard is useful because we could share it via a link as a reminder for everyone to check it weekly. We observed the progress of our portfolio from last week to the current week, all...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Google Data Studio?

I would appreciate improvements in the data modeling features, as it's not straightforward, and it's not what people in analytics are used to. Specifically, most people using this visualization too...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Google Data Studio?

I used Looker Studio mainly for reporting, where I created multiple dashboards on it. I wouldn't say I made the most of the usage of the connections because all the connections were based on flat f...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 8% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

Oracle Hyperion vs Adaptive Insights

Compared 6% of the time

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Amazon QuickSight vs Looker Studio

Compared 31% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Looker Studio

Compared 14% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Looker Studio

Compared 8% of the time

Qlik Sense vs Looker Studio

Compared 4% of the time

IBM Cognos vs Looker Studio

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Adaptive Insights

January 2026

Download Adaptive Insights product report

Buyer's Guide

Looker Studio

January 2026

Download Looker Studio product report

Also Known As

Workday Adaptive Planning, Adaptive Discovery , Workday Adaptive Planning

Data Studio

Overview

Adaptive Insights is a cloud-based financial planning and analysis software that helps businesses streamline their budgeting, forecasting, and reporting processes.

With its intuitive interface and powerful analytics, it enables organizations to make data-driven decisions and drive business performance.

Workday

Google Looker Studio is a free tool designed to help users create visually appealing reports and dashboards, making data easier to understand. It allows you to connect to various data sources such as Google Analytics, Facebook Ads, and spreadsheets. With Looker Studio, you can create charts and graphs to showcase trends and comparisons, build comprehensive dashboards that provide an overview of your data, and customize reports to match your brand or preferences. Additionally, you can share your reports online or export them as PDFs for wider distribution.

Google

Sample Customers

1. Cisco Systems 2. Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated 3. Deloitte 4. DocuSign 5. Dropbox 6. Electronic Arts 7. Fender Musical Instruments Corporation 8. Fitbit 9. Fossil Group 10. Groupon 11. Hilton Worldwide 12. HP Inc. 13. Intuit 14. Johnson & Johnson 15. LinkedIn 16. Lyft 17. McAfee 18. Medtronic 19. Netflix 20. Oracle 21. Pandora 22. PayPal 23. Pinterest 24. Red Hat 25. Salesforce 26. ServiceNow 27. Slack Technologies 28. Spotify 29. Symantec 30. Tableau Software 31. Twitter 32. Workday

Genesys, Shueisha

Buyer's Guide

Adaptive Insights vs. Looker Studio

December 2025

Free Report: Adaptive Insights vs. Looker Studio

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