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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
18th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (20th), Business Performance Management (7th)
Looker Studio
Ranking in Reporting
12th
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 May 2026, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Board is 1.7%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Looker Studio is 2.5%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Reporting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Looker Studio2.5%
Board1.7%
Other95.8%
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

"BOARD technical support is knowledgeable and helpful."
"I think it's flexible, I chose this solution because, even though it wasn't out-of-the-box, you can customize it, and the long-term growth potential of the software is where I see the value."
"It's got that combination of everything."
"We use it across our entire business; we use it for financial data, inventory data, sales data, and inventory transaction data, and it is performing very well."
"BOARD was the only company that came onsite to do a demo, and their demonstration blew us away."
"The most valuable features are the reporting and the charts. The reporting functionality is handy for aggregation, when it comes to planning. That ability is fascinating and our users are very happy with it. The charts and the reporting allow our users to see all the data and to see how things are going this year or in the COVID situation. They're seeing everything. Instead of having to check data line by line, they're seeing it in a graph and they're seeing it in charts."
"It allows people to quickly create dashboards with reports."
"The ability to create a data model and have it in testing within a week is fantastic."
"The ability to design complex data models and equations."
"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."
"The solution is free so that is a good feature."
"The integration with Excel and Google Sheets is a valuable feature, making it easy to access and visualize data."
"This has improved our organization by allowing people to see their data and develop visualizations themselves."
"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, allowing us to compare revenues."
"I would rate this solution eight or nine out of ten."
"Valuable features include advanced integrated analysis and easy implementation."
 

Cons

"If we could upload other data, e.g., pivot tables which can be done in BOARD already, that we have pre-existing and have that data distribute to more complex spreadsheets​, I would like that going forward."
"It would be nice to have more connectors for other data sources."
"It would be huge in the future if BOARD offered a lot more graphs and presentations, and it was a lot easier to use."
"It can have more functionality for narrative reporting. They should also improve their training courses, which are currently very lightweight. When you get into more complex things, it is quite difficult to figure out what you're supposed to do, and you have to look at a lot of videos before you actually understand, which is a bit frustrating. Their training can be more comprehensive."
"I would like to see better relationships with the partners."
"I'd like to see a more passive report user for enterprise report writers who aren't particularly technical, so you could really get it out there to literally every employee, or every customer."
"Building similar models entirely from scratch could be made quicker with transfer abilities between databases and capsules."
"The one thing that I think we would like to see in terms of improvement of the application is the ability to print."
"From the perspective of infrastructure, I cannot provide a valuable opinion on the ease of use and customization options of Looker Studio."
"The tool should improve on live data integration for quicker data reflection."
"When you physically install a product on one machine instead of the cloud, you have a better visibility, best icon quality, etc.. It's more of an issue with how we are adapting to the transition."
"There is a significant degree of sophistication required to compete with Tableau or Cognos."
"Panels are not as easy to use as other data extraction UIs."
"Other tools might be worth considering if you need more advanced features or support for a larger user base."
"There are issues with integration and I encountered limits and warnings, especially with my pivot table size."
"When you physically install a product on one machine instead of the cloud, you have a better visibility, best icon quality, etc.. It's more of an issue with how we are adapting to the transition. We are still in the early moments of using this tool, and we need to go deeper to discover some improvements."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"​In terms of the pricing, it was reasonable. BOARD is not the lowest in the market, but it was reasonable for us."
"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 tool's price is a bit high compared to other solutions."
"The solution is quite expensive, if it is made cheaper then we can have more clients. I rate it four out of ten."
"The solution is free but the Google Looker is expensive."
"The cost is quite affordable based on feature analysis."
"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 tool is free."
"The product is available for free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
Insurance Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
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 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 is your primary use case for Board?
Our organization primarily uses Board ( /products/board-reviews ) for budgeting and forecasting.
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...
What advice do you have for others considering Google Data Studio?
I confirm that we have a call regarding my experience with Zoho. Looker Studio is a good visualization tool, but I wouldn't say there's a specific feature that stands out in terms of tracking metri...
 

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: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.