Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Looker Studio vs Qlik Sense 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Looker Studio
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (8th)
Qlik Sense
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
120
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (4th), Embedded BI (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Looker Studio is designed for Reporting and holds a mindshare of 3.0%, up 2.4% compared to last year.
Qlik Sense, on the other hand, focuses on Data Visualization, holds 7.4% mindshare, down 8.7% since last year.
Reporting Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Looker Studio3.0%
Microsoft Power BI24.3%
Tableau Enterprise20.6%
Other52.099999999999994%
Reporting
Data Visualization Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Qlik Sense7.4%
Tableau Enterprise20.6%
Apache Superset9.3%
Other62.7%
Data Visualization
 

Featured Reviews

Vijay Subramanyam - PeerSpot reviewer
The ability to perform aggregation before visualization allows for effective data slicing and dicing
Looker's ability to perform aggregation before visualization allows for effective data slicing and dicing. The seamless integration with Excel and Google Sheets and custom filter creation features facilitate detailed trend reports and analysis. Looker has significantly improved productivity by reducing the time spent on creating summary reports from weeks to a day.
Hasan ÖZ - PeerSpot reviewer
Interactive visualization improves decision-making for managers
Actually, I don't have any specific ideas. The last time I built a report for the IT team to monitor their process was about a year ago. They received requirements and tracked progress, measuring how they processed tasks. Power BI offers better pricing compared to Qlik Sense. Qlik Sense has better performance, particularly in its archival system. However, Power BI has better visualizations and interactions with updates in 2023 that provide ease of use. Power BI is more user-friendly than Qlik Sense.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The integration with Excel and Google Sheets is a valuable feature, making it easy to access and visualize data."
"Valuable features include advanced integrated analysis and easy implementation."
"The solution is free so that is a good feature."
"The ability to integrate with a great variety of data sources."
"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."
"The product's initial setup phase is very simple."
"Data Studio integrates seamlessly with other Google products, and we can use it with other APIs if we like."
"Looker's ability to perform aggregation before visualization allows for effective data slicing and dicing."
"Time-saving efficiencies have translated into genuine bottom-line improvements via the reduction in FTE."
"For a deployment scenario, Qlik Sense is also very easy to use. I can start development from any platform, on-premise or cloud, and continue from where I left off."
"It has high performance when interacting with dashboards and reports."
"The integration with R & Python for predictive modeling, and possibly machine learning in the future, is very valuable."
"Quick reporting."
"Qlik Sense brings in the concept of shared libraries where one user can create custom dimensions (even with drill-down functionality), measures, and even visualizations and save it to the "Master Items," from which the other users can simply drag and drop to use it for their analysis."
"What I found most valuable in Qlik Sense is its flexibility. It's a very flexible tool, and it has a lot of capabilities compared to Tableau and Power BI. In Qlik Sense, you can take data from any of the systems, and you can do data transformation, prepare the data, then present your KPIs. Data transformation isn't present in Tableau, Power BI, and other tools. In Qlik Sense, you're able to get the data and directly present that data. The presentation layer is also very good in Qlik Sense. My company is very happy with this tool."
"The drag and drop UI has been the most useful to me."
 

Cons

"Stability and scalability an be improved for a full ten."
"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."
"The tool should come up with data modeling layer features that are present in other products like Power BI."
"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."
"It's not yet a replacement for a complete BI tool."
"Ability for the administrator to approve Community Sheets in the QMC and then move them into base sheets."
"A valuable improvement for this solution would be the enabling of us to host dashboards for our customers."
"There are some tools like Alteryx, which are used for data preparation. These features can be built into Qlik to make the process smoother."
"Ultra-customization: It needs no limits on which charts can have x amount of dimensions, y amount of measures, z amount of color expressions, etc."
"It needs continued improvement on its visualizations and content customization."
"Even though a huge set of learning material is available, anyone starting his/her journey on learning the software doesn't even know where to start it. The so-called Continous Classroom service is not cheap, but there are many free tutorials, they are not sorted or enlisted adequately though."
"In my opinion, collaborative development of the Qlik Apps is a bit tricky and difficult in the Qlik Sense Cloud."
"The QMC needs more work. Some of the features should be available directly from the hub. Too many duplicates/publish. Intelli-sense when loading a stored qvd would help so much with remembering column names. The pop-up windows are too small when working in the QMC."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 solution is free but the Google Looker is expensive."
"The tool is free."
"The product is available for free."
"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."
"Understand the break over price point for switching to the Enterprise license."
"Qlik Sense is pretty good in terms of price."
"The new licensing model is much better."
"Ultimately, the cost is low, and it implements fast. The limiting factor is how quickly your staff can keep up."
"Start small with tokens. You can always buy more."
"The solution is worth it."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Reporting solutions are best for your needs.
867,445 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise40
Large Enterprise83
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Google Data Studio?
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, all...
What needs improvement with Google Data Studio?
We are aware that there are areas in Looker Studio that could be improved. Out of the box, if you don't utilize a template or create a template, which can take significant time, it's not the most u...
What is your primary use case for Google Data Studio?
Regarding the product, I was doing research for a client in the LMS industry. I was seeing what else was out there and why certain things were pulling for certain reasons. I wouldn't say I'm techni...
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 Sense, Power BI, OBIEE, Tableau, etc. I have recently started using Cognos Enter...
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 would recommend as follows: 1) If you have legacies of SAP, Oracle - look for SAP...
What do you like most about Qlik Sense?
The most valuable features of Qlik Sense are its speed and seamless development of web technologies.
 

Also Known As

Data Studio
QlikSense
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Genesys, Shueisha
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 Looker Studio vs. Qlik Sense and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
867,445 professionals have used our research since 2012.