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Looker Studio vs Qlik Sense 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

Looker Studio
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (11th)
Qlik Sense
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (2nd), Embedded BI (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Looker Studio is designed for Reporting and holds a mindshare of 2.5%, down 2.8% compared to last year.
Qlik Sense, on the other hand, focuses on Data Visualization, holds 7.3% mindshare, down 10.6% since last year.
Reporting
Data Visualization
 

Featured Reviews

Srini-Dhanaraj - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Vishal_Goyal - PeerSpot reviewer
In-memory data storage boosts performance
The advantages compared to other BI tools show architectural differences. The main feature is that it keeps all the data in memory. It doesn't retrieve the data from data sources when I need it on the dashboard; instead, it quickly provides the desired data, making it very fast compared to other BI tools. The ROI is very high using Qlik Sense. It offers many benefits of BI. It is flexible from a developer's point of view, allowing me to accomplish many tasks compared to other BI tools. From an end-user perspective, it's convenient and performance-oriented, providing something meaningful from all the organization's data.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This has improved our organization by allowing people to see their data and develop visualizations themselves."
"Looker's ability to perform aggregation before visualization allows for effective data slicing and dicing."
"I find it favorable regarding speed of development, ease of building, and flexibility."
"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."
"Valuable features include advanced integrated analysis and easy implementation."
"Data Studio integrates seamlessly with other Google products, and we can use it with other APIs if we like."
"The ability to design complex data models and equations."
"The product's initial setup phase is very simple."
"We were able to identify easy things, such as when a contract was loaded incorrectly."
"We have found the use of AI to be the most valuable feature."
"The most valuable features of Qlik Sense are its speed and seamless development of web technologies."
"Qlik has a powerful load script that uses an enhanced SQL language which is excellent for loading and transforming the data."
"Qlik Sense helps us increase our organization's customer relationships and brings in more projects."
"With the changing business landscape, it is nice to access Qlik Sense through an external website. As an organization when we use QlikView Desktop, we need to connect to our internal network. We can access QlikView through the QlikView access point but the website has a little different look and feel than the desktop application."
"It connects very simply​ to data sources."
"Placing buttons on my sheets creates a unique user experience and clears up clutter at the same time."
 

Cons

"Panels are not as easy to use as other data extraction UIs."
"The tool should come up with data modeling layer features that are present in other products like Power BI."
"The tool should improve on live data integration for quicker data reflection."
"There is a significant degree of sophistication required to compete with Tableau or Cognos."
"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."
"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."
"There are issues with integration and I encountered limits and warnings, especially with my pivot table size."
"More focus needs to be on data streaming/real-time data reporting."
"Ad-hoc reporting capabilities would be ideal."
"The on-demand report generation button in Qlik Sense currently doesn't work if NPrinting requires Okta verification, which our company uses."
"The management console appearance needs improvement to its look."
"More pivot table options, like the ability to have the totals row at the bottom of the table, would be helpful."
"Technical support requires improvement. I would rate it around three out of ten. Basically, I think they lack in the support system."
"If a team wants to keep track of source code changes, there is not an out-of-the-box solution for it."
"Mostly when it comes to the loading of the data and reload times of the reports, it could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is quite affordable based on feature analysis."
"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 tool is free."
"The solution is free but the Google Looker is expensive."
"I'm not able to reveal the licensing cost for Qlik Sense, but because it was a huge deal, the cost was less than the usual cost. The license wasn't that costly. It was the infrastructure that was very costly."
"Understand the break over price point for switching to the Enterprise license."
"The license mechanism of Qlik is quite complicated and not exchangeable. Such as 2016, they charge licenses by token, 1500$ for a token / 1 user. 2018: they change to 2 kinds of licenses: professional 1500$ / user, analyzer 800$ / user. 2019: they support subscription with 70$ Monthly for professional, 40$ monthly for analyzers, but for those you’re using perpetual licenses, they don't support acquiring more subscription licenses. The maintenance fee yearly are also high, 20% of the perpetual license."
"I believe pricing is similar to other products in the same category, if you have it on-premise."
"It is a little expensive for the Italian market. Normally, Qlik Sense has two types and costs. The medium cost is around 700 euros per year."
"The costs can initially become quite high. Make sure you have a clear understanding of who will truly use the product as opposed to someone that will simply receive the end report."
"Licensing could be cheaper."
"I would rate Qlik's pricing four out of five."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Retailer
8%
Educational Organization
59%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

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...
What needs improvement with Google Data Studio?
The tool should improve on live data integration for quicker data reflection. Currently, changes in Google Sheets take about three to five minutes to reflect in Looker Studio. Overall, the interfac...
What is your primary use case for Google Data Studio?
I use Looker Studio primarily for dashboard creation and data analytics. I have integrated it with Google Sheets, and I use it for project plan maintenance and data tracking.
Seeking lightweight open source BI software
It depends on the Data architecture and the complexity of your requirement. Some great tools in the market are Qlik Sense, Power BI, OBIEE, Tableau, etc. I have recently started using Cognos Enter...
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...
What do you like most about Qlik Sense?
The most valuable features of Qlik Sense are its speed and seamless development of web technologies.
 

Also Known As

Data Studio
QlikSense
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Genesys, Shueisha
Abbvie, Airbus, Barclays, BT Openreach, BMW, Daimler AG, HSBC, IKEA, Nationwide Building Society, Royal Mail Group, Sanofi, Siemens, Wendy'', Vodafone, Volvo
Find out what your peers are saying about Looker Studio vs. Qlik Sense and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.