Knowage vs Looker Studio comparison

Knowage and Google are both solutions in the Reporting category. Knowage is ranked #23, while Google is ranked #10 with an average rating of 7.6. Knowage holds a 2.0% mindshare in RT, compared to Google’s 2.5% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Knowage users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 83% of Google users who would recommend it.

Knowage

Read 18 Knowage reviews

2,522 Views
1,261 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Looker Studio

Read 16 Looker Studio reviews

3,089 Views
1,853 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

Knowage

Looker Studio

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

Knowage and Looker Studio are key players in the business intelligence and analytics sector. Looker Studio might hold an advantage with its superior integration with Google services and real-time data capabilities.

Features: Knowage offers open-source customization, robust data mining, and the ability to integrate multiple data sources. Looker Studio provides seamless integration with the Google ecosystem, advanced data visualization, and real-time analytics.

Room for Improvement: Knowage could enhance its user interface, streamline deployment, and improve documentation for technical features. Looker Studio may work on offering greater customization options, better support for non-Google services, and more flexible pricing models.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Knowage provides flexible deployment but can require more time for initial setup, offering community-based support typical of open-source solutions. Looker Studio benefits from the streamlined deployment of Google Cloud Platform and robust customer support through Google's infrastructure.

Pricing and ROI: Knowage, as an open-source tool, entails lower initial costs but might need investments for optimization. Looker Studio follows a subscription model with higher initial costs, yet its integration could yield faster ROI through enhanced insights and reduced time-to-value.

To learn more, read our detailed Knowage vs. Looker Studio Report (Updated: June 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Knowage vs. Looker Studio

June 2026

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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

Knowage

Ranking in Reporting

23rd

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (32nd)

Looker Studio

Ranking in Reporting

10th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

5.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Knowage is 2.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Looker Studio is 2.5%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Reporting Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Looker Studio	2.5%
Knowage	2.0%
Other	95.5%

Reporting

Featured Reviews

Albert Masanja

Margin Assurance Analyst at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

A stable open source suite for modern business analytics with a useful replication feature

It would be better if more resources were available to help us learn how to use it. I wanted to use Knowage for a more extended period, but learning materials around the product were not really available and were not really straightforward. I've also seen inconsistencies between versions. For example, under the tools, especially in the cockpit, the way you create reports is now different. You will also find some configurations within a particular state, like a line chart, which differs from version to version. I think consistency is an essential feature in a product, especially for business intelligence products.

Read full review

Heron Ziegel

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Our customers really appreciate the self-service BI functionalities."

"It improves sales and products, which motivates employees."

"I can't name the features the way the Knowage community calls them because I still don't know the lingo. However, I can describe them. I like the ability to join more than one report, set all fields on one end, and replicate that on the other reports. I like that a lot. I think it's one of the features that got me using Knowage. They have tables, and I like that too. They took SQL scripts and many other scripts and enabled them to even correlate with Python. That's also one of the best things about Knowage. You could also decide to get information per user role, and this is also a feature that I like in Knowage."

"I would use SpagoBI if a company wants to use a free tool that has enough features."

"Customer Service: Excellent."

"I am satisfied with the product in general given what the company invested in it, which was just our time."

"It's very easy to get the historical reports you need based on the business requirements and this helps our executives for taking decisions."

"Unified interface, a lot of tools for BI, easy configuration, standalone SDK."

More Knowage pros

"I would rate this solution eight or nine out of ten."

"I am impressed with the tool's scheduling mechanism, refresh mechanism, and different types of charts."

"Valuable features include advanced integrated analysis and easy implementation."

"What I appreciate about Looker Studio is mostly the clean visuals, which is good, as I prefer a dashboard with a clean aesthetic rather than feeling sort of an old Windows type of dashboard."

"We previously used Microsoft Power BI, but Google is better."

"The product's initial setup phase is very simple."

"This is a great tool if your organization leverages other sets of Google tools and needs some quick ideas that are a prettier and more interactive than Google Analytics."

"This has improved our organization by allowing people to see their data and develop visualizations themselves."

More Looker Studio pros

Cons

"Unfortunately, many interesting features do not work when you are using a custom database for storing the metadata."

"I faced difficulties when using the email feature and documentation was scant."

"I encountered a lot of issues when I tried to integrate the map in order to realize Intelligent Location Dashboards."

"The demands of some jobs would slow Spago and lock the site, preventing any other job from processing."

"As all software and especially the open-source ones have always something that can work better, in this case, SpagoBI is slightly difficult to implement."

"There are additional features such as Data Integration, Data Visualization, MobileBI, Cloud BI, Data enrichment and massaging should be implemented in the next release."

"Development of SpagoBI has now been moved to Knowage. Users interested in further developments of the platform will have to look there."

"Yes, using Mobile and Desktop Editions, we would sometimes need to restart the service."

More Knowage cons

"Panels are not as easy to use as other data extraction UIs."

"The tool should come up with data modeling layer features that are present in other products like Power BI."

"Looker Studio did not fit our needs for scalability."

"Stability and scalability an be improved for a full ten."

"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."

"There is a significant degree of sophistication required to compete with Tableau or Cognos."

"The performance of Looker needs improvement, particularly the report loading time, which is critical for business users."

"There are issues with integration and I encountered limits and warnings, especially with my pivot table size."

More Looker Studio cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Knowage is open-source, and an enterprise edition is also available."

"It allows the implementation of an effective reporting system using internal skills at a limited upfront cost."

"The product is available for 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 solution is free but the Google Looker is expensive."

"The cost is quite affordable based on feature analysis."

"The tool is free."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

23%

University

Marketing Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	6

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Tableau Enterprise vs Knowage

Compared 8% of the time

Pentaho Business Analytics vs Knowage

Compared 7% of the time

Procurify vs Knowage

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Knowage

Compared 5% of the time

Oracle OBIEE vs Knowage

Compared 5% of the time

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Amazon QuickSight vs Looker Studio

Compared 11% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Looker Studio

Compared 11% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Looker Studio

Compared 9% of the time

RStudio Connect vs Looker Studio

Compared 8% of the time

Zendesk vs Looker Studio

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Knowage

June 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Looker Studio

June 2026

Download Looker Studio product report

Also Known As

SpagoBI

Data Studio

Overview

Knowage is an open-source business intelligence suite offering features like engine concepts and report customization. It's favored for its integration capabilities and self-service BI functionality, allowing users to leverage cross-platform access and conduct comprehensive data analysis.

Knowage stands out in the BI landscape by providing tools that facilitate autonomous data exploration, with an emphasis on flexibility and extensive integration options. With capabilities for embedding reports and dynamic dashboards, it supports various analysis needs through integration with databases and tools like Jasper and BIRT. Despite its technical complexity and interface limitations, Knowage's features such as GIS integration and big data visualization enhance operational efficiency and profitability analysis.

What are the key features of Knowage?

Powerful engines: Facilitate complex data processing with high efficiency.
Report customization: Tailor reports to meet specific business requirements.
Cross-platform access: Enable data accessibility across different devices.
Open-source: Leverage the flexibility and cost-effectiveness of open-source solutions.
Embedding capabilities: Integrate seamlessly with tools like Jasper for enhanced functionality.
Python support: Use Python for advanced data correlation and analyses.
GIS integration: Incorporate geographical data for enriched insights.

What benefits should you consider in reviews?

Increased efficiency: Streamlined report deployment and big data visualization.
Comprehensive analysis: Tools for evaluating activities and profitability.
Data export options: Support for exporting data in preferred formats simplifies reporting tasks.
Operational cost savings: Eliminates the need for third-party BI solutions.

In the healthcare and financial sectors, Knowage is used for deriving insights from health data warehouses and performing financial analyses. Companies use it to create dashboards and reports from MySQL databases, embedding them for wider distribution, and enabling effective resource evaluation and decision-making.

Knowage

Looker Studio offers seamless integration with Google products, supporting business visualization and collaboration through efficient data management and analytics, catering to teams aiming for quick analytics solutions.

Looker Studio combines diverse data source integration including SQL and MongoDB with powerful visualization and custom filter creation. Users find its visuals clean and its platform user-friendly, enhanced by collaboration features and pricing. It aids decision-making and is popular for tracking metrics and analyzing sales funnels. Despite its strengths, users seek faster report loading, simpler data modeling, and better interface usability. Advertising system limitations, delayed data reflections, and integration challenges affect performance. Security and stability improvements alongside a richer data modeling layer are desirable, with pricing impacting large organizations.

What are the most important features of Looker Studio?

Google Integration: Easily integrates with Google products for efficient workflow.
Diverse Data Sources: Connects to databases like SQL and MongoDB.
Custom Filters: Offers flexible filter options for tailored analyses.
Data Visualization: Enables powerful, clear visual data representation.
Collaboration: Supports team collaboration for shared insights.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Ease of Use: Accessibility and user-friendly operation for teams.
Decision-Making Support: Facilitates informed business decisions.
Flexibility: Adapts to different business analytics needs.
Cost-Effectiveness: Competitive pricing for budget-conscious teams.

Looker Studio supports business visualization for different industries, creating dashboards and reports for sales and marketing analysis. It's used to track metrics and sales funnels from sources like Google Sheets and BigQuery. Many companies integrate Looker Studio within web apps, providing data insights tailored to sectors such as e-commerce, finance, and more.

Google

Sample Customers

FIAT Group, Italian air navigation service provider, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Telecom Italia, ASL Genovese, San Giovanni Battista University Hospital

Genesys, Shueisha

Buyer's Guide

Knowage vs. Looker Studio

June 2026

Free Report: Knowage vs. Looker Studio

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