Looker Studio vs Microsoft Power BI vs Qlik Sense comparison

The compared Google and Microsoft solutions aren't in the same category. Google is ranked #9 in RT , with an average rating of 7.6, and holds a 2.4% mindshare in the category. Microsoft is ranked #1 in BIT , with an average rating of 8.2, and holds a 7.7% mindshare. Additionally, 83% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Looker Studio

Read 16 Looker Studio reviews

3,282 Views
2,002 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

Microsoft Power BI

Read 331 Microsoft Power BI reviews

33,998 Views
14,279 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Qlik Sense

Read 126 Qlik Sense reviews

10,962 Views
6,029 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Looker Studio

Microsoft Power BI

Qlik Sense

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Looker Studio, Microsoft Power BI, and Qlik Sense based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Salesforce, Plotly and others in Reporting.

To learn more, read our detailed Reporting Report (Updated: July 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Reporting

July 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:

Mindshare comparison

Reporting Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Looker Studio	2.4%
Tableau Enterprise	14.6%
Microsoft Power BI	13.5%
Other	69.5%

Reporting

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Microsoft Power BI	7.7%
Tableau Enterprise	6.2%
Amazon QuickSight	3.2%
Other	82.9%

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Data Visualization Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Qlik Sense	4.9%
Tableau Enterprise	10.1%
Domo	4.1%
Other	80.9%

Data Visualization

Featured Reviews

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.

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Hemanthreddy Vakiti

Data engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Interactive dashboards have transformed restaurant data into faster daily business decisions

Microsoft Power BI has many features and there is not a lot to improve. However, the licensing can be confusing. When deciding between Pro and Premium, I find it difficult to distinguish what features are offered by Pro and what features are offered by Premium, including the particular differences to choose between both licensing models. Additionally, some features such as DAX, which I mentioned previously, involve DAX calculations and complex data modeling, which are somewhat advanced and not easily understandable. Prior knowledge is required or you need to go through the documentation. If the documentation is made comprehensive so that anyone with no knowledge on DAX can easily use it by going through the documentation, it would be really helpful. Additionally, if the integration with non-Microsoft tools is improved and performance is optimized, then Microsoft Power BI can become a top-ranked visualization tool. The user experience with Microsoft Power BI is quite good. The intuitive user interface makes it easy for both technical and non-technical users to create reports. However, only the advanced features are somewhat complex, and if the documentation is improved, it can be easily accessible.

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Saranya Deepthi

Project Engineer at Wipro

Improved AI-driven dashboards have accelerated decisions but still need better visuals and faster refresh

Absolutely, nothing is entirely positive, and everything has both advantages and disadvantages. When I worked with Qlik Sense, circular charts were not available, which meant I had to look for alternative solutions that would be reliable or make the functionality work. There are some features that need to be added. Additionally, there is a limit to the number of fields that can be added in Qlik Sense, and I believe it would be beneficial if they increased the count for fields and columns. There might be requirements where an Excel file contains many columns that need to be displayed as visual representations to clients, and in those situations, it becomes very difficult and I have to use alternative approaches. When this problem arose, I used HTML code to write a solution and make it work. Qlik Sense should avoid these types of limitations in future updates. Another issue is page resolution. If a client wants to view the dashboard on a single page without scrolling, bar charts appear small and the values in KPIs, bar charts, scatter plots, and line graphs cannot be seen very clearly. Adding more extensions to make the job easier would also be beneficial. Improvements to reporting would be helpful as well, because working with large datasets makes reporting very difficult. Additionally, when data is refreshed, it cannot be completed in a short timeframe. Refreshing very large datasets can take one, two, or even three hours, so reducing the refresh time would be very useful for customers.

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

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

"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 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."

More Looker Studio pros

"Initial setup was very straightforward. Users can get up and running reporting on databases within minutes."

"The user interface is easy to work with."

"I have found the best features to be the dashboard creation, graphs, charts, and presentation bar graphs."

"The good part of it is that you can do whatever you want with it when it comes to building BI. In terms of languages, it supports Python, and it also natively supports R."

"My primary uses of this solution are BI reporting using SQL server reporting, Power BI online reports, and BI dashboards."

"What's most valuable in this tool is that it gives its users detailed error messages. It's a very stable data analytics tool, and it offers good scalability."

"I love the fact that it's got a very intuitive user interface."

"The flexibility of the program is valuable. We are able to add other information to the reporting information and expand upon it."

More Microsoft Power BI pros

"Lots of end-users are now familiar enough with this solution to create quick dashboards based on their own data sources, like Excel files, CSV, TXT files, and databases."

"Now, their reporting can be done in a more ad hoc fashion with almost instantaneous results."

"This is amazing product takes the super features of QlikView ETL capabilities to a whole new level with its new drag and drop feature, and extension capabilities derived from the robust Qlik API."

"Reporting is a valuable feature of the solution."

"Qlik Sense has given us the ability to load large log files and provide analytics."

"Qlik Sense is essentially a web-based tool even though it's on-prem – you're working off an HTML page – so it's pretty quick. Your processing speed does not matter because you're using a lot of stuff through the web. That's great because it brings down the cost in regards to hardware."

"This solution is easy to use, intuitive and has great power for the exploitation of data."

"Qlik Sense provides features to manage and govern data, ensuring data security, accuracy, and regulation compliance."

More Qlik Sense pros

Cons

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

"Other tools might be worth considering if you need more advanced features or support for a larger user base."

"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."

"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."

"Insisting on forums, blogs and community outreach in communications, and posting videos on an established calendar would be useful."

"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."

"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."

More Looker Studio cons

"What I don't like about this solution is that in order to just watch a dashboard, you need a license."

"Power BI could have better metadata management. It's easy to use for a single person. However, it lacks an enterprise-grade metadata management system, which can be a problem if you're doing an enterprise deployment with multiple users."

"Microsoft BI comes under pressure when there is a lot of data to be crunched. It gets slower and slower, and the functionality becomes a bit of a problem. The performance goes down with data being fed into the system. The infrastructure requirement also increases if you have to increase the performance. This is the area that can be improved in my opinion. Initially, the product is good, but over the years, when data gets accumulated, it becomes a problem unless the old data is kind of archived and is no longer shown on the visualization. It has a feature by using which a user can query for a report through simple questions to a bot. So, if I want to look for the customer share of revenue by geography, I just simply state that in the chatbot. If I wanted it in a pie chart, then you say, "Please show it to me in a pie chart." It comes out well for basic charts. This feature should be improvised more so that people can very quickly get customized reports on the go."

"The graphic interface could be better. I would also like to see it mobile-friendly."

"The solution could improve by having more attractive graphical charts."

"I would like Microsoft to include some inbuilt machine learning so that it becomes point-and-click, rather than us developing models out of API and BI connecting to that and getting the results. That process gets in the way of continuity."

"There's always room for improvement for Microsoft Power BI, especially for the UX and the menus to make it more accessible to business users."

"The product’s on-premise reporting servers could support real-time data refreshing capabilities like its on-cloud version."

More Microsoft Power BI cons

"I would like to see Qlik add more DevOps functionality to their product. Currently, we have to turn to 3rd party products to handle things like Source Control, Code Deployment through environments, etc."

"Power BI is more user-friendly than Qlik Sense."

"I would like to more easily themed environments."

"From the initial setup of the product we had some struggles getting connections to some of our databases to function, this indicated that some of the data extract drivers can be improved and addition of some of the older database engines need to be added in Qlik Sense."

"Moving forward I would like to see more features that are currently available in QlikView, such as being able to better customize coloring within charts. I would also like to see the ability to add calculated dimensions to the selections tool in the page."

"The reporting solution recently added to the latest Cloud version, since December or January, is not fully developed. The ability to use tabular reporting, like in dashboards, would be a great feature."

"Areas for improvement include user-friendliness, self-service, and some of the visualization options for generating reports."

"However, the training is not free. When you want to learn more about the tool, sometimes you need to pay for the training."

More Qlik Sense cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"The product is available for free."

"I very much recommend the free trial mode."

"The solution's costs are quite reasonable given the range of features provided."

"It's straightforward licensing."

"The license is on a yearly basis."

"The solution is less expensive than other PowerBI tools, which is why most people go with it, although it does cost more than MSBI tools."

"It depends upon the tier of your Office 365 subscription. On E5, which is a Microsoft Azure subscription, you get it for free. If you are on a lower tier, you can subscribe for $10 a month per user, which is really cheap."

"Both cost-wise and implementation-wise, this product is a good choice."

"There is room for at least 45% discount as compared to the initial price."

More Microsoft Power BI pricing and cost advice

"Start small with tokens. You can always buy more."

"Licensing is quite good, easy, but slightly expensive."

"Understand the break over price point for switching to the Enterprise license."

"QlikSense offers a Hybrid environment architecture, which is very cost effective based on where the enterprise data resides."

"The costs can initially become quite high. Make sure you have a clear understanding of who will truly use the product as opposed to someone that will simply receive the end report."

"Licensing can start to get expensive, but compared to other tools in this space it is about average."

"Qlik Sense and its pricing model can follow any scalability."

"Costs are a little high on the license/token side. However, if you look at the TCO, it is not too bad, particularly against Power BI."

More Qlik Sense pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user79932

Senior Manager - BI Head with 5,001-10,000 employees

Feb 4, 2015

Comparison of SAP BO, Tableau, QlikView, Cognos, Microsoft, OBIEE and Pentaho

1. SAP BO/BI Enterprise scalability Security Ease of use Semantic layer 2. Tableau Visualization Data discovery Turnaround time 3. IBM Cognos Enterprise scalability Security In-memory feature 4. MS BI - Flexibility 5. Pentaho - Open source but still enterprise grade 6. QlikView Data…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Retailer

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

18%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Construction Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	136
Midsize Enterprise	59
Large Enterprise	171

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	34
Midsize Enterprise	40
Large Enterprise	89

Questions from the Community

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 ...

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 ...

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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 wo...

See all answers

Seeking lightweight open source BI software

There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I wou...

See all answers

Is Power BI a complete platform or only a visualization tool?

Power BI is an advanced visualization tool oriented to big data with a very complete set of widgets to visualize info...

See all answers

How does Oracle OBIEE compare with Microsoft BI?

Oracle OBIEE is great in allowing design and creativity per the individual needs of the organization. Dashboards are ...

See all answers

Seeking lightweight open source BI software

It depends on the Data architecture and the complexity of your requirement. Some great tools in the market are Qlik ...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qlik Sense?

It is not about performance. It is just about how expensive it is to implement.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Qlik Sense?

Everything depends on the use case, but I would prefer Power BI because of how mainstream it is. There is not much in...

See all answers

Comparisons

Tableau Enterprise vs Looker Studio

Compared 10% of the time

Amazon QuickSight 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

InetSoft Style Intelligence vs Looker Studio

Compared 5% of the time

More Looker Studio Competitors

Amazon QuickSight vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 16% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 11% of the time

Domo vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 7% of the time

QlikView vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Power BI Competitors

Tableau Enterprise vs Qlik Sense

Compared 6% of the time

Apache Superset vs Qlik Sense

Compared 5% of the time

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence vs Qlik Sense

Compared 3% of the time

OpenText Intelligence vs Qlik Sense

Compared 3% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs Qlik Sense

Compared 3% of the time

More Qlik Sense Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Looker Studio

July 2026

Download Looker Studio product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI

June 2026

Download Microsoft Power BI product report

Buyer's Guide

Qlik Sense

June 2026

Download Qlik Sense product report

Also Known As

Data Studio

SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI

QlikSense, Qlik Analytics Platform

Overview

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

Microsoft Power BI is a powerful tool for data analysis and visualization. This tool stands out for its ability to merge and analyze data from various sources. Widely adopted across different industries and departments, Power BI is instrumental in creating visually appealing dashboards and generating insightful business intelligence reports. Its intuitive interface, robust visualization capabilities, and seamless integration with other Microsoft applications empower users to easily create interactive reports and gain valuable insights.

Microsoft

Qlik Sense offers drag-and-drop dashboard creation, multi-data source integration, and self-service analytics. Users benefit from associative data modeling and real-time insights. The platform enhances quick deployment across any device with its flexibility and ease of use.

Qlik Sense provides rapid dashboard creation and seamless multi-data source integration, supporting real-time analytics and high-speed ETL capabilities. Users enjoy advanced visualizations and natural language processing within an intuitive interface. The solution's in-memory engine ensures fast data processing while offering flexibility and quick deployment on all devices. Its open API facilitates extensive customization and integration with chatbots and third-party extensions.

What are the key features of Qlik Sense?

Rapid Dashboard Creation: Enables quick creation of insightful dashboards using a drag-and-drop interface.
Multi-Data Source Integration: Supports seamless integration across various data sources for comprehensive analysis.
Self-Service Analytics: Empowers users with intuitive tools for independent data exploration and insights generation.
Associative Data Modeling: Enhances understanding of complex datasets and relationships.
Advanced Visualizations: Offers sophisticated visual options to present data clearly and engagingly.
Real-Time Insights: Provides up-to-the-minute data analysis capabilities.
Open API Integration: Allows extensive customization and integration with third-party tools.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Fast Deployment: Enjoys rapid setup and integration across devices, facilitating immediate data access.
Enhanced Flexibility: Customization options allow tailored solutions that meet specific user needs.
Comprehensive Integration: Capable of integrating multiple data sources, improving analytical scope.
Improved Data Accessibility: Offers easy access and understanding of complex data.
Automation Efficiency: Streamlines reporting and analytics tasks, boosting productivity.

In industries such as finance and sales, Qlik Sense enables interactive data analyses and dashboard creation across departments. It supports business intelligence for financial reporting, sales analysis, and decision-making. By automating reporting and combining data from multiple sources, it facilitates users in generating insights and enhancing data accessibility for informed business decisions.

Qlik

Sample Customers

Genesys, Shueisha

Accenture Adidas Aetna AIG Airbus Alibaba Allstate Amazon American Express Aon AT&T Audi Bank of America BASF Bayer Berkshire Hathaway Boeing Coca-Cola Comcast Cisco Coca-Cola Dell Disney Emirates Equinix FedEx Ford GE Google H&M Home Depot Honda IBM Intel JPMorgan Chase Kellogg's Kroger L'Oréal McDonald's Merck MetLife Microsoft Nike Oracle P&G PepsiCo Procter & Gamble Prudential Financial SAP Siemens Snapchat Spotify Starbucks Target Toyota T-Mobile Unilever Visa Walmart WeWork World Bank Xerox

Abbvie, Airbus, Barclays, BT Openreach, BMW, Daimler AG, HSBC, IKEA, Nationwide Building Society, Royal Mail Group, Sanofi, Siemens, Wendy'', Vodafone, Volvo

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