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Looker Studio vs SAS Visual Analytics 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
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (9th)
SAS Visual Analytics
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Looker Studio is designed for Reporting and holds a mindshare of 2.9%, up 2.6% compared to last year.
SAS Visual Analytics, on the other hand, focuses on Data Visualization, holds 3.5% mindshare, down 5.8% since last year.
Reporting
Data Visualization
 

Featured Reviews

Vijay Subramanyam - PeerSpot reviewer
The ability to perform aggregation before visualization allows for effective data slicing and dicing
Looker's ability to perform aggregation before visualization allows for effective data slicing and dicing. The seamless integration with Excel and Google Sheets and custom filter creation features facilitate detailed trend reports and analysis. Looker has significantly improved productivity by reducing the time spent on creating summary reports from weeks to a day.
Danna Nemeth - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides ease of use and has advanced data visualization capabilities
The initial setup can be complex and depends on the specific environment and licensing. It typically requires some time and effort to configure properly. It can be deployed as a SaaS solution or on-premises. It typically requires an installer and someone knowledgeable in business analytics and data management. Generally, it does not require extensive maintenance, though occasional upkeep might be necessary.

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 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."
"I am impressed with the tool's scheduling mechanism, refresh mechanism, and different types of charts."
"The ability to integrate with a great variety of data sources."
"The integration with Excel and Google Sheets is a valuable feature, making it easy to access and visualize data."
"This has improved our organization by allowing people to see their data and develop visualizations themselves."
"The solution is free so that is a good feature."
"The ability to design complex data models and equations."
"It is a very stable solution."
"It's relatively simple to create basic dashboards and reports."
"The most solution's notable aspect, in my view, is the ability to integrate various data sources and harness advanced technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. This helps with quality assurance processes."
"We've found the product to be stable and reliable."
"Visual Analytics is very easy to use. I use Visual Analytics for all the typical use cases except text mining. I used it to analyze data and monitor statistics, not text mining. I also use it for data visualization as well as creating interactive dashboards and infographics."
"I believe that the possibilities for exploring data and formulating visual results are quite good because it allows the business analyst to have different perspectives on the data."
"Data handling is one of the best features of SAS Visual Analytics."
"Great for handling complex data models."
 

Cons

"It's not yet a replacement for a complete BI tool."
"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."
"The challenges with Google Data Studio are associated with the security part, making it an area where improvements are required."
"From the perspective of infrastructure, I cannot provide a valuable opinion on the ease of use and customization options of Looker Studio."
"Panels are not as easy to use as other data extraction UIs."
"Other tools might be worth considering if you need more advanced features or support for a larger user base."
"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."
"I haven't come across any missing features."
"Better connectivity with other data origins, better visualization, and the ability to create KPIs directly would all help."
"There are a few little things that are predefined and can be done out of the box immediately. There is no business intelligence application that is predefined, which is something some customers or prospects would love to have. Small and mid-sized companies would struggle with it because they prefer something standard that has been predefined by somebody else."
"SAS Visual Analytics could improve by making it more accessible for users outside the organization."
"A bit more flexibility in the temperatization will be helpful."
"There is room for improvement in anti-money laundering prevention and operation monitoring, as well as operation monitoring surveillance."
"Colours used on report objects"
"The installation process can be a bit complex."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is quite affordable based on feature analysis."
"The product is available for 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 tool is free."
"The cost of the solution can be expensive. There is an additional cost for users."
"Visual Analytics is expensive for a small company like mine. You also need to deploy it on a server or cloud, so you pay for the license as well as the cost of the cloud or the server that you will deploy on."
"It's approximately $114,000 US dollars per year."
"The product is expensive."
"$10,000 per annum for an enterprise license."
"It was licensed for corporate use, and its licensing was on a yearly basis."
"Licensing is simple."
"I work with the tool's free version...The tool's corporate version is very expensive and requires a monthly hire."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
University
8%
 

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?
From the perspective of infrastructure, I cannot provide a valuable opinion on the ease of use and customization options of Looker Studio. I can ask our designers how they feel since they have expe...
What is your primary use case for Google Data Studio?
We use Looker and Looker Studio, as Looker licenses Looker Studio for data presentation and reporting. With GCP, we use Cloud Functions, Cloud Run, Kubernetes, and we utilize BigQuery extensively. ...
What do you like most about SAS Visual Analytics?
The most solution's notable aspect, in my view, is the ability to integrate various data sources and harness advanced technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. This helps w...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAS Visual Analytics?
It's about an average of five. It's easy to scale, but it comes with cost.
What needs improvement with SAS Visual Analytics?
In terms of configuration, I would like to see AI capabilities since many applications are now integrating AI. It may be that our current subscription does not include AI-enabled features, but I wo...
 

Also Known As

Data Studio
SAS BI
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Genesys, Shueisha
Staples, Ausgrid, Scotiabank, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Oklahoma Gas & Electric, Xcel Energy, and Triad Analytics Solutions.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Salesforce, Oracle and others in Reporting. Updated: June 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.