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Looker Studio vs Microsoft Power BI vs Zoho Analytics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Looker Studio is 2.5%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 14.1%, down from 26.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zoho Analytics is 2.3%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Reporting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Power BI14.1%
Zoho Analytics2.3%
Looker Studio2.5%
Other81.1%
Reporting
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Hemanthreddy Vakiti - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
VR
Data Analyst at Mobolution
Has supported trend analysis and forecasting but needs major fixes in customization and reliability
There are some areas where Zoho Analytics needs improvement compared to Power BI. Uploading and interpreting data inside the interface needs enhancement. While Power BI uses Power Query, an intuitive and powerful tool that allows data manipulation in any way, Zoho Analytics has limitations. I usually prepare data in Excel before uploading it to Zoho Analytics. The charts in Zoho Analytics are not as customizable as in Power BI. While all chart types are available, they can only be modified at a basic level, not an advanced level. Though trend analysis features are provided, creating anything out of the box is challenging.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I am impressed with the tool's scheduling mechanism, refresh mechanism, and different types of charts."
"We previously used Microsoft Power BI, but Google is better."
"I would rate this solution eight or nine out of ten."
"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 find it favorable regarding speed of development, ease of building, and flexibility."
"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."
"Data Studio integrates seamlessly with other Google products, and we can use it with other APIs if we like."
"The integration with Excel and Google Sheets is a valuable feature, making it easy to access and visualize data."
"The dashboard is very nice and it is very simple to understand every single component."
"It is very well integrated with other Microsoft products, including PowerApps and Excel, as well as Access, so it fits well into our workflow."
"The solution's initial setup isn't too complicated."
"We initially used Tableau because our data was an internal data source, and now all of our data is migrated to tool environments, that the Power BI is more comfortable with."
"Being able to show them a visual of the percentages in a pie chart has been very effective."
"Without this solution, the business can’t think of successful operations."
"My advice to other people looking into implementing Power BI is to go for it."
"It is one of the most powerful tools for BI in my experience."
"We moved the data from Zoho Creator to Zoho Analytics and created reports."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its dashboard."
"As a product analyst, one of the best features in Zoho Analytics is its ability to allow stakeholders to access raw data for any kind of metric I've created, significantly reducing my dependency to share data sets repeatedly, saving a lot of time."
"It's a very strong analytics tool."
"The AI called Zia in Zoho Analytics is extremely useful—whenever I build a chart or dashboard, I can generate a summary of insights using this AI tool, which is very convenient for both leadership and manager level teams to understand the data concepts."
"The AI called Zia in Zoho Analytics is extremely useful—whenever I build a chart or dashboard, I can generate a summary of insights using this AI tool, which is very convenient for both leadership and manager level teams to understand the data concepts."
"What I appreciate most about Zoho Analytics is the pivot table functionality, as in the pivot table and scheduler table, if we want data in one report, we can use an SQL query and get data from different modules."
"The front end of this solution including the graph generation using SQL has been most useful."
 

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."
"It's not yet a replacement for a complete BI tool."
"There is a significant degree of sophistication required to compete with Tableau or Cognos."
"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. We are still in the early moments of using this tool, and we need to go deeper to discover some improvements."
"Panels are not as easy to use as other data extraction UIs."
"The challenges with Google Data Studio are associated with the security part, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The tool should improve on live data integration for quicker data reflection."
"What I don't like about this solution is that in order to just watch a dashboard, you need a license."
"The DAX features need some improvement. It's not as easy as Excel. They need more DAX formulas."
"At times, I feel that the system needs improvement in single sign-on, especially for the on-premises side of the tool."
"Sometimes in Power BI, the logic can be challenging to follow."
"The real-time data refresh capabilities is one of the things I had issues with"
"Microsoft Power BI can be confusing, because it has two languages that you need to learn if you want to use it, and this makes it more difficult for nontechnical users."
"While support is okay, they need to improve it a lot."
"Microsoft BI’s integration and visualization could be improved."
"In terms of improvement, they have a limited number of graphs available in their store. They should come up with more graph style forms."
"In terms of improvement, they have a limited number of graphs available in their store. They should come up with more graph style forms. They should have more charts and at the same time, you can't create panels like with Microsoft BA."
"Regarding stability and reliability, Zoho Analytics has multiple bugs. One significant issue is that you cannot create multiple charts with the same name."
"There should be more types of graphics available for use in the reports."
"I find it very difficult to handle more than two subqueries or CTE, as I can only have one subquery in the SQL code."
"Query builder guidance/steps for beginners who need to write actual queries"
"A higher degree of artificial intelligence could be included in this solution. The data and overall insights could be improved."
"The customer service and support for this solution could be improved by faster response times."
 

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 cost is quite affordable based on feature analysis."
"The product is available for free."
"The tool is free."
"The solution is free but the Google Looker is expensive."
"We have a professional license for Microsoft BI and the price is fair."
"Both cost-wise and implementation-wise, this product is a good choice."
"It's straightforward licensing."
"Power BI premium is really expensive for our market. A lot of small and medium companies would like to purchase it, but they can't afford it."
"I would advise that Microsoft BI products are rightly priced and the licensing is easy to follow and to fulfill."
"Pricing, that's where Microsoft beats Tableau. It is priced much cheaper."
"You don't need a license for development, but if you want to publish to external users, you need a license. The licensing is very costly, but I think that since the advantages and benefits of Power BI are so high, people are willing to pay. I can't blame them."
"Its price is very low. It is like $10 per user, per month. The clients pay for their own licenses. It is not on us. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees. That's the beauty. With other systems, you need to spend a couple of thousand dollars just to get started, and then you need to spend $500 per year for the license, which becomes much more costly. You have a system here where for $120 to $140 a year, you can start with two people and start developing and deploying. You can see why the cost difference is huge, especially when you are on a low scale, like us, and you're not building something very huge."
"The product's licensing is reasonable."
"An exact ROI is hard to calculate. However, we have definitely made sales that would have been much harder, or unlikely, as a result of the speed with which we were able to prepare comprehensive analysis."
"Zoho Analytics costs $ 4,200 per month, billed yearly."
"I would recommend looking at your usage and whether the Zoho One license model would work for your organisation. It is very cost effective if you use other Zoho tools."
"It is very reasonable, and it gives me a good return on investment. Compared to other tools, it is the best choice in terms of pricing."
"For one license the pricing is about $35 a user."
"This solution is reasonable as far as pricing is concerned."
"I rate the tool's pricing seven out of ten. The licensing costs are yearly."
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Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business136
Midsize Enterprise59
Large Enterprise171
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise4
 

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 ...
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 ...
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...
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...
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...
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 ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zoho Analytics?
Compared to other analytic tools, Zoho Analytics is cost-effective. The annual subscription cost of Zoho Analytics is...
What needs improvement with Zoho Analytics?
For our strategic initiatives, the AI functionality is not useful because it cannot provide requirement-specific insi...
What is your primary use case for Zoho Analytics?
We are using an HRMS tool, Zoho People. We use automations for our people's convenience. We use automations in Zoho P...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

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
Suzuki, American Pacific Mortgage, KPMG, Air Canada, University of Michigan, BricozOr, WorldWide Express, The University of Melbourne, Novartis, SAIC
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Salesforce, Domo and others in Reporting. Updated: May 2026.
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