Looker vs Microsoft Power BI comparison

The compared Google and Microsoft solutions aren't in the same category. Google is ranked #5 in EBT , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 25.9% mindshare in the category. Microsoft is ranked #1 in BIT , with an average rating of 7.9, and holds a 23.0% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Looker

Read 19 Looker reviews

2,026 Views
1,648 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Microsoft Power BI

Read 315 Microsoft Power BI reviews

28,038 Views
22,665 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Looker

Microsoft Power BI

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

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

Find out what your peers are saying about Salesforce, Qlik, MicroStrategy and others in Embedded BI.

To learn more, read our detailed Embedded BI Report (Updated: October 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Embedded BI

October 2024

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Helped 814,649 peers since 2012

Categories and Ranking

Looker

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Embedded BI (5th)

Microsoft Power BI

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

315

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (1st), Reporting (1st)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Looker is designed for Embedded BI and holds a mindshare of 25.9%, up 24.5% compared to last year.
Microsoft Power BI, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 23.0% mindshare, up 22.8% since last year.

Embedded BI

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Featured Reviews

Subramani R

Software Data Engineer at PayPal

Oct 5, 2022

The APIs are exposed at every level, so it's highly modular

Looker doesn't connect to Excel, which is a huge disappointment because a lot of data is presented in Excel. Also, it can't consume data directly from REST APIs, which is necessary. Looker needs to expand its horizons when it comes to data sources. The inability to connect to different data sources is hampering our use cases. Currently, it only has an ODBC connection that connects to a database. It needs to connect to other data sources, such as Excel, APIs and different platforms. You can't create very attractive visuals with the built-in features, but I think they're providing some extensions to develop different visualizations. Looker can't create multiple sheets. You can only create one dashboard. It's not that you're able to toggle through different sheets to navigate different visuals. It's just one and people have to scroll through the dashboard. So scrolling is not something that people generally like to do, rather than segregating them in multiple tabs of sheets.

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Amol Rane

Solutions Architect M365 at Sogeti UK

Jul 17, 2024

Supports AI initiatives in terms of predictive analytics

The only issue is with permissions. Sometimes, despite granting granular permissions, dashboards are visible to people who shouldn't have access. It's difficult to understand why the permissions slip out. Sometimes dashboards are visible to stakeholders even though they should not have permission. It's a bit difficult to understand why the permissions slip out. The dashboards lack a user-friendly appearance, and the permissions should be easier to understand. At this point, we have to go through a lot of details. It takes a lot of time to understand the permissions, so if there were better options available within the Power BI setup, it would be quite beneficial, especially for admins. So, there should be a more user-friendly dashboard appearance and easier-to-understand permissions.

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

"Looker allows you to generate the most optimal SQL queries in a DC through UI actions. We had signed a contract with Google Cloud to use BigQuery. That was the primary reason we adopted Looker. It works better with BigQuery than any other BI platform. We also like how this tool was developed. It was designed with an eye toward microservices architecture."

"The product is easy to use."

"It is a pretty stable solution because it is a cloud-based product."

"I would rate the stability a ten out of ten. I didn't face any issues with stability."

"We can centralize all our data models."

"From a developer's perspective, the way the functionality's being handled is great."

"With Looker, I have experienced benefits in terms of usability and shareability."

"It's quite effortless to navigate through various applications and review their updated data in real-time."

More Looker pros

"The solution is stable with reasonable performance."

"It gives you an edge if you are on the Microsoft platform. If you have been using Microsoft products for a long time or if you have the Microsoft infrastructure, this is the right tool for you. It has seamless integration with Microsoft SQL Server and other sources, and you get the best of the three things (SSIS, SSAS, and SSRS) in one suite."

"It is good for us for onboarding the data. We can connect to multiple data sources, do transformations to make the data usable, and then model it within the transformation. Someone who has come from a Microsoft Excel environment will easily be able to use this solution. Power query and report modeling are easy to understand in this solution. Their technical support is very good. They are extremely responsive, helpful, and hands-on."

"The most useful features are the ability to connect different databases to Microsoft BI and explore them. Once the database information has been extracted, you have the ability to construct indicators and dashboards from the information."

"It's a pretty scalable product."

"Allows business users with a mission to solve their own problems, without an IT person."

"Two valuable most features are the ability to create columns and create measures."

"SSRS and the Tabular server/Vertipaq engine/DAX are probably the two most valuable components."

More Microsoft Power BI pros

Cons

"Integrations with other BI tools could be better."

"The integration with different databases must be improved."

"Stability needs improvement."

"The product does not have documented material."

"Looker doesn't connect to Excel, which is a huge disappointment because a lot of data is presented in Excel. Also, it can't consume data directly from REST APIs, which is necessary. Looker needs to expand its horizons when it comes to data sources. The inability to connect to different data sources is hampering our use cases. Currently, it only has an ODBC connection that connects to a database. It needs to connect to other data sources, such as Excel, APIs, and different platforms."

"The main area of concern in Looker is probably related to blending the data from the different sources, including the data present internally in the company and on the cloud."

"It needs to be more user-friendly."

"The visualization capability of the product is limited."

"It should be more user-friendly. There are very small or tiny icons that you need to move very carefully. If you go a little bit up and down, some of the values change. Its user interface should be improved. It should be like Tableau. Its performance is also slow and should be improved. I definitely feel some sort of speed issues with Power BI. The integration of Excel with Power BI would also be good."

"We would like it if they added more Python libraries in the Power BI service. For Power BI service right now, you can use Python, but it is limited to a few libraries or a few packages from Python."

"They can improve it in terms of rule-based security. Currently, it has very limited rules."

"We would like to have better SQL support for queries."

"The orchestration module for refreshing data flows is something that is missing and we have to do it manually."

"I would like to see more visualization options."

"I would like to be able to use SQL properly within the reports and allow multiple people to work on the same report at the same time. If one person is working on it, then it causes issues for anyone else wanting to make reports."

"The accounting data needs improvement."

More Microsoft Power BI cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I do not have to make any payments to use the solution."

"It is cheap."

"It's not cheap, but it's not expensive for big companies."

"Looker is expensive and could be made better by reducing it."

"The price of Looker usually depends on the solution's provider, but it is usually cheaper than the other products in the market. Looker is offered at different prices for different companies."

"There is room for at least 45% discount as compared to the initial price."

"The costs are small and the benefits are high."

"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with one being cheap and ten being expensive."

"This product offers good value for the money."

"For my primary use case, i.e. teaching students, the free version of Power BI is adequate."

"From a cost point of view, it's competitive in the enterprise space, although it's not as competitive when you add up all of the additional costs. Things like integrations cost extra and it's probably where Microsoft makes more of the money."

"Costs less than most competing solutions."

"The premium capacity is very costly in respect of the market in Egypt, amounting to $5,000 monthly."

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

Educational Organization

35%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

41%

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 Looker?

With Looker, I have experienced benefits in terms of usability and shareability.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Looker?

I do not have to make any payments to use the solution. In the beginning, Looker may work fine for its users. If advanced users who have experience with BI tools use Looker, then they may find it t...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Looker?

The visualization capability of the product is limited. From an improvement perspective, the product should have more visualization capability. I can't clean data in Looker, and if I try to do it, ...

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

Compared 25% of the time

Databricks vs Looker

Compared 14% of the time

Tableau vs Looker

Compared 13% of the time

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs Looker

Compared 8% of the time

Qlik Sense vs Looker

Compared 5% of the time

More Looker Competitors

Tableau vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 17% of the time

Domo vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 10% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 8% of the time

KNIME vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 6% of the time

Databricks vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 5% of the time

More Microsoft Power BI Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Looker

October 2024

Download Looker product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI

October 2024

Download Microsoft Power BI product report

Also Known As

No data available

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

Learn More

Google

Microsoft

Overview

Looker is a powerful data analytics platform that empowers businesses to explore and analyze their data in real time.

With its intuitive interface and robust features, Looker enables users to easily create and share interactive dashboards, reports, and visualizations.

The product's advanced data modeling capabilities and seamless integration with popular data sources make it a top choice for organizations looking to gain valuable insights from their data.

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

Yahoo!, Etsy, Kohler, Hipcamp, Hubspot, Kickstarter, Venmo, Dollar Shave Club, 600+ customer

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

Find out what your peers are saying about Salesforce, Qlik, MicroStrategy and others in Embedded BI. Updated: October 2024.

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814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.

We monitor all Embedded BI reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.