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 #10 in RT , with an average rating of 7.8, and holds a 2.4% mindshare in the category. Microsoft is ranked #1 in BIT , with an average rating of 8.4, and holds a 7.4% 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

3,534 Views
2,226 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

Microsoft Power BI

Read 332 Microsoft Power BI reviews

36,430 Views
15,301 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Qlik Sense

Read 126 Qlik Sense reviews

11,947 Views
6,690 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: August 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Reporting

August 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	13.9%
Microsoft Power BI	12.9%
Other	70.8%

Reporting

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Microsoft Power BI	7.4%
Tableau Enterprise	5.9%
Amazon QuickSight	3.1%
Other	83.6%

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Data Visualization Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Qlik Sense	4.9%
Tableau Enterprise	9.5%
Domo	3.8%
Other	81.8%

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.

Read full review

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 ability to design complex data models and equations."

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

"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 solution is a powerful way to have several tools integrated at one location and convert data into beautiful reports that can be easily edited and viewed."

"I find it favorable regarding speed of development, ease of building, and flexibility."

"Data Studio integrates seamlessly with other Google products, and we can use it with other APIs if we like."

"The solution is free so that is a good feature."

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

More Looker Studio pros

"The standard BI visualization capabilities are great."

"There is continual improvement year-over-year."

"The ease of integration and connectivity stands out as the most critical aspect, followed closely by the flexibility to customize reports and dashboards."

"The breadth of products do a fine job at enabling the delivery of data and insights to the right people, in the right format, at the right time."

"In general, it's helping companies be more efficient, more productive."

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

"We have a lot of servers and applications from which we want reports, and it allows us to create reports from an SQL source or some other source."

"Microsoft BI is scalable."

More Microsoft Power BI pros

"The tool's data analysis is useful to help out the teams across the globe and to track their work."

"Qlik has proven to be flexible, powerful, and friendly to both developers and end users."

"We have been using Qlik Sense to generate reports that have taken hours to prepare before that we are now able to update in a couple of minutes and are available to users on a centralized platform where they are able to get the required reports."

"We were able to identify easy things, such as when a contract was loaded incorrectly."

"It's an easy-to-use solution that gives business users incredible insight into your business."

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

"It has improved the work of our team, thanks to the ability to manage complex models and thanks to the possibility of integration with different needs."

"Our primary use case for this solution is focused on the pharmaceutical business, and we deploy it on-premises, typically for dashboards, sales charts, and cost of production for marketing with solutions like Salesforce."

More Qlik Sense pros

Cons

"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."

"The tool should improve on live data integration for quicker data reflection."

"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."

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

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

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

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

More Looker Studio cons

"This is frustrating because sometimes the finance manager needs to export the report to a PowerPoint."

"Microsoft needs to provide more drivers to connect other data sources in a native way."

"In my opinion, it would be better for the price to be degressive by the user, and we should have a lower, or better unit price if we have more users."

"There could be an integrated AI that can automatically analyze some of your data and highlight or provide suggestions. For example, when you are looking at a data set, it can suggest putting it into a certain type of chart so that you gain different insights or a trend line. You would almost have templates that it would recommend for you."

"One opportunity for improvement would be on the Power Query side. As a consultant, I know Power Query is not the main strength of Power BI. It is not where Power BI shines, but many customers use Power Query to do full ETL workloads for deliverable cookies."

"I have been doing trial and error to figuring out how to do the data analyzing and modeling. There could be some improvement to simplify it."

"The Power Query feature needs to be improved to handle large amounts of data. This feature is also slow for large data transfers making it better to use some kind of script."

"I would like to be able to use SQL properly within the reports and allow multiple people to work on the same report at the same time. If one person is working on it, then it causes issues for anyone else wanting to make reports."

More Microsoft Power BI cons

"Better searching capabilities would be a nice addition."

"Even though the solution is a self-service solution, many non-technical users still struggle to create their reports."

"It would be nice to have a better system for help tickets than a community forum."

"It would be great if decentralized teams would have more features to manage the metadata on the dashboards, setup the specific user access rights and rules to govern incoming and outgoing data sets from/to other teams, and more features to separate the different data process layers (e.g. extraction, transformation [data quality, business rules])."

"Qlik Sense could include additional features for data preparation and integration, making it easier for users to clean, transform, and integrate data from various sources."

"Reload time is a limit since everyone wants real-time data."

"Qlik's data handling could still use some strengthening, flexibility, and overall improvement."

"Qlik dashboards are not friendly with end-users, but they have been enhancing this shorted in some recent releases and next releases hopefully."

More Qlik Sense cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 product is available for free."

"The tool is free."

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

"The solution is free but the Google Looker is expensive."

"The cost of licensing depends on the number of people that are going to be using the reports, and we are satisfied with it at $10 per user."

"All of the licenses are on an annual basis, but Microsoft will amortize it to an extent. If it's five years, they'll include the possible interest they might have the following year. Ideally, their licensing scheme is an annual license, but they make it easier for some of our clients to take a five-year license but package everything inside for them to buy the license for five years."

"Microsoft BI is very cost-effective and this is why we use it."

"Microsoft BI is not expensive. Compared to the price of other BI products, the price is very fair."

"We have enterprise licenses and some of the other tools or features come as a package and others you have to purchase separately."

"Setup is easy, and the cost is economical. You do sometimes need to pay additional costs for third party products which "plug-in" to Microsoft BI."

"The pricing is good. It's pretty competitive because I have worked on a few other tools as well, and Power BI is on the cheaper side."

"It is based on the usage. If you're using it, you pay for it, and if you're not using it, you stop paying for it."

More Microsoft Power BI pricing and cost advice

"Licensing could be cheaper."

"You need to pay 5,000 Norwegian kroner per user. Microsoft Power BI is slightly more expensive than Qlik Sense."

"For personal use, the desktop version of Qlik Sense is absolutely free, and you can share visualizations with others and to a personal cloud space, though limited with storage space."

"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."

"Ultimately, the cost is low, and it implements fast. The limiting factor is how quickly your staff can keep up."

"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."

"The new licensing model is much better."

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

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

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Retailer

Financial Services Firm

13%

Construction Company

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

18%

Construction Company

Manufacturing 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	137
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 ...

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 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 9% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs Looker Studio

Compared 8% of the time

RStudio Connect vs Looker Studio

Compared 8% of the time

Zendesk vs Looker Studio

Compared 7% 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 15% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 10% of the time

Domo vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 6% of the time

QlikView vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 2% of the time

ThoughtSpot vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 1% 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

OpenText Intelligence vs Qlik Sense

Compared 4% of the time

SAP BusinessObjects Business 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

August 2026

Download Looker Studio product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI

August 2026

Download Microsoft Power BI product report

Buyer's Guide

Qlik Sense

August 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

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Salesforce, Plotly and others in Reporting. Updated: August 2026.

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