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Birst vs Google Data Studio comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 23, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
8.3
Birst offers substantial returns by providing visualization tools that impact the organization through enhanced sales and data access capabilities.
Sentiment score
7.4
Google Data Studio improves efficiency, cost savings, and decision-making, benefiting large entities more than smaller businesses.
The number of employees has reduced to half, and time is saved by nearly two to three hours a day because of automated reports.
Data engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.0
Birst's technical support is mixed; praised for responsiveness and customer service but faces challenges with time zones and reliance on forums.
Sentiment score
6.2
Google Data Studio's support is highly rated for its responsiveness and expertise, though some face delays with complex issues.
Anyone with minimal knowledge of Looker can easily go through the documentation and understand the steps and the UI.
Data engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.4
Birst's scalability receives mixed reviews; some praise it, while others face challenges, costs, and complexity, yet cloud solutions impress.
Sentiment score
6.8
Google Data Studio scales well with infrastructure support, though some face limitations with features and organizational challenges.
I rate Looker's scalability a nine because of how easily we can scale by simply combining tables.
Data engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.3
Birst users experience varying stability, with issues during upgrades and large datasets, though some report smooth performance improvements.
Sentiment score
7.4
Google Data Studio offers varied stability; praised for integration but criticized for occasional bugs and handling large datasets.
 

Room For Improvement

Birst struggles with performance, customization, UI, visualization features, inefficiencies, and support, requiring enhancements and modernization in various areas.
Google Data Studio users seek improved data blending, visualization, user-friendliness, real-time querying, integration, security, navigation, and training.
The performance is not optimal on large data sets.
Data engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Birst offers market-standard pricing with a subscription model, providing comprehensive solutions and flexibility despite high entry costs.
Looker's pricing is reasonable for enterprises but can be costly for smaller companies, with potential additional expenses.
 

Valuable Features

Birst provides scalable data visualization, cloud-based architecture, and integrates ETL, reporting, and dashboards for efficient data-driven decisions.
LookML offers flexible data modeling, seamless integration, and easy-to-use visualization tools, enhancing accessibility and customization without workflow disruption.
For a business user to understand data from free form or Essbase, it usually takes thirty minutes to an hour to go through the previous day's trend. However, with the visualization tools in Looker, they can easily understand the data and compare it to the previous one or two years using a bar graph, pie chart, or other graphs.
Data engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Birst
Ranking in Embedded BI
19th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (28th)
Google Data Studio
Ranking in Embedded BI
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Embedded BI category, the mindshare of Birst is 1.5%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Data Studio is 5.5%, down from 9.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Embedded BI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Google Data Studio5.5%
Birst1.5%
Other93.0%
Embedded BI
 

Featured Reviews

SK
Principal Engineering Manager I at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Offers dashboards and self-service reports. The report performance is very slow.
Dashboards and self-service reports. These are widely used by customers in the EPM domain Most of our customers are interested in dashboards and self-service reports. We are able to offer them these features with this solution. Customer support takes lot of time to get a solution The report…
Hemanthreddy Vakiti - PeerSpot reviewer
Data engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Automated dashboards have transformed daily trend analysis and now drive faster business decisions
One of the best features that Looker offers is LookML, which allows us to develop dashboards directly rather than dragging and dropping. We can also customize some fields that are not available in the table by combining different tables using LookML. Compared to other reporting tools, Looker is somewhat more customizable and interactive. With the help of Views and Explore in Looker, we can combine different tables and create a unique column that is not available in the table, and then use that column in our reporting dashboard. Since we brought Looker into our project, it has improved data visibility and enabled faster interaction between us and our client. Rather than simply using free form or Essbase, seeing customizable and visualized data in Looker allows the business users to understand the trends in the data more easily rather than just seeing numbers. It has helped us save a lot of time. The automated dashboards that we develop allow us to run the dashboard for the coming years with only some modifications, which has reduced some manpower and working hours. When I joined this project, there were around eight to nine people for developing Looker dashboards. Once the development part is completed for almost all cases, the next part is just monitoring the dashboards and making some minor changes required to align with business goals. After development, the team was reduced to three or four people, so the manpower has significantly reduced, and time taken has decreased as well. For a business user to understand data from free form or Essbase, it usually takes thirty minutes to an hour to go through the previous day's trend. However, with the visualization tools in Looker, they can easily understand the data and compare it to the previous one or two years using a bar graph, pie chart, or other graphs. The return on investment has been very good. The number of employees has reduced to half, and time is saved by nearly two to three hours a day because of automated reports. We are just monitoring the reports to ensure they are released. This has saved nearly two hours per day, and the team has been reduced to half.
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
15%
Marketing Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Retailer
9%
Media Company
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with Looker?
One thing is that Looker is not user-friendly to non-technical users. Someone with knowledge of Looker can understand it, but a person without any technical background finds it somewhat advanced or...
What is your primary use case for Looker?
Looker serves as our main business intelligence reporting tool by creating dashboards and reports. We create interactive dashboards that help users understand the changes in data and the current tr...
What advice do you have for others considering Looker?
My advice to others looking into using Looker is that if they are new users with some technical knowledge of SQL or Python, they can understand LookML code or use the explore tab to drag and drop t...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Looker
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Citrix Systems, Jive Software, SunnyD, Toshiba Medical Systems, Cisco OpenDNS, RB, Sunny D, Vertafore
Yahoo!, Etsy, Kohler, Hipcamp, Hubspot, Kickstarter, Venmo, Dollar Shave Club, 600+ customer
Find out what your peers are saying about Birst vs. Google Data Studio and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.