Looker Studio vs Microsoft Power BI comparison

Google and Microsoft are both solutions in the Reporting category. Google is ranked #11 with an average rating of 7.6, while Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 7.9. Google holds a 2.4% mindshare in RT, compared to Microsoft’s 26.8% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Looker Studio

Read 12 Looker Studio reviews

1,194 Views
1,334 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Microsoft Power BI

Read 318 Microsoft Power BI reviews

16,446 Views
13,136 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Looker Studio

Microsoft Power BI

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Looker Studio and Microsoft Power BI based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Reporting solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Looker Studio vs. Microsoft Power BI Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Looker Studio vs. Microsoft Power BI

January 2025

Download the complete report

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

Looker Studio

Ranking in Reporting

11th

Average Rating

7.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Microsoft Power BI

Ranking in Reporting

1st

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

318

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Looker Studio is 2.4%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 26.8%, up from 25.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Reporting

Featured Reviews

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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Shoury Priyanshu

Senior Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd

Facilitates seamless data aggregation with some outdated visual elements hindering user appeal

Real-time data integration is an area for improvement. Although I've worked on several solutions involving real-time integration, it's not very user-friendly and often lags, especially with over a million data rows. This makes Power BI difficult to manage as loading times can reach one or two minutes, which is problematic today. There are challenges with scalability, requiring multiple pages in dashboards to manage these issues. Visualization could be improved as it appears outdated. Users, especially newcomers, find it unappealing and not user-friendly.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

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

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

"The ability to design complex data models and equations."

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

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

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

"Valuable features include advanced integrated analysis and easy implementation."

More Looker Studio pros

"PowerBi is used to import our production data and generate dashboards, then integrates other Excel sheets to provide managers dashboards. This helps them get insights to make better OEE improvement decisions, mainly where to focus resources. We became able to see indicators from any time frame (day, week, month, or year), then could make better decisions."

"It's pretty easy to set up the product."

"Our setup is very straight forward and can be done in a matter of hours."

"It is a powerful tool that helps our data analysis processes."

"Real-time refresh is quite interesting and user-friendly, provided you have access to a gateway. It works well."

"What I have found valuable about Microsoft BI is its performance and ease of use. The interface is very simple and it is accessible to everyone. If someone is new to this type of solution it is straightforward to understand."

"The most interesting feature of Microsoft Power BI is that it's very user-friendly."

"Helped identify bad data, enabling the corrections needed to the data for management."

More Microsoft Power BI pros

Cons

"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."

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

"Stability and scalability an be improved for a full ten."

"The performance of Looker needs improvement, particularly the report loading time, which is critical for business users."

"Panels are not as easy to use as other data extraction UIs."

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

"The tool should improve on live data integration for quicker data reflection."

"Insisting on forums, blogs and community outreach in communications, and posting videos on an established calendar would be useful."

More Looker Studio cons

"Whenever you work on the same dashboard or on the same code, Microsoft Power BI doesn't have a good architecture that allows multiple people to work on the same project."

"Real-time refreshing for SAP BW would be nice. We know its on the radar for the development team at MS. "

"Adding paginated reports to this tool could be of great help for users who want to move away from SSRS."

"More connections with other systems should be added, which would allow for other integrations."

"The one thing that I noticed specifically was the graphical features, and some of the analytical features. They were stronger on the Tableau side."

"My main complaint is that the error messages need to be made more clear. Currently, they are either too generic or outright misleading, and finding the real problem is like searching for a needle in a haystack."

"Technical support could be a bit better."

"Our expectation is putting BI to work in real-time data collection systems in the maritime environment."

More Microsoft Power BI cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"The product is available for free."

"The tool is free."

"The cost is quite affordable based on feature analysis."

"It is a cheap solution for our needs."

"Power BI is cheaper for smaller groups when comparing to competitors. It requires a monthly per-user subscription."

"In the beginning, the solution cost approximately $1,000 per month, we have a Microsoft startup subscription. There is a subscription pack for startups company which we are able to have for one year."

"Microsoft Power BI has reasonable pricing."

"We pay on a monthly basis which is approximately $10 per user on the Microsoft Power BI Pro license. At the moment we are still down at 400 users, but once we reach 500 users, we will move to the premium edition. The premium is $5,000 for unlimited users. Currently, with the 40 users, the cost is roughly $500."

"Setup is easy, and the cost is economical. You do sometimes need to pay additional costs for third party products which "plug-in" to Microsoft BI."

"It is part of our Office 365 license."

"I rate the product pricing a ten."

More Microsoft Power BI pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user79932

Senior Manager - BI Head at NVidia

Feb 4, 2015

Comparison of SAP BO, Tableau, QlikView, Cognos, Microsoft, OBIEE and Pentaho

1. SAP BO/BI Enterprise scalability Security Ease of use Semantic layer 2. Tableau Visualization Data discovery Turnaround time 3. IBM Cognos Enterprise scalability Security In-memory feature 4. MS BI - Flexibility 5. Pentaho - Open source but still enterprise grade 6. QlikView Data…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Retailer

Educational Organization

42%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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

Seeking lightweight open source BI software

There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I would recommend as follows: 1) If you have legacies of SAP, Oracle - look for SAP...

See all answers

Is Power BI a complete platform or only a visualization tool?

Power BI is an advanced visualization tool oriented to big data with a very complete set of widgets to visualize information, control users accessing information, the configuration of governance po...

See all answers

How does Oracle OBIEE compare with Microsoft BI?

Oracle OBIEE is great in allowing design and creativity per the individual needs of the organization. Dashboards are fully customizable and very user-friendly. This solution is very stable. Oracle ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Amazon QuickSight vs Looker Studio

Compared 45% of the time

Tableau vs Looker Studio

Compared 7% of the time

IBM Cognos vs Looker Studio

Compared 5% of the time

Databricks vs Looker Studio

Compared 4% of the time

Looker vs Looker Studio

Compared 3% of the time

More Looker Studio Competitors

Tableau vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 16% of the time

Domo vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 9% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 8% of the time

Databricks vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 6% of the time

KNIME vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 6% of the time

More Microsoft Power BI Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Looker Studio

January 2025

Download Looker Studio product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI

December 2024

Download Microsoft Power BI product report

Also Known As

Data Studio

SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI

Learn More

Google

Microsoft

Overview

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.

Microsoft Power BI is a powerful tool for data analysis and visualization. This tool stands out for its ability to merge and analyze data from various sources. Widely adopted across different industries and departments, Power BI is instrumental in creating visually appealing dashboards and generating insightful business intelligence reports. Its intuitive interface, robust visualization capabilities, and seamless integration with other Microsoft applications empower users to easily create interactive reports and gain valuable insights.

Sample Customers

Genesys, Shueisha

Accenture Adidas Aetna AIG Airbus Alibaba Allstate Amazon American Express Aon AT&T Audi Bank of America BASF Bayer Berkshire Hathaway Boeing Coca-Cola Comcast Cisco Coca-Cola Dell Disney Emirates Equinix FedEx Ford GE Google H&M Home Depot Honda IBM Intel JPMorgan Chase Kellogg's Kroger L'Oréal McDonald's Merck MetLife Microsoft Nike Oracle P&G PepsiCo Procter & Gamble Prudential Financial SAP Siemens Snapchat Spotify Starbucks Target Toyota T-Mobile Unilever Visa Walmart WeWork World Bank Xerox

Buyer's Guide

Looker Studio vs. Microsoft Power BI

January 2025

Free Report: Looker Studio vs. Microsoft Power BI

Find out what your peers are saying about Looker Studio vs. Microsoft Power BI and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

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