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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
6.9
Number of Reviews
85
Ranking in other categories
Predictive Analytics (1st), Data Science Platforms (6th), Data Preparation Tools (1st)
Looker
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Embedded BI (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Alteryx is designed for Predictive Analytics and holds a mindshare of 7.6%, down 22.8% compared to last year.
Looker, on the other hand, focuses on Embedded BI, holds 6.4% mindshare, down 9.0% since last year.
Predictive Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Alteryx7.6%
Anaplan6.9%
SAP Analytics Cloud6.7%
Other78.8%
Predictive Analytics
Embedded BI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Looker6.4%
Tableau Enterprise17.6%
Qlik Sense8.6%
Other67.4%
Embedded BI
 

Featured Reviews

Rajneesh Prajapati - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Rpa Consultant at Accely Consulting
Time-saving workflows have transformed data preparation and predictive analysis for my team
Some of the best features Alteryx offers are its no and low-code capabilities. It delivers massive time-saving and includes spatial and predictive analysis. Alteryx includes built-in tools such as drive time analysis and linear regression, which are much harder to achieve in standard BI tools such as Power BI or Tableau. In addition to these features, Alteryx provides built-in spatial tools that can calculate drive time and location-based insights with minimal effort through drag-and-drop spatial tools, low complex coding, faster, and more accurate results. Linear regression predicts sales based on marketing spend, estimates costs based on usage, and identifies trends in historical data. Alteryx has positively impacted my organization by saving time, improving accuracy, and enabling better decision-making. Using Alteryx, complex tasks such as data cleansing, joining datasets, drive time analysis, and linear regression can be done much faster compared to manual Excel or SQL work. This reduces dependency on manual effort and lowers the risk of human error. Drive time analysis helps my organization make better location-based decisions, such as identifying optimal service areas or improving customer reach.
Kishore Jhunjhunwala - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The GUI is simple and it integrates with Python."
"The connectors are a very good feature."
"The drag-and-drop features are useful for data scientists who do not like to code because it is already in the system."
"Alteryx has helped us spend more time identifying results instead of performing analysis manually. It has helped us in our loading process, including scrubbing data and identifying data elements that need to be corrected. It enables us to understand our data sets a lot better."
"Our analyst’s time was cut from two days to one hour of data blending and the output was amazing!"
"Once we got it in-house, I knew its value."
"Alteryx effectively visualizes the flow of data and what happens at each stage. I also like that it's a no-code solution. I also like that you can troubleshoot certain parts of the workflow by putting them in a sandbox."
"Alteryx has helped us spend more time identifying results instead of performing analysis manually, helped us in our loading process including scrubbing data and identifying data elements that need to be corrected, and enabled us to understand our data sets a lot better."
"Empowering every employee to make smarter decisions in less time easily pushes us into the black on ROI."
"It is easier and quicker to find things in the database."
"If one has to deal with large volumes of data, which I categorically could tell is big data and has to create visuals, Looker is the tool to go."
"The stability of Looker has been good since I have been using it. However, it depends on what components are being used."
"From a developer's perspective, the way the functionality's being handled is great."
"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."
"With respect to buy solutions, cost is relevant. However, the Looker solution would have outmatched the ongoing multi-million budget spending with respect to cost-efficiency."
 

Cons

"The learning curve is long, and there is lack of e-learning; the tool is not user-friendly to a non-technical user."
"It would be great if Alteryx could take third party tools and incorporate them."
"The biggest limitation is that the solution doesn't allow you to do sophisticated things in terms of fiddling with their implementations of machine learning and deep learning components."
"Alteryx needs to focus on the supply chain aspect since detecting financial figures and data anomalies is currently insufficient."
"The principal problem is the pricing. They're expensive products."
"The workflow and pipeline need to improve."
"More statistics tools: We can use to compare SPSS statistics with some automated advisory."
"This is a proprietary tool and maybe the open source part of it could be improved."
"The product does not have documented material."
"Looker doesn't connect to Excel, which is a huge disappointment because a lot of data is presented in Excel."
"Some of the visualizations are a bit limited on how much you can customize them."
"The integration with different databases must be improved."
"There is a lot of customization that we needed/need to build ourselves. Other BI tools have more out of the box."
"Integrations with other BI tools could be better."
"This product is useful for non-technical users, who are able to use the interface to easily slice data. But for the admin users who are responsible for maintaining the schemas and files behind the scenes, it can easily become a chore, as there is a lot of manual work involved in defining the schemas of the connected database(s), as well as any refactored tables; the restrictive syntax also makes maintenance difficult."
"The visualization capability of the product is limited."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price could be better."
"We have a yearly cost that we pay for the licensing. We do not pay any costs in addition to the licensing fees."
"Opt for the three year subscription. It is 20% less than the yearly one."
"Alteryx is generally more suited for medium—to large companies due to its potentially high licensing costs."
"Its price should be lower. The key thing that we see is that talking about ROI is an important element at the time of purchase. Cost becomes a factor in every discussion. Justifying the ROI for these kinds of workflows is always a challenge, and the only way to counter the challenge is by addressing the pricing."
"Alteryx isn't extortionately expensive, but it's not cheap either."
"It's probably on the pricey side, but they provide some really useful ways to grow and test."
"There are some implementation services and internal effort costs at the beginning but there is nothing else."
"It is cheap."
"Looker is expensive and could be made better by reducing it."
"I do not have to make any payments to use the solution."
"It's not cheap, but it's not expensive for big companies."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Retailer
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Media Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise54
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise6
 

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...
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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, SAP, Anaplan and others in Predictive Analytics. Updated: March 2026.
885,264 professionals have used our research since 2012.