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Looker Studio vs Sisense comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

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
Ranking in Reporting
11th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sisense
Ranking in Reporting
14th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (19th), Cloud Analytics (4th), Data Visualization (15th), Embedded BI (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Looker Studio is 2.7%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sisense is 2.3%, down from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Reporting
 

Featured Reviews

Srini-Dhanaraj - PeerSpot reviewer
Available for free and can help businesses resolve their data migration problems
It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten. Google Data Studio is a cloud-based tool. With cloud-based tools, there can be two challenges, the first one being associated with the bandwidth of your data strength. If I run a report from my home because of the wi-fi connection, it may give an excellent response. When I run the reports, Google Data Studio develops reports from my home, and because of wi-fi, it works in an excellent manner. When I am on the road or at the wheel, if I use the internet data from my mobile to browse my reports, the performance may not be good, and this issue is not because of the product but because of the bandwidth. The second issue arises when you connect Google Data Studio to a source system to extract the data to do the visualization. If the source system is not responding as quickly as expected, it could be the reason why the report may be printed slowly. Considering the aforementioned aspects, the problem may not be because of Google Data Studio but because of the source system.
Wiboon Thabsuwan - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps businesses save time and offers good integration features
I would say that using Sisense on Linux's platform might not be advantageous for everyone. I am more familiar with Windows than Linux. With Windows, the system performs very fast. Even if your data size consists of like 10,00,00,000 loads or whatever, it works very fast. When using Sisense, it is better to have some people with a very good understanding of Linux. I need more technical people who understand about Linux OS. Only two people would be enough to operate the tool.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Data Studio integrates seamlessly with other Google products, and we can use it with other APIs if we like."
"The product's initial setup phase is very simple."
"The ability to design complex data models and equations."
"The ability to integrate with a great variety of data sources."
"The best thing about the tool is that it allows you to share information easily and dashboards with colleagues and teammates because it's all online. No matter where you are, as long as you have the Internet, you can connect and use these dashboards. Google made good documentation for this tool. There are many examples of how to use and create dashboards and videos on YouTube. So, I think it's easy to learn."
"I find it favorable regarding speed of development, ease of building, and flexibility."
"The solution is free so that is a good feature."
"Valuable features include advanced integrated analysis and easy implementation."
"A very simple setup: Easy to download, install, and updates are pain free."
"Whenever we have an issue or are unsure how to proceed, they manage to simplify the issue and help us execute it in a graceful and scalable way."
"Ability to work with very large data sources without the limitations of Excel."
"ElastiCube Manager is a very easy to use ETL tool, which includes the ability to easily transform raw data into reusable data."
"The Sisense solution was very easy to set up, and its visualizations were effective."
"It has allowed me to move my data to the cloud."
"Support is very responsive and clearly one of the strengths of Sisense. I have always received a fast response and the staff is very helpful."
"Sisense can integrate with multiple sources at one time."
 

Cons

"There is a significant degree of sophistication required to compete with Tableau or Cognos."
"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."
"Insisting on forums, blogs and community outreach in communications, and posting videos on an established calendar would be useful."
"Other tools might be worth considering if you need more advanced features or support for a larger user base."
"There are issues with integration and I encountered limits and warnings, especially with my pivot table size."
"The tool should come up with data modeling layer features that are present in other products like Power BI."
"I would like to see an improvement in the live data connection, specifically making the process faster."
"The initial version we purchased only ran on Windows servers, which was less than ideal for our DevOps team. I believe that has been remedied in the latest release."
"At present there are additional costs involved if we wish to share our data queues within this solution, which we would like to see removed."
"Larger datasets will sometimes give a "Accumulated logs" error when trying to make minor changes. T"
"I would like to see more development and growth for the support of Knowledge Base and Community forums."
"The administrative side of Sisense is a little cumbersome and confusing."
"I would also like to be able to run a bursts of reports based on different field values with PDF output right in the tool, rather than filtering on each field value and generating each PDF manually."
"They should improve the filters to create downloaded data by moving them to the top of the dashboard."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is free but the Google Looker is expensive."
"The cost is quite affordable based on feature analysis."
"The tool is free."
"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."
"This solution is more expensive than Tableau, Qlik and Dundas. It is an expensive tool. They charge $75,000 while Tableau is $45,000."
"Compared to Power BI or Tableau, Sisense is much more expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Educational Organization
8%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
15%
University
7%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
The tool should improve on live data integration for quicker data reflection. Currently, changes in Google Sheets take about three to five minutes to reflect in Looker Studio. Overall, the interfac...
What is your primary use case for Google Data Studio?
I use Looker Studio primarily for dashboard creation and data analytics. I have integrated it with Google Sheets, and I use it for project plan maintenance and data tracking.
What do you like most about Sisense?
The solution's technical support team is good.
What needs improvement with Sisense?
I would like to see an improvement in the live data connection, specifically making the process faster. Additionally, incorporating more self-service capabilities would benefit the product.
What is your primary use case for Sisense?
I was looking into some of our business operations with tow truck companies. I focused on evaluating turnaround times for tow trucks to arrive on-site for accidents and how long it took them to cle...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Data Studio
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Genesys, Shueisha
Ebay, WIX, Wave Accounting, ESPN.com, Magellan Luxury Hotel, Paylogic, Sony, Merck, EDA, One Hour Translation, NASA, Plastic Jungle, Philips, Yahoo
Find out what your peers are saying about Looker Studio vs. Sisense and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.