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Alteryx vs Looker comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Alteryx
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
82
Ranking in other categories
Predictive Analytics (1st), Data Science Platforms (5th), Data Preparation Tools (1st)
Looker
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Embedded BI (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Alteryx is designed for Predictive Analytics and holds a mindshare of 18.4%, down 24.8% compared to last year.
Looker, on the other hand, focuses on Embedded BI, holds 8.9% mindshare, down 12.2% since last year.
Predictive Analytics
Embedded BI
 

Featured Reviews

Theresa McLaughlin - PeerSpot reviewer
Quick development enables seamless data processing despite occasional support issues
There were times when the product would fail during development without an apparent reason. The support structure changed; initially, we received great support, however, it later became less reliable due to licensing issues and a tiered support system. Licensing negotiations were problematic, affecting our product usage. For instance, our licenses were temporarily lost during negotiations when an agreement couldn't be reached.
Kishore Jhunjhunwala - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of this solution is data preparation."
"The drag-and-drop features are useful for data scientists who do not like to code because it is already in the system."
"The design portion of this tool is easy to use without code, which his something that something we can appreciate."
"The GUI is simple and it integrates with Python."
"The most valuable feature is user-friendliness, as Alteryx can be used by those without any coding experience or experienced data scientists as it has the functionality to embed R and Python scripts."
"It offered quick development, with the ability to process large datasets."
"The cloud deployment ensures it scales easily."
"Its initial setup is easy."
"From a developer's perspective, the way the functionality's being handled is great."
"It's quite effortless to navigate through various applications and review their updated data in real-time."
"With Looker, I have experienced benefits in terms of usability and shareability."
"We can centralize all our data models."
"It is a pretty stable solution because it is a cloud-based product."
"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."
"The product is easy to use."
"The stability of Looker has been good since I have been using it. However, it depends on what components are being used."
 

Cons

"The product's pricing needs improvement."
"The server is too expensive for what you get and it really a designer desktop on a server."
"What they're struggling with is it's not as mature as Tableau in the user management area. It was tougher to manage the server part of it right away, especially since the user base has grown."
"The next feature release should include easier reporting."
"There have been some issues with licensing, particularly with the increased prices. This has led some companies, including ours, to consider reducing the number of licenses or potentially discontinuing their use of Alteryx."
"Configuration is very low."
"It should have Linux support. It currently supports only Windows. It does not support any other platform. Its price should also be lower. Their US partner management program is actually unresponsive. One of the reasons why we don't have a formalized partnership plan with them is because their partner management team is atrociously unresponsive. This is something that they need to change."
"There is currently no cloud solution and this would be valuable for many clients."
"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."
"Integrations with other BI tools could be better."
"The integration with different databases must be improved."
"Stability needs improvement."
"It needs to be more user-friendly."
"The visualization capability of the product is limited."
"The product does not have documented material."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The designer license costs 5000 euros. The server edition is 1000 euros."
"The cost of Alteryx is approximately $2,900 annually."
"If one is a high price, and ten is a low price, I rate the tool's price as a one. The tool is expensive."
"It's very expensive. I'd rate it a four out of ten in terms of the price. It's great for big companies but not for small companies."
"My organization pays for it, and I do not look into the financial aspect of the licensing, but I know it is pretty expensive."
"We use the free version of the solution. There are enterprise licenses available. It cost approximately $5,000 annually. It is an expensive solution and there are additional features that cost more money."
"The desktop platform costs $5,000 per year. It's very costly."
"​Very transparent.​"
"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."
"It's not cheap, but it's not expensive for big companies."
"I do not have to make any payments to use the solution."
"It is cheap."
"Looker is expensive and could be made better by reducing it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
14%
Educational Organization
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is the Biggest Difference Between Alteryx and IBM SPSS Modeler?
One of the differences is that with Alteryx you can use it as an ETL and analytics tool. Please connect with me directly if you want to know more.
What is the Biggest Difference Between Alteryx and IBM SPSS Modeler?
Alteryx is an extremely easy and flexible data tool, flexible in terms of drag and drop toolset and also has python, R integrations if your team requires this. It can handle over 2 billion rows of...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Alteryx and IBM SPSS Modeler?
I am not familiar with IBM SPSS Modeler, therefore, I cannot compare these two products. Regarding Alteryx I can say the following: - An excellent desktop tool for Data Prep and analytics. - Featu...
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, ...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

AnalyticsIq Inc., belk, BloominBrands Inc., Cardinalhealth, Cineplex, Dairy Queen
Yahoo!, Etsy, Kohler, Hipcamp, Hubspot, Kickstarter, Venmo, Dollar Shave Club, 600+ customer
Find out what your peers are saying about Alteryx, Altair, SAP and others in Predictive Analytics. Updated: July 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.