Looker Studio vs SAS Visual Analytics comparison

The compared Google and SAS solutions aren't in the same category. Google is ranked #11 in RT , with an average rating of 7.6, and holds a 2.5% mindshare in the category. SAS is ranked #12 in DV , with an average rating of 9.0, and holds a 1.7% mindshare. Additionally, 83% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of SAS users who would recommend it.

Looker Studio

Read 16 Looker Studio reviews

2,368 Views
1,279 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

SAS Visual Analytics

Read 40 SAS Visual Analytics reviews

3,469 Views
1,214 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Looker Studio

SAS Visual Analytics

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Looker Studio and SAS Visual Analytics based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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To learn more, read our detailed Reporting Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Reporting

April 2026

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Helped 892,287 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

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

5.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Reporting (11th)

SAS Visual Analytics

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Visualization (12th)

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%, up 2.5% compared to last year.
SAS Visual Analytics, on the other hand, focuses on Data Visualization, holds 1.7% mindshare, down 4.4% since last year.

Reporting Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Looker Studio	2.5%
Microsoft Power BI	15.3%
Tableau Enterprise	15.1%
Other	67.1%

Reporting

Data Visualization Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
SAS Visual Analytics	1.7%
Tableau Enterprise	9.8%
Qlik Sense	4.9%
Other	83.6%

Data Visualization

Featured Reviews

Heron Ziegel

Project Engineer at Quartz Consulting Group

Has supported quick dashboard creation and data sharing but lacks tools for managing multiple reports efficiently

We integrated Looker Studio with other platforms in our data ecosystem; we tried integrating with Sheets, and that went okay, but it could have been better. It could have been better because it needed a very specific format to read the data, so we had to reformat the sheet file. Looker Studio was mostly just helpful in that it provided live updating charts for tracking performance indicators in the organization. Integrating with a database was very difficult because there wasn't a lot of feedback for what was going wrong with the connection. I don't remember if we reached out to support. I didn't personally reach out, but my boss may have. I didn't reach out to support, so I do not have experience with it to rate it. We worked with the free version of Looker Studio initially, and we upgraded at some point to the pro version; I don't remember if we actually paid for it or if it was just a free trial. The pricing was reasonable. I remember doing a price comparison, and it was pretty reasonable, but it did have fewer features than a lot of other software, which was okay for a comparable price but a little cheaper.

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AYANDA NKUNDLA

Senior Manager: ICT Compliance at DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATION

Enables effective data management and reporting with a straightforward setup

SAS Visual Analytics is helpful as it allows us to perform any queries we need. The ability to query information from our Excel data into SAS to view specific data is invaluable. In terms of reporting, it is easy to extract quick reports and provides graphical representations of the data, which is a great feature.

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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

"This solution is a powerful way to have several tools integrated at one location and convert data into beautiful reports that can be easily edited and viewed."

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

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

"We previously used Microsoft Power BI, but Google is better."

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

"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and the plethora of query sources."

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

"The product's initial setup phase is very simple."

More Looker Studio pros

"It's quite easy to learn and to progress with SAS from an end-user perspective."

"The technical support services are good."

"Visual Analytics is very easy to use."

"It provided the capability to visualize a bunch of data in an organized way."

"Users from the most non-technical backgrounds can use this tool to pull out valuable insights from their data."

"Great for handling complex data models."

"The variety of graphs and charts make it easy to show the data in a way that's easy to interpret."

"The correlation gives us a better understanding of new data."

More SAS Visual Analytics pros

Cons

"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."

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

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

"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."

"It's not yet a replacement for a complete BI tool."

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

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

More Looker Studio cons

"The reason we haven't rolled it out across the board is due to the fact that the licensing is so expensive."

"The solution should improve its graphics."

"Colours used on report objects"

"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."

"It is not as mature as competitors such as Tableau and QlikView."

"The licensing ends up being more expensive than other options."

"The deployment isn't smooth. Deploying Visual Analytics on the cloud takes a lot of work, or you can use some providers that give you SAS as a service. For example, there is a provider called SaasNow. They host SAS Visual Analytics and the license. You can buy the license and deploy it there without the hassle of installation because deploying the software isn't easy."

"A bit more flexibility in the temperatization will be helpful."

More SAS Visual Analytics cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"The product is available for free."

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

"Licensing is simple."

"It's approximately $114,000 US dollars per year."

"The product is quite expensive."

"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."

"$10,000 per annum for an enterprise license."

"The product is expensive."

"SAS Visual Analytics is expensive, as is the rest of the platform."

More SAS Visual Analytics pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Financial Services Firm

15%

Government

10%

Construction Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	13
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	19

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...

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What needs improvement with Google Data Studio?

I would appreciate improvements in the data modeling features, as it's not straightforward, and it's not what people in analytics are used to. Specifically, most people using this visualization too...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Google Data Studio?

I used Looker Studio mainly for reporting, where I created multiple dashboards on it. I wouldn't say I made the most of the usage of the connections because all the connections were based on flat f...

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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.

See all answers

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...

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What is your primary use case for SAS Visual Analytics?

I started to work with SAS Visual Analytics ( /products/sas-visual-analytics-reviews ) in 2015. We use it for analysis on ICT expenditure information and ICT personnel information. The analytics ar...

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Comparisons

Amazon QuickSight vs Looker Studio

Compared 18% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Looker Studio

Compared 12% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Looker Studio

Compared 9% of the time

RStudio Connect vs Looker Studio

Compared 6% of the time

Zendesk vs Looker Studio

Compared 5% of the time

More Looker Studio Competitors

Tableau Enterprise vs SAS Visual Analytics

Compared 15% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs SAS Visual Analytics

Compared 13% of the time

Qlik Sense vs SAS Visual Analytics

Compared 6% of the time

Oracle OBIEE vs SAS Visual Analytics

Compared 5% of the time

Dataiku vs SAS Visual Analytics

Compared 4% of the time

More SAS Visual Analytics Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Looker Studio

April 2026

Download Looker Studio product report

Buyer's Guide

SAS Visual Analytics

April 2026

Download SAS Visual Analytics product report

Also Known As

Data Studio

SAS BI

Overview

Looker Studio offers seamless integration with Google products, supporting business visualization and collaboration through efficient data management and analytics, catering to teams aiming for quick analytics solutions.

Looker Studio combines diverse data source integration including SQL and MongoDB with powerful visualization and custom filter creation. Users find its visuals clean and its platform user-friendly, enhanced by collaboration features and pricing. It aids decision-making and is popular for tracking metrics and analyzing sales funnels. Despite its strengths, users seek faster report loading, simpler data modeling, and better interface usability. Advertising system limitations, delayed data reflections, and integration challenges affect performance. Security and stability improvements alongside a richer data modeling layer are desirable, with pricing impacting large organizations.

What are the most important features of Looker Studio?

Google Integration: Easily integrates with Google products for efficient workflow.
Diverse Data Sources: Connects to databases like SQL and MongoDB.
Custom Filters: Offers flexible filter options for tailored analyses.
Data Visualization: Enables powerful, clear visual data representation.
Collaboration: Supports team collaboration for shared insights.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Ease of Use: Accessibility and user-friendly operation for teams.
Decision-Making Support: Facilitates informed business decisions.
Flexibility: Adapts to different business analytics needs.
Cost-Effectiveness: Competitive pricing for budget-conscious teams.

Looker Studio supports business visualization for different industries, creating dashboards and reports for sales and marketing analysis. It's used to track metrics and sales funnels from sources like Google Sheets and BigQuery. Many companies integrate Looker Studio within web apps, providing data insights tailored to sectors such as e-commerce, finance, and more.

Google

SAS Visual Analytics offers rapid data processing and advanced forecasting with interactive reporting and visualization. It integrates with diverse data sources, enhancing scalability and automation, enabling data-driven decisions and extensive insight generation.

SAS Visual Analytics provides comprehensive data handling through its advanced reporting and visualization features. Businesses benefit from its ability to process data quickly and deliver insights via interactive dashboards and well-structured reports. Although it faces performance challenges with large datasets and has a complex installation process, it supports both cloud and on-premises deployments. Users can leverage its capabilities in data extraction, transformation, and loading, making it a valuable tool for finance, statistical analysis, and enterprise reporting. Despite some gaps in machine learning and integration with newer data stores, its scalability and flexibility in data management remain key advantages.

What are the most significant features of SAS Visual Analytics?

Rapid Data Processing: Efficiently handles large volumes of data for swift insights.
Interactive Reporting: Allows exploration of data through dynamic visuals.
Advanced Forecasting: Offers sophisticated prediction and analysis capabilities.
Scalable Integration: Seamlessly connects with diverse data sources.
Automation: Streamlines processes for enhanced productivity.

What benefits should users consider when evaluating?

Scalability: Ability to grow and adapt to expanding data needs.
Enhanced Insights: Delivers comprehensive report generation and visualization.
Data-driven Decisions: Empowers analytical decision-making with structured data presentation.
Flexibility: Supports integration beyond standard BI tools for broader functionality.

SAS Visual Analytics is implemented across sectors such as insurance and education for tasks like building dashboards and performing business intelligence. It is extensively used in finance and statistical analysis, turning complex data sets into actionable insights, supporting both cloud and on-premises environments.

SAS

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, IBM and others in Reporting. Updated: April 2026.

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