Amazon QuickSight vs Looker comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Amazon QuickSight and Looker based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Tableau, SAP and others in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools.

To learn more, read our detailed BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Report (Updated: June 2024).

Buyer's Guide

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

June 2024

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Categories and Ranking

IBM Cognos

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2024, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 3.2%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon QuickSight is 8.2%, down from 12.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Looker is 4.2%, up from 4.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Unique Categories:

Reporting

3.1%

No other categories found

Embedded BI

33.3%

Featured Reviews

SalmanAhmad

Head of ERP Applications at Patel Hospital

Apr 18, 2023

Has a user-friendly interface and simple integration

We use IBM Cognos for dynamic reporting to drill down to the details such as product category and item level. For example, call centers need data down to the entry level for a transaction. We use the solution to provide sales trends and forecasts as well Previously, we were doing static…

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reviewer2123349

Founder at a agriculture with 201-500 employees

Feb 12, 2024

Has efficient integration capabilities, but the stability needs improvement

The platform has a lot of limitations. We used it for two months and decided to change to another product They could provide more options for graphics and other features. It has a lot of limitations compared to other database platforms. We have used Amazon QuickSight for two months. We…

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reviewer2143233

Student at a university with 501-1,000 employees

Dec 26, 2023

Though it is a user-friendly tool that is easy to integrate, its visualization capabilities need improvement

I use Looker to deal mostly with simple visuals because it doesn't have much capability to clean data. I use Looker to manage simple visualization once I finish cleaning the data With Looker, I have experienced benefits in terms of usability and shareability. The most valuable feature of the…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"For planning, forecasting, in-boxing, modeling in general and for predicting numbers and doing work analysis, they are excellent."

"We use the account statement report. When you use an account in HSBC, you receive various types of accounts, such as the stock market, fixed accounts, credit cards, and business accounts. We can create one consolidated report called CCS support, which includes all these accounts. In that statement, we are consolidating all those accounts."

"The main difference that I like about Cognos compared to other solutions is its data splitting functionality. We have all our company data inside the Cognos environment and so we prefer to split the information Cognos itself. It's more efficient this way."

"The basic platform comes with several meta-modelling tools."

"The Report Studio that is aimed at professional report writers."

"In terms of stability, I think that Cognos is more stable than Tableau and Power Bi because of its framework manager concept that allows us to import metadata and store it in the framework manager."

"The initial setup is quite straightforward."

"Mapbox integration for geospatial analytics down to longitude/latitude layers."

More IBM Cognos pros

"I like that with Amazon QuickSight, you don't need to install an app to use its services. With other BI tools, you need to install the app, so Amazon QuickSight is better for me in this area."

"Compared to other reporting tools, it is very effective but does require an understanding of certain concepts in QuickSight. This understanding is crucial for creating dimensions, changing metrics, and visualizing reports."

"It is notably fast in handling large data set refreshes, making it efficient for data analysis."

"The integration is very seamless. We stored our result CSV files in S3 and connected directly from there."

"The most valuable feature of Amazon QuickSight is its connectivity with other Amazon services."

"The solution's most valuable feature is its flexibility to visualize certain logs."

"It is fine for basic reporting."

"Easily able to connect with our other services and easy to manage."

More Amazon QuickSight pros

"It is a pretty stable solution because it is a cloud-based product."

"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."

"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."

"With Looker, I have experienced benefits in terms of usability and shareability."

"I would rate the stability a ten out of ten. I didn't face any issues with stability."

"We can centralize all our data models."

More Looker pros

Cons

"We would like to see development of the product's UI function, to make it more of a UI tool that can be configured as required."

"Need improvement towards Visualization."

"It would be good if the solution had conditional formatting."

"The AI-based features could be further enhanced by the solution."

"I don't like that when we use Colab packages, we get less functionality. For example, you can make groups of data with Excel or with the data sets from the packages, but when you use the Colab packages directly, you can only group the data when you analyze it with Analysis Studio. I think Cognos needs to improve more on this functionality."

"The charts and graphics are weak."

"There are some problems with how Cognos handles huge data sets and when connecting with multiple sources and searching the data."

"Extending features on dashboards so it becomes a real dashboard building application, not only a data exploration tool."

More IBM Cognos cons

"They could provide more options for graphics and other features."

"One area is that integrating data from different sources into QuickSight can be a bit tricky, especially with Amazon Connect. To get data flowing, you need to use two additional services and configure them correctly."

"You can't tell a data story as well in QuickSight as you can on others, especially in TIBCO Spotfire."

"Lacked connectivity with other third-party tools and data sources."

"The product has some storage and SPICE data issues."

"It's not ideal for reports that are more complex."

"One area where Amazon QuickSight could improve is its formatting features for dashboards."

"The number of features in the product is limited in comparison with the other tools in the market, like Power BI."

More Amazon QuickSight cons

"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."

"It needs to be more user-friendly."

"The integration with different databases must be improved."

"Integrations with other BI tools could be better."

"The visualization capability of the product is limited."

"Stability needs improvement."

"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 product does not have documented material."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is need to assess the purchase license accordingly so as to avoid audit penalties."

"The pricing of this product is meant for medium to large-scale enterprises."

"Cognos is super expensive compared to Tableau ($70/month) and Power BI ($20/month) — I think Cognos is roughly $200 a month."

"It is my understanding that the cost is very low. It's not very expensive."

"IBM Cognos price is on the higher side of the spectrum. However, with the features that it brings, such as correlation analysis, it's worth the money. They should look at the pricing more clearly because it's a little on the higher side."

"I don't know the exact cost, but I believe Cognos is quite expensive, especially when it comes to the support consultants and the procedures that need to be applied."

"It is quite pricy. I think Microsoft BI is cheaper. Tableau might also be cheaper, but it also depends on the usage. If you have very many users, Cognos can be a problem. It could be cheaper than Tableau but not for so many users. If you have a few thousand users, Tableau, which is generally quite expensive, can be cheaper than Cognos."

"There is some additional licensing that we needed to purchase because we were touching data outside of our core data platform. The cost was approximately $25,000 for the additional licenses, which were approximate 45 licenses. For the application itself, updates, and the core platform it was approximately $50,000. Giving a total cost of $75,000 annually for our usage of IBM Cognos."

More IBM Cognos pricing and cost advice

"I'm using a paid version of Amazon QuickSight, paying about $22 monthly. As I have yet to learn about the pricing for other tools, such as Power BI, I won't be able to compare."

"The pricing is cost-effective with a good plan."

"Amazon QuickSight you subscribe and you use the service."

"The Amazon QuickSight licensing model my company's on is pay-as-you-go, but I wouldn't be able to give the figures because that's handled by the finance department."

"The product pricing is better than other vendors."

"I rate the price of Amazon QuickSight a four on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."

"I wouldn't say that it is an expensive product, but to stay competitive they would need to bring down the prices."

"The standard edition is free to use for exploration purposes while the enterprise edition needs to be paid for. The pricing for this solution is very reasonable."

More Amazon QuickSight pricing and cost advice

"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."

"It is cheap."

"I do not have to make any payments to use the solution."

"It's not cheap, but it's not expensive for big companies."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

60%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Government

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Educational Organization

34%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Seeking lightweight open source BI software

It depends on the Data architecture and the complexity of your requirement. Some great tools in the market are Qlik ...

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What do you like most about IBM Cognos?

The solution's most valuable feature is its ease of use, which makes it easily compatible with other tools.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Cognos?

The tool does not have much documentation on the internet. It is not easy to resolve issues by finding the reason for...

See all answers

What do you like most about Amazon QuickSight?

The integration is very seamless. We stored our result CSV files in S3 and connected directly from there.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon QuickSight?

My company had a corporate discount and other arrangements, so I'm not familiar with the standard pricing.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon QuickSight?

Compared to Power BI, I felt QuickSight lacks some features, like delayed drill-downs. Drill-downs were the main area...

See all answers

What do you like most about Looker?

With Looker, I have experienced benefits in terms of usability and shareability.

See all answers

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 adva...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Looker?

The visualization capability of the product is limited. From an improvement perspective, the product should have more...

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Power BI vs IBM Cognos

Compared 12% of the time

Tableau vs IBM Cognos

Compared 10% of the time

Oracle Hyperion vs IBM Cognos

Compared 8% of the time

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs IBM Cognos

Compared 7% of the time

SAP Crystal Reports vs IBM Cognos

Compared 2% of the time

More IBM Cognos Competitors

Microsoft Power BI vs Amazon QuickSight

Compared 29% of the time

Tableau vs Amazon QuickSight

Compared 22% of the time

Looker Studio vs Amazon QuickSight

Compared 8% of the time

Qlik Sense vs Amazon QuickSight

Compared 8% of the time

Databricks vs Amazon QuickSight

Compared 2% of the time

More Amazon QuickSight Competitors

Tableau vs Looker

Compared 15% of the time

Databricks vs Looker

Compared 9% of the time

Looker Studio vs Looker

Compared 8% of the time

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs Looker

Compared 7% of the time

MicroStrategy vs Looker

Compared 3% of the time

More Looker Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cognos

July 2024

Download IBM Cognos product report

Buyer's Guide

Amazon QuickSight

July 2024

Download Amazon QuickSight product report

Buyer's Guide

Looker

July 2024

Download Looker product report

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics

QuickSight

No data available

Learn More

IBM

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Google

Overview

IBM Cognos Business Intelligence provides a wide range of tools to help you analyze your organization's data. IBM Cognos BI allows businesses to monitor events and metrics, create and view business reports, and analyze data to help them make effective business decisions.

IBM Cognos applies techniques to describe, summarize, and compare data, and draw conclusions. This allows users to see trends and discover anomalies or variances that may not be evident by simply reading data. Data sources that contain information from different areas of a business can be stored in separate packages. Users can see only information that they have been granted access to, based on their group or role.

IBM Cognos BI consolidates the following business intelligence functions into a single web-based solution:

IBM Cognos Insight: Create personal and managed workspaces for data analysis. Using these interactive workspaces, you can share insight results with managers. Cognos Insight supports write-back, and you can also use these workspaces to capture and integrate management goals, commitments, and forecasts.
IBM Cognos Workspace: With IBM Cognos Workspace, you can create rich, interactive workspaces using IBM Cognos content as well as data from external sources. You can view and open your favorite workspaces and reports, edit content in your workspaces, and share your workspaces via email.
IBM Cognos Analytics: IBM Cognos Analytics utilizes built-in AI and intuitive searches which helps users to quickly create the visualizations and a wide range of reports. Cognos Analytics provides cognitive and managed self-service, enabling you to gain insights from controlled and trusted data.
IBM Cognos Report Studio and IBM Cognos Query Studio: Easily create structured and query reports. IBM Cognos allows users to create application and report templates. In addition, report authors can reuse report objects to apply filters, fields, and styles to reports. Users can set the language of the user interface and report content according to the user's native language.
IBM Cognos Event Studio: Receive notifications of events that occur within your organization in real time. Event Studio enables the creation of agents that detect the occurrence of business events, failures, or anomalies, based on the change of specific events or data conditions. Notification can be sent via email, publication in the portal, or by triggering reports.
IBM Cognos Connection: This is the Web portal for IBM Cognos BI and is the central area for accessing all the IBM Cognos functions. In the web portal, users can schedule and distribute reports, create tasks, administer the server and the access permissions, and more.

Reviews from Real Users

IBM Cognos stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its powerful analysis tool and its reporting capabilities.

Prasad B., a senior software engineer at a financial services firm, notes, “The product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report. We can receive automated reports as well. They are easy to schedule on a weekly or monthly basis. It is very fast. I mean in means of report output, it's very fast compared to the actual clients involved.”

Amazon QuickSight is a fast, cloud-powered business analytics service that makes it easy to build visualizations, perform ad-hoc analysis, and quickly get business insights from your data. Using our cloud-based service you can easily connect to your data, perform advanced analysis, and create stunning visualizations and rich dashboards that can be accessed from any browser or mobile device.

Looker is a powerful data analytics platform that empowers businesses to explore and analyze their data in real time.

With its intuitive interface and robust features, Looker enables users to easily create and share interactive dashboards, reports, and visualizations.

The product's advanced data modeling capabilities and seamless integration with popular data sources make it a top choice for organizations looking to gain valuable insights from their data.

Sample Customers

More than 23,000 leading organizations across multiple industries use Cognos. Some examples of Cognos customers include BMW Financial Services, Quinte Health Care, Troy Corporation, Michigan State University, and GKN Land System.

MLB Advanced Media, Infor, HotelBeds, Gemini, Jivochat, Edmunds.com

Yahoo!, Etsy, Kohler, Hipcamp, Hubspot, Kickstarter, Venmo, Dollar Shave Club, 600+ customer

Buyer's Guide

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

June 2024

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