Looker Studio Reviews

Name: Looker Studio
Brand: Google
Rating: 3.9 (12 reviews)

3.9 out of 5

12 reviews
85% willing to recommend

302 followers

What is Looker Studio?

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.

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Looker Studio is the #11 ranked solution in top Reporting Tools. PeerSpot users give Looker Studio an average rating of 7.8 out of 10. Looker Studio is most commonly compared to Microsoft Power BI: Looker Studio vs Microsoft Power BI. Looker Studio is popular among the large enterprise segment, accounting for 59% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a computer software company, accounting for 14% of all views.

Helped 841,164 peers since 2012

Featured Looker Studio reviews

Srini-Dhanaraj

Founder & CEO at imfine.club

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.

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Vijay Subramanyam

Delivery Head at cblsolutions

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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Dmitriy Yugin

Senior Data/Web Analyst at Raiffeisen Bank

The tool has a lot of room for improvement. It's not very professional and allows for only simple tasks like indicating KPIs or quick calculations. It lacks a good calculation-based language like Power BI's DAX, making it less suitable for professional use. Additionally, the variety of visualization tools is limited, and customization options are restricted.

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Looker Studio mindshare

As of March 2025, the mindshare of Looker Studio in the Reporting category stands at 2.4%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year, according to calculations based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Reporting

PeerAnalyst reports based on Looker Studio reviews

Type	Title	Date
Category	Reporting	Mar 9, 2025	Download
Product	Reviews, tips, and advice from real users	Mar 9, 2025	Download
Comparison	Looker Studio vs Microsoft Power BI	Mar 9, 2025	Download
Comparison	Looker Studio vs Tableau	Mar 9, 2025	Download
Comparison	Looker Studio vs Oracle OBIEE	Mar 9, 2025	Download

Title	Rating	Mindshare	Recommending
Microsoft Power BI	4.0	27.3%	93%	319 interviews Add to research
Tableau	4.2	23.4%	89%	295 interviews Add to research

Valuable Features

Looker Studio excels in collaboration, seamless data integration, and ease of use. Users appreciate its ability to connect with numerous data sources, like Excel and Google Sheets, enabling complex model creation and visual analysis. Its scheduling and refreshing mechanisms enhance productivity. The platform’s online dashboards facilitate sharing and teamwork. With Google documentation and instructional videos, learning is straightforward. Its flexibility in data management and visualization increases efficiency and reduces report generation time significantly.

"The integration with Excel and Google Sheets is a valuable feature, making it easy to access and visualize data."
"Looker's ability to perform aggregation before visualization allows for effective data slicing and dicing."
"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."

Room for Improvement

Looker Studio can improve its usability, stability, and scalability. The tool requires advanced data extraction knowledge and lacks features like data modeling found in Power BI. Integration issues and customization limitations exist, and there are challenges with live data reflection and report loading times. Users express the need for better graphing capabilities with larger datasets. There is room for enhancement in security aspects and more professional functionalities, particularly in calculation-based languages and visualization tools.

"The tool should improve on live data integration for quicker data reflection."
"The performance of Looker needs improvement, particularly the report loading time, which is critical for business users."
"The tool has a lot of room for improvement. It's not very professional and allows for only simple tasks like indicating KPIs or quick calculations. It lacks a good calculation-based language like Power BI's DAX, making it less suitable for professional use. Additionally, the variety of visualization tools is limited, and customization options are restricted."

Pricing

Looker Studio is recognized by enterprise users for being a free tool, but considerations arise with integration and data handling costs. Some find the solution affordable based on features, while others highlight that comprehensive data source connections may require investment in technical resources like DevOps or data teams. Google Looker, a related product, is noted as expensive, adding complexity to total investment for comprehensive analytics solutions.

"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."
"The product is available for free."
"The cost is quite affordable based on feature analysis."

Popular Use Cases

Companies primarily use Looker Studio for business reporting, visualization, and analytics. It integrates with BigQuery and Google Sheets for data analysis, tracking KPIs, generating dashboards, and sales reports. It is valuable for smaller and medium-sized businesses, assisting with e-commerce tracking, marketing analysis, and data visualization for various departments such as finance and sales. Looker Studio's versatility is notable, allowing easy integration with different data sources like Azure DB.

Service and Support

Looker Studio customer service varies by location, with some users in Italy noting detailed assistance, likely due to a local shortage of IT professionals. Response times can be slow, though issues are often resolved. Purchasing the software is necessary for technical support access. Support may redirect users to forums for assistance, akin to GitHub. Some users haven't needed support due to a lack of issues.

Deployment

Many found Looker Studio's initial setup straightforward and user-friendly, often requiring just a few hours. Users appreciated the ease of connection to different data sources without needing software installation, as it operates on Google Cloud. Some reported taking longer due to migration processes but praised the platform for allowing nontechnical users to create reports easily. Ratings varied from six to nine out of ten for setup simplicity.

Scalability

Looker Studio is recognized for its scalability capabilities, handling usage from small to hundreds of users efficiently. Companies note positive experiences when scaling up, citing the tool's design and cloud-based nature as beneficial factors. Some users face challenges with data source refresh times and setup complexities, though these don't significantly impact its widespread adoption. Users appreciate its ability to support large data volumes while maintaining performance.

Stability

Looker Studio is generally reliable. Users consistently find it stable and appreciate its use of BigQuery for enhanced performance. Ratings for stability range from eight to ten out of ten, although occasional bugs and update errors are reported. Slow response times when using new filters and connectivity issues due to external factors like bandwidth can affect performance. However, these challenges are often related to external conditions rather than inherent flaws in Looker Studio.

These insights are based on the in-depth reviews provided by peers to help you make a better buying decision.

Download our Looker Studio Buyer's Guide for additional reliable information.