Looker vs Sisense comparison

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Looker

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 29, 2025

Sisense and Looker both compete in the business intelligence space. Looker seems to have the upper hand due to its advanced features and powerful data modeling language, despite its higher cost.

Features: Sisense is known for its ease of use, fast implementation, and ability to seamlessly combine multiple data sources. Its simplicity and range of visualizations cater to quick deployments without requiring technical expertise. Looker is praised for its flexibility and powerful data modeling capabilities via LookML, which enables sophisticated data manipulation and sharing, especially for SQL-experienced users looking to democratize data access.

Room for Improvement: Sisense could enhance its support for statistical packages and intricate data cubes that impact complex data blending capabilities. Users express a need for more customization options and improved handling of larger datasets. Looker, while strong in advanced analytics, could improve data source integration, visualization options, and user accessibility, offering more intuitive features for non-technical users and managing interface complexity for improved ease of use.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Sisense stands out with options for on-premises, private, and public cloud deployments, complemented by exceptional customer service and technical support that are both responsive and helpful. Looker primarily operates in the public cloud and requires strong technical knowledge for deployment. While offering customer support, some users feel that response times and problem resolution could be more efficient.

Pricing and ROI: Sisense is competitively priced, offering value for small to mid-sized businesses but is considered expensive compared to alternatives like Tableau and Power BI. Its ROI is viewed positively, with users noting time savings and improved reporting. Looker, while possibly costly for smaller businesses, justifies its expense with efficiency and advanced capabilities attractive to larger, data-intensive organizations. Pricing varies widely, typically aligning with user numbers and specific needs.

To learn more, read our detailed Looker vs. Sisense Report (Updated: December 2025).

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Looker vs. Sisense

December 2025

Helped 880,255 peers since 2012

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

Ranking in Embedded BI

9th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Sisense

Ranking in Embedded BI

7th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (17th), Cloud Analytics (5th), Reporting (14th), Data Visualization (13th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Embedded BI category, the mindshare of Looker is 6.4%, down from 9.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sisense is 5.9%, up from 6.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Embedded BI Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Sisense	5.9%
Looker	6.4%
Other	87.7%

Embedded BI

Featured Reviews

Kishore Jhunjhunwala

Sr Analytics Consultant at a outsourcing company 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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Vishal Halbe

System Integration Specialist at a non-profit with self employed

Has improved project turnaround time with customizable dashboards and faster data delivery to stakeholders

Sisense has some limitations, especially in rendering tables or graphs. For example, if you want to perform custom sorting or searching based on multiple columns, that becomes quite tricky. Providing more control over how the data is sorted or filtered would be quite useful. Additionally, it could provide more connectors to integrate with emerging different data sources to exponentially increase the amount of data it can handle. Sisense should provide more support for CI/CD, as we found the CI/CD approach quite limited, which is something that can be worked on. Some data scientists suggested more features can be offered by providing different models for data analytics. Sisense can improve by adding more features for handling complex schemas and making the pricing straightforward. The dashboarding features are good enough, but additional features could make it even more attractive. Also, CI/CD support or source control support would be really helpful.

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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

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

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

"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."

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

"We can centralize all our data models."

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

"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

"We monetize Sisense to our customers so they can transform it into their application, and it works as a native application."

"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."

"No issues with stability. It is a very stable solution."

"Sisense positively impacts our organization by speeding up the process of getting and presenting the data to customers or stakeholders, which normally takes a lot of time due to curation and presentation efforts."

"We like that this solution allows us to use data cubes to set up specific visualizations."

"The best part about this solution is how easy it is to mash up the data from many sources. Sisense is fast compared to other solutions."

"Ability to work with very large data sources without the limitations of Excel."

More Sisense pros

Cons

"The product does not have documented material."

"The visualization capability of the product is limited."

"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."

"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."

"The integration with different databases must be improved."

"Integrations with other BI tools could be better."

"It needs to be more user-friendly."

"Stability needs improvement."

"Sisense has some limitations, especially in rendering tables or graphs. For example, if you want to perform custom sorting or searching based on multiple columns, that becomes quite tricky."

"I would like to see more development and growth for the support of Knowledge Base and Community forums."

"The solution's setup process could be easier."

"They should improve the filters to create downloaded data by moving them to the top of the dashboard."

"I would say that using Sisense on Linux's platform might not be advantageous for everyone."

"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."

"I would like Sisense to improve its performance, particularly when we are dealing with large-scale data."

"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."

More Sisense cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is cheap."

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

"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."

"Compared to Power BI or Tableau, Sisense is much more expensive."

"This solution is more expensive than Tableau, Qlik and Dundas. It is an expensive tool. They charge $75,000 while Tableau is $45,000."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

10%

Retailer

Media Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	28
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	11

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Looker?

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

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...

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, ...

What needs improvement with Sisense?

What is your primary use case for Sisense?

Sisense was used for one of our clients to enable analytics and dashboards for their applications, which were supposed to get the data from different partners for that specific client. Sisense is w...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sisense?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing shows that pricing is a little bit higher when compared to other applications, but that justifies the use case.

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Product Reports

Download Looker product report

Looker

January 2026

Download Sisense product report

December 2025

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

Sisense is an end-to-end business analytics software that enables users to easily prepare and analyze large, complex datasets. Sisense’s Single-Stack BI software includes data preparation, data management, analysis, visualization and reporting capabilities.

Sample Customers

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

Ebay, WIX, Wave Accounting, ESPN.com, Magellan Luxury Hotel, Paylogic, Sony, Merck, EDA, One Hour Translation, NASA, Plastic Jungle, Philips, Yahoo