Databricks vs Looker Studio comparison

The compared Databricks and Google solutions aren't in the same category. Google is ranked #11 in RT , with an average rating of 7.6, and holds a 2.4% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Databricks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of Google users who would recommend it.

Databricks

Read 85 Databricks reviews

96% willing to recommend

Looker Studio

Read 12 Looker Studio reviews

1,194 Views
1,334 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Databricks

Looker Studio

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Databricks and Looker Studio based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Snowflake Computing, Microsoft, Google and others in Cloud Data Warehouse.

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Buyer's Guide

Cloud Data Warehouse

December 2024

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Helped 831,020 peers since 2012

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

Databricks

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Science Platforms (1st), Streaming Analytics (1st)

Looker Studio

Average Rating

7.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Reporting (11th)

Featured Reviews

Parag Bhosale

Senior Data Engineer at a logistics company with 51-200 employees

Integrating engineering and learning, but cost challenges arise with cluster management

We often use a single cluster to ingest Databricks, which Databricks doesn't recommend. They suggest using a no-cluster solution like job clusters. This can be overwhelming for us because we started smaller. We prefer using a small to mid-sized cluster for many jobs to keep costs low, but this sometimes doesn't support our operations properly. We need to stay in sync with the DVR versions, and migrations can pose challenges. For example, issues arose when we moved a cluster from a previous version to the latest one. We could use their job clusters, however, that increases costs, which is challenging for us as a startup. Maintaining this infrastructure can be a headache.

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Srini-Dhanaraj

Founder & CEO at imfine.club

Available for free and can help businesses resolve their data migration problems

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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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like that Databricks is a unified platform that lets you do streaming and batch processing in the same place. You can do analytics, too. They have added something called Databricks SQL Analytics, allowing users to connect to the data lake to perform analytics. Databricks also will enable you to share your data securely. It integrates with your reporting system as well."

"The integration with Python and the notebooks really helps."

"The main features of the solution are efficiency."

"The built-in optimization recommendations halved the speed of queries and allowed us to reach decision points and deliver insights very quickly."

"It can send out large data amounts."

"One of the features provides nice interactive clusters, or compute instances that you don't really need to manage often."

"Automation with Databricks is very easy when using the API."

"The simplicity of development is the most valuable feature."

More Databricks pros

"Data Studio integrates seamlessly with other Google products, and we can use it with other APIs if we like."

"I am impressed with the tool's scheduling mechanism, refresh mechanism, and different types of charts."

"This has improved our organization by allowing people to see their data and develop visualizations themselves."

"The ability to integrate with a great variety of data sources."

"The solution is free so that is a good feature."

"Looker's ability to perform aggregation before visualization allows for effective data slicing and dicing."

"The company dashboard is useful because we could share it via a link as a reminder for everyone to check it weekly. We observed the progress of our portfolio from last week to the current week, allowing us to compare revenues."

"The integration with Excel and Google Sheets is a valuable feature, making it easy to access and visualize data."

More Looker Studio pros

Cons

"The solution could be improved by adding a feature that would make it more user-friendly for our team. The feature is simple, but it would be useful. Currently, our team is more familiar with the language R, but Databricks requires the use of Jupyter Notebooks which primarily supports Python. We have tried using RStudio, but it is not a fully integrated solution. To fully utilize Databricks, we have to use the Jupyter interface. One feature that would make it easier for our team to adopt the Jupyter interface would be the ability to select a specific variable or line of code and execute it within a cell. This feature is available in other Jupyter Notebooks outside of Databricks and in our own IDE, but it is not currently available within Databricks. If this feature were added, it would make the transition to using Databricks much smoother for our team."

"A lot of people are required to manage this solution."

"The stability of the clusters or the instances of Databricks would be better if it was a much more stable environment. We've had issues with crashes."

"It's not easy to use, and they need a better UI."

"The Databricks cluster can be improved."

"When I used the support, I had communication problems because of the language barrier with the agent. The accent was difficult to understand."

"The product cannot be integrated with a popular coding IDE."

"While Databricks is generally a robust solution, I have noticed a limitation with debugging in the Delta Live Table, which could be improved."

More Databricks cons

"The tool should come up with data modeling layer features that are present in other products like Power BI."

"There is a significant degree of sophistication required to compete with Tableau or Cognos."

"The challenges with Google Data Studio are associated with the security part, making it an area where improvements are required."

"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."

"Other tools might be worth considering if you need more advanced features or support for a larger user base."

"When you physically install a product on one machine instead of the cloud, you have a better visibility, best icon quality, etc.. It's more of an issue with how we are adapting to the transition. We are still in the early moments of using this tool, and we need to go deeper to discover some improvements."

"There are issues with integration and I encountered limits and warnings, especially with my pivot table size."

More Looker Studio cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an expensive tool. The licensing model is a pay-as-you-go one."

"The solution requires a subscription."

"The licensing costs of Databricks is a tiered licensing regime, so it is flexible."

"My smallest project is around a hundred euros, and my most expensive is just under a thousand euros a week. That is based on terabytes of data processed each month."

"Databricks are not costly when compared with other solutions' prices."

"I am based in South Africa, where it is expensive adapting to the cloud, and then there is the price for the tool itself."

"The solution uses a pay-per-use model with an annual subscription fee or package. Typically this solution is used on a cloud platform, such as Azure or AWS, but more people are choosing Azure because the price is more reasonable."

"The basic version of this solution is now open-source, so there are no license costs involved. However, there is a charge for any advanced functionality and this can be quite expensive."

More Databricks pricing and cost advice

"The tool is free."

"The solution is free but the Google Looker is expensive."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Which do you prefer - Databricks or Azure Machine Learning Studio?

Databricks gives you the option of working with several different languages, such as SQL, R, Scala, Apache Spark, or Python. It offers many different cluster choices and excellent integration with ...

See all answers

How would you compare Databricks vs Amazon SageMaker?

We researched AWS SageMaker, but in the end, we chose Databricks. Databricks is a Unified Analytics Platform designed to accelerate innovation projects. It is based on Spark so it is very fast. It...

See all answers

Which would you choose - Databricks or Azure Stream Analytics?

Databricks is an easy-to-set-up and versatile tool for data management, analysis, and business analytics. For analytics teams that have to interpret data to further the business goals of their orga...

See all answers

What do you like most about Google Data Studio?

The company dashboard is useful because we could share it via a link as a reminder for everyone to check it weekly. We observed the progress of our portfolio from last week to the current week, all...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Google Data Studio?

The performance of Looker needs improvement, particularly the report loading time, which is critical for business users. The initial report loading takes time and affects user's perception of the t...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Google Data Studio?

We are using Looker primarily for visualization to analyze e-commerce industry's analytic reports. We use it to track orders per ZIP code and sales based on quantity, stocks, and revenue. The tool ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dataiku vs Databricks

Compared 11% of the time

Dremio vs Databricks

Compared 8% of the time

Informatica PowerCenter vs Databricks

Compared 8% of the time

Amazon SageMaker vs Databricks

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Databricks

Compared 7% of the time

More Databricks Competitors

Amazon QuickSight vs Looker Studio

Compared 45% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Looker Studio

Compared 23% of the time

Tableau vs Looker Studio

Compared 7% of the time

IBM Cognos vs Looker Studio

Compared 5% of the time

Looker vs Looker Studio

Compared 3% of the time

More Looker Studio Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Databricks

January 2025

Download Databricks product report

Buyer's Guide

Looker Studio

January 2025

Download Looker Studio product report

Also Known As

Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash

Data Studio

Learn More

Databricks

Google

Overview

Databricks is utilized for advanced analytics, big data processing, machine learning models, ETL operations, data engineering, streaming analytics, and integrating multiple data sources.

Organizations leverage Databricks for predictive analysis, data pipelines, data science, and unifying data architectures. It is also used for consulting projects, financial reporting, and creating APIs. Industries like insurance, retail, manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals use Databricks for data management and analytics due to its user-friendly interface, built-in machine learning libraries, support for multiple programming languages, scalability, and fast processing.

What are the key features of Databricks?

User-friendly interface: Simplifies operations and usability.
Built-in machine learning libraries: Facilitates machine learning tasks.
Support for multiple programming languages: Enhances flexibility.
Scalability: Efficiently handles growing data needs.
Fast processing: Improves performance and speed.
Automated optimization: Reduces manual efforts.
Data visualization: Provides insightful visuals.
Collaborative features: Enhances teamwork.
Delta Lake performance: Boosts data management.
Seamless cluster management: Simplifies system operations.

What are the benefits or ROI to look for in Databricks reviews?

Efficiency in handling large datasets: Ensures smooth processing.
Interactive workspace environment: Improves user collaboration.
Integration with platforms: Provides connectivity benefits.
Performance optimization: Enhances overall system performance.
Support for data governance and security: Ensures data integrity and protection.

Databricks is implemented in insurance for risk analysis and claims processing; in retail for customer analytics and inventory management; in manufacturing for predictive maintenance and supply chain optimization; and in pharmaceuticals for drug discovery and patient data analysis. Users value its scalability, machine learning support, collaboration tools, and Delta Lake performance but seek improvements in visualization, pricing, and integration with BI tools.

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.

Sample Customers

Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware

Genesys, Shueisha

Find out what your peers are saying about Snowflake Computing, Microsoft, Google and others in Cloud Data Warehouse. Updated: December 2024.

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