Looker vs. Looker Studio

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Looker
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Looker is a BI application with an analytics-oriented application server that sits on top of relational data stores. It includes an end-user interface for exploring data, a reusable development paradigm for data discovery, and an API for supporting data in other systems.N/A
Looker Studio
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Looker Studio is a data visualization platform that transforms data into meaningful presentations and dashboards with customized reporting tools.
$9
per month per user per project
Pricing
LookerLooker Studio
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Looker Studio Pro
$9
per month per user per project
Looker Studio
No charge
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
LookerLooker Studio
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional DetailsMust contact sales team for pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
LookerLooker Studio
Considered Both Products
Looker
Chose Looker
Google Looker Studio is an online tool for converting data into customizable, informative reports and dashboards. It is a free tool that turns performance data into informative, easy-to-read, easy-to-share, and fully customizable dashboards & reports. Google Looker Studio turns …
Chose Looker
Looker works and exists in the Google ecosystem. If you are a Google Cloud Platform user, Looker is a no brainer. There is also Looker Studio, the small (free) brother with less features which is basically a report only viewer/creator. The reason we choose Looker is because can …
Chose Looker
The dev/production environment distinction is constructive. Before, in Data Studio, all changes had to be made, which was very inefficient and risky as far as version control goes. Having a more centralized and organized space for all our data visualization is more helpful than …
Chose Looker
Looker provides really excellent customer service in comparison to other similar products. The sharing aspect of Looker is also a big plus, which allows multiple users to access the data at the same time. We have also found it to stand out among competitors with its dashboard …
Chose Looker
Unfortunately, I was not in charge of the decision to select Looker as it was before my time. I can see why the decision was made as I do see the potential. We have felt the need to supplement Looker with another free tool and, if our integrations weren't so deep and our …
Looker Studio
Chose Looker Studio
The free version of Looker Studio is still better than the leading enterprise-embedded BI tools, despite its weaknesses. The leading embedded BI platforms have terrible visualizations that can be spotted a mile away. They are also primarily locked to a grid, making it very hard …
Chose Looker Studio
Looker Studio is great for free, simple Google-centric dashboards, while Power BI offers strong Microsoft integration, AI, and deep data prep (Power Query/DAX) for corporate users. Tableau excels in advanced visual exploration for complex data, though often much pricier. Fullst…
Chose Looker Studio
Google Data Studio is widely available and accessible, can be shared easily, and it only takes 20-30 min to build a rudimentary dashboard. It has very little setup and does not rely on internal data architecture and development. For later development purposes, Tableau, Power …
Chose Looker Studio
This is starting to feel redundant but we just Google Data Studio to supplement the areas that are lacking in our other BI tools. Because it's free it's an easy decision to make. It does not allow us the deep diving that we get with others but is often simpler to use, more …
Features
LookerLooker Studio
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
7.6
133 Ratings
7% below category average
Looker Studio
7.1
62 Ratings
13% below category average
Pixel Perfect reports6.7109 Ratings6.743 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.4132 Ratings7.461 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates7.6114 Ratings7.359 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
7.1
131 Ratings
12% below category average
Looker Studio
7.7
61 Ratings
1% below category average
Drill-down analysis6.8127 Ratings7.251 Ratings
Formatting capabilities6.9129 Ratings7.257 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages6.155 Ratings6.929 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration8.8130 Ratings9.759 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.1
127 Ratings
2% below category average
Looker Studio
8.2
60 Ratings
0% above category average
Publish to Web7.8105 Ratings8.353 Ratings
Publish to PDF8.2112 Ratings8.853 Ratings
Report Versioning7.983 Ratings8.139 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling8.5109 Ratings7.942 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings7.624 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Looker
6.6
127 Ratings
19% below category average
Looker Studio
6.6
60 Ratings
16% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)7.7123 Ratings7.460 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization7.5109 Ratings7.857 Ratings
Predictive Analytics4.66 Ratings5.230 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings6.06 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Looker
7.5
127 Ratings
12% below category average
Looker Studio
-
Ratings
Multi-User Support (named login)7.9119 Ratings00 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model7.4104 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)7.4121 Ratings00 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control7.459 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Looker
5.4
94 Ratings
36% below category average
Looker Studio
-
Ratings
Responsive Design for Web Access5.690 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Application5.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile6.184 Ratings00 Ratings
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LookerLooker Studio
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Reveal
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Score 9.8 out of 10
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User Ratings
LookerLooker Studio
Likelihood to Recommend
8.3
(132 ratings)
8.7
(56 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.3
(8 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(12 ratings)
8.5
(7 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
6.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(14 ratings)
6.7
(10 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Professional Services
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
LookerLooker Studio
Likelihood to Recommend
Google
When data drives potential for new orders, Looker earns its place in our tech stack. If, on the other hand, we are hoping for pipeline generation, Looker is useful if you are willing to repeatedly go check customer utilizations .... it is not appropriate if you are hoping to automate data analysis for this purpose.
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Google
Visualizing cross-channel campaign performance can blend data from a few different sources to compare performance metrics like spend, clicks, and conversions side-by-side in a single view, which helps in quick budget reallocation decisions. When dealing with massive volumes of data (millions of rows) or highly complex queries, Looker Studio dashboards can become slow, laggy, or even crash. Performance issues are a frequent complaint when working with large datasets, making it unsuitable for enterprise-level companies
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Pros
Google
  • Show visited pages - sessions, pageviews - which programs are viewed the most.
  • Displays session source/medium views to see where users are coming from.
  • It shows the video titles, URLs, and event counts so we can monitor the performance of our videos.
  • It gives a graphic face to the numbers, such as using bar charts, pie graphs, and other charts to show user trends or which channels are driving engagement.
  • Our clients like to see the top pages visited for a month.
  • I like the drop-and-drag approach, and building charts is a little easier than it was before.
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Google
  • Breath of data - the number of ways to interrogate the data is endless, and the options to view metrics alongside each other make for comprehensive datasets.
  • Data visualisation and customisation - the options for presenting data and separating out across pages allow for clean visuals and segmented information.
  • Easy shareability/usability - a quick and simple tool to introduce colleagues to, and easy to grant access for them to be able to view the data, without having to understand the setup itself.
Read full review
Cons
Google
  • Documentation is scarce, and very difficult to find when you need it.
  • Pricing is unclear, particularly as you look to scale your reports across the business.
  • Data from other sources is not represented in the system as well as first party Google services.
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Google
  • It needs better handling of complex logic. We often need workarounds to perform complex custom calculations, and it can be really unpleasant at times.
  • Felt it got slow with a larger data set, and in one minor report, we had to set up time filters so that calculations during spikes could be traced more quickly.
  • Compare to competition they need to improve with notification things.
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Likelihood to Renew
Google
I give it this rating because it deems as effective, I am able to complete majority of my tasks using this app. It is very helpful when analyzing the data provided and shown in the app and it's just overall a great app for Operational use, despite the small hiccups it has (live data).
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Google
It is the simplest and least expensive way for us to automate our reporting at this time. I like the ability to customize literally everything about each report, and the ability to send out reports automatically in emails. The only issue we have been having recently is a technical glitch in the automatic email report. Sadly, there is almost no support for this tool from Google, but is also free, so that is important to take into consideration
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Usability
Google
Looker is relatively easy to use, even as it is set up. The customers for the front-end only have issues with the initial setup for looker ml creations. Other "looks" are relatively easy to set up, depending on the ETL and the data which is coming into Looker on a regular basis.
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Google
Looker Studio is easy to use, and it offers a sufficient variety of predefined visualizations to choose from. It's easy for us, and anyone can set up basic reporting without extensive data visualization skills. The interface layout is easy to understand, and it doesn't take long to get used to.
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Reliability and Availability
Google
No objections
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Google
No answers on this topic
Performance
Google
Somehow resources heavy, both on server and client. I recommned at least 50Mbs data rate and high performance desktop comouter to be abke to run comolex tasks and configure larger amount of data. On the other hand, the client does not need to worry when viewing, the performance is usually ok
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Google
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Google
Never had to work with support for issues. Any questions we had, they would respond promptly and clearly. The one-time setup was easy, by reading documentation. If the feature is not supported, they will add a feature request. In this case, LDAP support was requested over OKTA. They are looking into it.
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Google
I give it a lower support rating because it seems like our Dev team hasn't gotten the support they need to set up our database to connect. Seems like we hit a roadblock and the project got put on pause for dev. That sucks for me because it is harder to get the dev team to focus on it if they don't get the help they need to set it up.
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Implementation Rating
Google
Very satisfied, easy to implement
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Google
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Google
Looker Studio, you can easily report on data from various sources without programming. Looker Studio is available at no charge for creators and report viewers. Enterprise customers who upgrade to Looker Studio Pro will receive support and expanded administrative features, including team content management. So it's good.
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Google
Looker Studio is far easier to implement, stand up, and learn. The interface is simpler and user-friendly for various levels of data visualization/analysis knowledge and experience. The biggest benefit of Looker Studio, however, is its ease of connection to GA data and speed. Furthermore, since it is an online program/tool, it requires less CPU/battery/storage on the user's device.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Google
Perfect price to performance
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Google
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Google
  • Looker has a poignant impact on our business's ROI objectives. As an advertising exchange we have specific goals for daily requests and fill, and having premade Looks to monitor this is an integral piece of our operational capability
  • To facilitate an efficient monthly billing cycle in our organization, Looker is essential to track estimated revenue and impression delivery by publisher. Without the Looks we have set up, we would spend considerably more time and effort segmenting revenue by vertical.
  • Looker's unique value proposition is making analytical tools more digestible to people without conventional analytical experience. Other competing tools like Tableau require considerably more training and context to successfully use, and the ability to easily plot different visualizations is one of its greatest selling points.
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Google
  • Free, so the only investment is time
  • Because it doesn't have native support of non-Google sources, it can cost more money than Tableau
  • The time spent formatting the templates or building connectors can have a negative impact on ROI
  • As a agency, charging for the reporting service is profitable after the first month or two after building the dashboard.
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ScreenShots

Looker Screenshots

Screenshot of a Looker dashboard with a geo chart.