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Alteryx vs Looker 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

Alteryx
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
82
Ranking in other categories
Predictive Analytics (1st), Data Science Platforms (5th), Data Preparation Tools (1st)
Looker
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Embedded BI (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Alteryx is designed for Predictive Analytics and holds a mindshare of 18.4%, down 24.8% compared to last year.
Looker, on the other hand, focuses on Embedded BI, holds 8.9% mindshare, down 12.2% since last year.
Predictive Analytics
Embedded BI
 

Featured Reviews

Theresa McLaughlin - PeerSpot reviewer
Quick development enables seamless data processing despite occasional support issues
There were times when the product would fail during development without an apparent reason. The support structure changed; initially, we received great support, however, it later became less reliable due to licensing issues and a tiered support system. Licensing negotiations were problematic, affecting our product usage. For instance, our licenses were temporarily lost during negotiations when an agreement couldn't be reached.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like that I can merge data from different sources into one place."
"Automation is the most valuable aspect for us. The ability to wrap business logic around the data is very helpful."
"The connectors are a very good feature."
"I like the fact that you can easily blend data from different platforms."
"Alteryx makes it easy for the end customer to see clean data in a structured form."
"The most valuable feature of Alteryx is its unlimited handling capabilities."
"This is a drag-and-drop tool which is easy-to-use and yet can be customized by creating your own components."
"The drag-and-drop functionality, the ready-to-use analytics module, and the ability to track my data pipelines visually are the solution's most valuable features."
"With Looker, I have experienced benefits in terms of usability and shareability."
"The product is easy to use."
"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."
"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."
"It's quite effortless to navigate through various applications and review their updated data in real-time."
"We can centralize all our data models."
"The stability of Looker has been good since I have been using it. However, it depends on what components are being used."
 

Cons

"The solution can be quite complex in some aspects."
"Alteryx needs to focus on the supply chain aspect since detecting financial figures and data anomalies is currently insufficient."
"Deep learning models are not currently supported."
"The data integration component could most likely be improved to increase enterprise scalability."
"It would be great if Alteryx could take third party tools and incorporate them."
"In the database, it should be more functional and connect to more big data, especially using IPI."
"The interface could be improved."
"Lacks an open source edition which would be helpful."
"Stability needs improvement."
"The visualization capability of the product is limited."
"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 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."
"The integration with different databases must be improved."
"The product does not have documented material."
"Integrations with other BI tools could be better."
"It needs to be more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The seat is too expensive."
"The designer has a list price of $5,995 USD."
"A designer and scheduler for $13K/year in total is pretty much earning you the money back in time and in other resources."
"The cost of the solution could be reduced."
"The license price of the solution is expensive."
"There is a license required for this solution."
"ROI is huge. There are some secondary benefits, like analysts getting their post 5 PM time back or the ability to shorten all closing processes to a half or less."
"It has a good price."
"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."
"Looker is expensive and could be made better by reducing it."
"I do not have to make any payments to use the solution."
"It's not cheap, but it's not expensive for big companies."
"It is cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
14%
Educational Organization
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is the Biggest Difference Between Alteryx and IBM SPSS Modeler?
One of the differences is that with Alteryx you can use it as an ETL and analytics tool. Please connect with me directly if you want to know more.
What is the Biggest Difference Between Alteryx and IBM SPSS Modeler?
Alteryx is an extremely easy and flexible data tool, flexible in terms of drag and drop toolset and also has python, R integrations if your team requires this. It can handle over 2 billion rows of...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Alteryx and IBM SPSS Modeler?
I am not familiar with IBM SPSS Modeler, therefore, I cannot compare these two products. Regarding Alteryx I can say the following: - An excellent desktop tool for Data Prep and analytics. - Featu...
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, ...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

AnalyticsIq Inc., belk, BloominBrands Inc., Cardinalhealth, Cineplex, Dairy Queen
Yahoo!, Etsy, Kohler, Hipcamp, Hubspot, Kickstarter, Venmo, Dollar Shave Club, 600+ customer
Find out what your peers are saying about Alteryx, Altair, SAP and others in Predictive Analytics. Updated: July 2025.
861,803 professionals have used our research since 2012.