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Amazon QuickSight 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

Amazon QuickSight
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (5th)
Looker
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Embedded BI (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Amazon QuickSight is designed for BI (Business Intelligence) Tools and holds a mindshare of 3.7%, down 7.3% compared to last year.
Looker, on the other hand, focuses on Embedded BI, holds 6.4% mindshare, down 9.0% since last year.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Amazon QuickSight3.7%
Microsoft Power BI9.4%
Tableau Enterprise6.7%
Other80.2%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
Embedded BI Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Looker6.4%
Tableau Enterprise19.1%
Qlik Sense10.4%
Other64.1%
Embedded BI
 

Featured Reviews

SN
IT Infrastructure Support Specialist at Olam Agri
Can always access reports through intuitive dashboards that support diverse data connections
I can't specifically say how Amazon QuickSight could be improved since I focus more on using it and leveraging its functionalities. However, I could invest additional time to explore possible feedback from customers regarding their challenges. As cloud engineers, our capacity to improve is limited since AWS manages the services, but I would be open to feedback. I'm aware there are minor details that AWS could enhance, such as optimizing costs for beginners or small startups, which can be steep when trying to take Amazon QuickSight into production. Many have noticed that AWS services greatly benefit well-established companies, while startups struggle with costs as they transition data out of AWS. Understanding how AWS charges for Amazon QuickSight usage is critical for all users wanting to visualize their data effectively.
Kishore Jhunjhunwala - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Analytics Consultant at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
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

"The solution is very quick to turn around and integrate."
"Easily able to connect with our other services and easy to manage."
"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."
"Regarding the pricing model of Amazon QuickSight, I would say the solution is affordable in general in comparison to some of the other tools, for example, Tableau and Qlik."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the user interface."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its flexibility to visualize certain logs."
"From an analytics perspective, it's really good for self-service analytics."
"Amazon QuickSight can provide insights from the available data. It supports various rule types. We get the options of machine learning and insights, which are not available in other intelligence tools. It is easier to use, more stable, and cheaper than other solutions."
"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."
"With Looker, I have experienced benefits in terms of usability and shareability."
"It is a pretty stable solution because it is a cloud-based product."
"The product is easy to use."
"It's quite effortless to navigate through various applications and review their updated data in real-time."
"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."
"From a developer's perspective, the way the functionality's being handled is great."
 

Cons

"The setup process falls somewhere in the middle. It is not straightforward, nor is it complex, but there is a significant amount of work needed on the back end to make it function."
"Compared to Power BI, I felt QuickSight lacks some features, like delayed drill-downs. Drill-downs were the main area where we found QuickSight lacking."
"Amazon QuickSight could be improved by embedding AI features. For example, making automation for filling missing data or reformatting incorrect data formats, and making date corrections."
"There is room for improvement in terms of the number of visualizations and dashboards that are available."
"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."
"One area where Amazon QuickSight could improve is its formatting features for dashboards."
"It can be made more user-friendly as some users might find this solution hard to implement. Qlik Sense, for example, is very user-friendly."
"Amazon QuickSight has minimal features. The feature set can be improved to allow you to create good production-ready dashboards. This does not happen with QuickSite, it needs to mature to be used in production."
"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 visualization capability of the product is limited."
"Stability needs improvement."
"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."
"Integrations with other BI tools could be better."
"The integration with different databases must be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Amazon QuickSight you subscribe and you use the service."
"The solution's pricing is cheaper than the other products in the market."
"The solution is not affordable."
"Amazon QuickSight charges $250 per user, which becomes expensive when managing multiple departments."
"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."
"It's affordable compared to other long-term contractor business tools available in the market."
"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."
"The pricing is cost-effective with a good plan."
"Looker is expensive and could be made better by reducing it."
"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."
"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
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
8%
Retailer
8%
Media Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise16
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon QuickSight?
Amazon QuickSight charges $250 per user, which becomes expensive when managing multiple departments. However, this cost is offset by the advantages it provides.
What needs improvement with Amazon QuickSight?
I don't want to hypothetically say about the effectiveness of Amazon QuickSight in terms of machine learning, so I need to pass on that. At the moment, on the cloud perspective, we have Amazon majo...
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Comparisons

 

Also Known As

QuickSight
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

MLB Advanced Media, Infor, HotelBeds, Gemini, Jivochat, Edmunds.com
Yahoo!, Etsy, Kohler, Hipcamp, Hubspot, Kickstarter, Venmo, Dollar Shave Club, 600+ customer
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Salesforce, Domo and others in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools. Updated: January 2026.
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