Looker vs Looker Studio comparison

The compared Looker and Looker Studio solutions aren't in the same category. Looker is ranked #6 in EBT , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 8.3% mindshare in the category. Looker Studio is ranked #9 in RT , with an average rating of 7.9, and holds a 3.0% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Looker users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 81% of Looker Studio users who would recommend it.

Looker

Read 19 Looker reviews

3,046 Views
1,005 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Looker Studio

Read 14 Looker Studio reviews

2,053 Views
883 Comparison Views

81% willing to recommend

Looker

Looker Studio

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Looker and Looker Studio based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Salesforce, Qlik, MicroStrategy and others in Embedded BI.

To learn more, read our detailed Embedded BI Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Embedded BI

July 2025

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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:

Categories and Ranking

Looker

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Embedded BI (6th)

Looker Studio

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Reporting (9th)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Looker is designed for Embedded BI and holds a mindshare of 8.3%, down 11.7% compared to last year.
Looker Studio, on the other hand, focuses on Reporting, holds 3.0% mindshare, up 2.5% since last year.

Embedded BI

Reporting

Featured Reviews

Kishore Jhunjhunwala

Sr Analytics Consultant at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees

A cloud solution for operational reporting but is expensive

Some basic feature that is available in other reporting tools is missing. Looker has the ability to show more than 5,000 rows for operational reporting. Some reporting tools allow users to scroll down to see more than 5,000 rows, but in Looker, you have to download the entire dataset. Looker should consider adding a scroll-down option to allow users to view large datasets on screen without downloading them. Looker has some options for granting users access as viewers. However, viewers cannot download the entire dataset. Only superusers can download the whole dataset on the Explore screen. This is a big limitation, as you cannot give any user viewer access. You can give access to superuser access, which is a cost to the company.

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Vijay Subramanyam

Delivery Head at cblsolutions

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"With Looker, I have experienced benefits in terms of usability and shareability."

"It's quite effortless to navigate through various applications and review their updated data in real-time."

"The product is easy to use."

"From a developer's perspective, the way the functionality's being handled is great."

"I would rate the stability a ten out of ten. I didn't face any issues with stability."

"It is a pretty stable solution because it is a cloud-based product."

"The stability of Looker has been good since I have been using it. However, it depends on what components are being used."

"Looker allows you to generate the most optimal SQL queries in a DC through UI actions. We had signed a contract with Google Cloud to use BigQuery. That was the primary reason we adopted Looker. It works better with BigQuery than any other BI platform. We also like how this tool was developed. It was designed with an eye toward microservices architecture."

More Looker pros

"The ability to integrate with a great variety of data sources."

"The ability to design complex data models and equations."

"Looker's ability to perform aggregation before visualization allows for effective data slicing and dicing."

"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."

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

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

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

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

More Looker Studio pros

Cons

"Stability needs improvement."

"The visualization capability of the product is limited."

"It needs to be more user-friendly."

"Integrations with other BI tools could be better."

"The product does not have documented material."

"The integration with different databases must be improved."

"The main area of concern in Looker is probably related to blending the data from the different sources, including the data present internally in the company and on the cloud."

"Looker doesn't connect to Excel, which is a huge disappointment because a lot of data is presented in Excel. Also, it can't consume data directly from REST APIs, which is necessary. Looker needs to expand its horizons when it comes to data sources. The inability to connect to different data sources is hampering our use cases. Currently, it only has an ODBC connection that connects to a database. It needs to connect to other data sources, such as Excel, APIs, and different platforms."

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

"It's not yet a replacement for a complete BI tool."

"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."

"From the perspective of infrastructure, I cannot provide a valuable opinion on the ease of use and customization options of Looker Studio."

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

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

"The performance of Looker needs improvement, particularly the report loading time, which is critical for business users."

"The challenges with Google Data Studio are associated with the security part, making it an area where improvements are required."

More Looker Studio cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's not cheap, but it's not expensive for big companies."

"I do not have to make any payments to use the solution."

"The price of Looker usually depends on the solution's provider, but it is usually cheaper than the other products in the market. Looker is offered at different prices for different companies."

"Looker is expensive and could be made better by reducing it."

"It is cheap."

"The tool is free."

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

"The product is available for free."

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

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Retailer

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Looker?

With Looker, I have experienced benefits in terms of usability and shareability.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Looker?

I do not have to make any payments to use the solution. In the beginning, Looker may work fine for its users. If advanced users who have experience with BI tools use Looker, then they may find it t...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Looker?

The visualization capability of the product is limited. From an improvement perspective, the product should have more visualization capability. I can't clean data in Looker, and if I try to do it, ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Google Data Studio?

From the perspective of infrastructure, I cannot provide a valuable opinion on the ease of use and customization options of Looker Studio. I can ask our designers how they feel since they have expe...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Google Data Studio?

We use Looker and Looker Studio, as Looker licenses Looker Studio for data presentation and reporting. With GCP, we use Cloud Functions, Cloud Run, Kubernetes, and we utilize BigQuery extensively. ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Databricks vs Looker

Compared 17% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Looker

Compared 12% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Looker

Compared 11% of the time

Qlik Sense vs Looker

Compared 10% of the time

More Looker Competitors

Amazon QuickSight vs Looker Studio

Compared 43% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Looker Studio

Compared 16% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Looker Studio

Compared 7% of the time

IBM Cognos vs Looker Studio

Compared 4% of the time

More Looker Studio Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Looker

August 2025

Download Looker product report

Buyer's Guide

Looker Studio

August 2025

Download Looker Studio product report

Also Known As

No data available

Data Studio

Overview

Looker is a powerful data analytics platform that empowers businesses to explore and analyze their data in real time.

With its intuitive interface and robust features, Looker enables users to easily create and share interactive dashboards, reports, and visualizations.

The product's advanced data modeling capabilities and seamless integration with popular data sources make it a top choice for organizations looking to gain valuable insights from their data.

Google

Google Looker Studio is a free tool designed to help users create visually appealing reports and dashboards, making data easier to understand. It allows you to connect to various data sources such as Google Analytics, Facebook Ads, and spreadsheets. With Looker Studio, you can create charts and graphs to showcase trends and comparisons, build comprehensive dashboards that provide an overview of your data, and customize reports to match your brand or preferences. Additionally, you can share your reports online or export them as PDFs for wider distribution.

Google

Sample Customers

Yahoo!, Etsy, Kohler, Hipcamp, Hubspot, Kickstarter, Venmo, Dollar Shave Club, 600+ customer

Genesys, Shueisha

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