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Board vs Looker Studio comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

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

Board
Ranking in Reporting
17th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (22nd), Business Performance Management (7th)
Looker Studio
Ranking in Reporting
11th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Board is 1.4%, up from 0.5% 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
ProductMarket Share (%)
Looker Studio2.7%
Board1.4%
Other95.9%
Reporting
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2645016 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Software Delivery at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Offers flexibility in design and saves time in budgeting and forecasting processes
I find Board to be simple and easy to use. It offers significant flexibility in designing solutions. The system overall is very useful, with many capabilities that provide flexibility. Our budgeting and forecasting processes support around three hundred twenty users who would otherwise rely on Excel, making Board invaluable for saving time.
Heron Ziegel - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It allows people to quickly create dashboards with reports."
"we are able to easily export data. When directors need financial information, we can go in the system and export the data, then send it out so they have it ready and available. If they are not in the office, we can email it to them. In addition, all the managers are now more on top of their expenses and their budget."
"My favourite feature of BOARD is the ability to write back to the OLAP DB, as well as the Rdb, and secure user data allowing databases to be flushed and rebuilt daily."
"We have better reporting and have been able to better track performance."
"BOARD technical support is knowledgeable and helpful."
"The reporting part has been very valuable as the capabilities of the tool do not have to change graphs, change how grids are displayed, and can create reports on the fly."
"By using Board we can do a lot of free analysis. We can change the layout of a table and even the end-user can change the layout of a table. And in Board 11.2 you can save the layout. That's very useful for the customer, it's a very good function."
"​Our data is now more structured. Between our data warehouse and BOARD, which are both brand new, we now have a more structured data view with more accurate, timely data."
"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."
"The integration with Excel and Google Sheets is a valuable feature, making it easy to access and visualize data."
"I find it favorable regarding speed of development, ease of building, and flexibility."
"The product's initial setup phase is very simple."
"The ability to design complex data models and equations."
"Looker's ability to perform aggregation before visualization allows for effective data slicing and dicing."
"The ability to integrate with a great variety of data sources."
"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."
 

Cons

"It would be nice to have more connectors for other data sources. BOARD is a great tool to become the single source of the truth. Making it easier to connect data sources for niche software tools will make it easier to keep everything in one place."
"Board's integration could be a bit more robust, but what we have works. If the design isn't right, the flexibility of Board can negatively impact performance."
"Some of our users are still using an MS Office add-in for Excel for certain calculations, and when they export from Board, some of the values, some of the totals and column names, are not coming through into Excel."
"We can't delete entities and cubes in Boards because it interrupts our whole data model."
"I would like an eLearning platform for BOARD."
"We have had some challenges with newer version of the rollout in terms of stability."
"In terms of scalability, I would say that there are some limitations in the solution. It cannot handle data that is too big."
"I would like to see a better Web client, where the controls work the same way as in the Windows client. I do think that the focus is now on the Web, so it should be improved upon."
"Other tools might be worth considering if you need more advanced features or support for a larger user base."
"The tool should improve on live data integration for quicker data reflection."
"The tool has a lot of room for improvement. It's not very professional and allows for only simple tasks like indicating KPIs or quick calculations. It lacks a good calculation-based language like Power BI's DAX, making it less suitable for professional use. Additionally, the variety of visualization tools is limited, and customization options are restricted."
"From the perspective of infrastructure, I cannot provide a valuable opinion on the ease of use and customization options of Looker 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."
"Stability and scalability an be improved for a full ten."
"The challenges with Google Data Studio are associated with the security part, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The tool should come up with data modeling layer features that are present in other products like Power BI."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's price is a bit high compared to other solutions."
"​In terms of the pricing, it was reasonable. BOARD is not the lowest in the market, but it was reasonable for us."
"The solution is quite expensive, if it is made cheaper then we can have more clients. I rate it four out of ten."
"Find a partner who will take responsibility for the implementation, and be available for support."
"It is not the cheapest product on earth, but you get so much. It provides good value for money."
"The product is available for free."
"The tool is free."
"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 cost is quite affordable based on feature analysis."
"The solution is free but the Google Looker is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

Is Board better than Anaplan as a Business Intelligence (BI) solution?
We've had several FP&A departments include Anaplan in their analytics discussions, and while BI information IS generated, the focus is generally on compiling input from various sources and simu...
What do you like most about Board?
All the reports are prepared automatically.
What needs improvement with Board?
Board's integration could be a bit more robust, but what we have works. If the design isn't right, the flexibility of Board can negatively impact performance.
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...
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...
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Data Studio
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Coca-Cola, Puma, Desigual, Ricoh, KPMG, H&M, Groupe SEB
Genesys, Shueisha
Find out what your peers are saying about Board vs. Looker Studio and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.