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Google Data Studio pros and cons

Vendor: Google
4.0 out of 5

Pros & Cons summary

Buyer's Guide

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Technical support is highly praised, enhancing the user experience significantly.
Empowering employees to make informed decisions efficiently contributes to positive ROI.
Looker transforms companies' data usage, enabling insightful questions to be answered.
Exceptional cost-efficiency stands out, outperforming multi-million budget spending.
Provides valuable business visualizations and analytical tools, such as graphs and charts.

CONS

There have been minor bugs, including a security issue, though it did not impact users.
Visualization controls need improvement to compete with Tableau.
Pricing can be very high, potentially limiting for smaller companies.
Looker depends heavily on the database's performance, causing issues with underperforming databases.
Lack of connection to Excel and REST APIs limits data source diversity, hampering use cases.
 

Google Data Studio Pros review quotes

Hemanthreddy Vakiti - PeerSpot reviewer
Data engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Apr 1, 2026
Since we brought Looker into our project, it has improved data visibility and enabled faster interaction between us and our client.
Anton Nenov - PeerSpot reviewer
Credit Risk Manager at ITF Group JSC
Oct 31, 2023
It is a pretty stable solution because it is a cloud-based product.
Dmitri Solodovnik - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Intelligence Team Lead at Oxagile
Oct 18, 2023
I would rate the stability a ten out of ten. I didn't face any issues with stability.
Learn what your peers think about Google Data Studio. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2026.
894,807 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Adedayo Iyanda - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Intelligence Analyst || Data Engineer at Traction Apps
Nov 1, 2023
It's quite effortless to navigate through various applications and review their updated data in real-time.
Abhishek Swain - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer at Adaequare
Nov 7, 2023
The product is easy to use.
Luiz Cesar Gosi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Analytics Engineer at TalkDesk
Oct 19, 2023
We can centralize all our data models.
Subramani R - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Data Engineer at PayPal
Oct 5, 2022
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.
reviewer1856880 - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President Engineering at a pharma/biotech company with 5,001-10,000 employees
May 12, 2022
From a developer's perspective, the way the functionality's being handled is great.
reviewer2143233 - PeerSpot reviewer
Student at a university with 501-1,000 employees
Dec 26, 2023
With Looker, I have experienced benefits in terms of usability and shareability.
reviewer1198944 - PeerSpot reviewer
PhD/ Doctorial Candidate: Electric-/Electronics-Development at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
Mar 2, 2022
The stability of Looker has been good since I have been using it. However, it depends on what components are being used.
 

Google Data Studio Cons review quotes

Hemanthreddy Vakiti - PeerSpot reviewer
Data engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Apr 1, 2026
One thing is that Looker is not user-friendly to non-technical users.
Anton Nenov - PeerSpot reviewer
Credit Risk Manager at ITF Group JSC
Oct 31, 2023
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.
Dmitri Solodovnik - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Intelligence Team Lead at Oxagile
Oct 18, 2023
Integrations with other BI tools could be better.
Learn what your peers think about Google Data Studio. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2026.
894,807 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Adedayo Iyanda - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Intelligence Analyst || Data Engineer at Traction Apps
Nov 1, 2023
Stability needs improvement.
Abhishek Swain - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer at Adaequare
Nov 7, 2023
The product does not have documented material.
Luiz Cesar Gosi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Analytics Engineer at TalkDesk
Oct 19, 2023
The integration with different databases must be improved.
Subramani R - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Data Engineer at PayPal
Oct 5, 2022
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.
reviewer1856880 - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President Engineering at a pharma/biotech company with 5,001-10,000 employees
May 12, 2022
It needs to be more user-friendly.
reviewer2143233 - PeerSpot reviewer
Student at a university with 501-1,000 employees
Dec 26, 2023
The visualization capability of the product is limited.
reviewer1198944 - PeerSpot reviewer
PhD/ Doctorial Candidate: Electric-/Electronics-Development at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
Mar 2, 2022
Looker depends on the database components. For example, if you have a underperforming database, then you likely will have a poor performance experience.