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 26.9% mindshare in the category. Microsoft is ranked #1 in BIT , with an average rating of 7.9, and holds a 22.4% 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

1,940 Views
1,579 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Microsoft Power BI

Read 315 Microsoft Power BI reviews

26,611 Views
21,628 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: November 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Embedded BI

November 2024

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Helped 824,053 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

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

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 26.9%, up 24.7% compared to last year.
Microsoft Power BI, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 22.4% mindshare, up 22.4% since last year.

Embedded BI

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Featured Reviews

Subramani R

Software Data Engineer at PayPal

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.

Read full review

Amol Rane

Solutions Architect M365 at Sogeti UK

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

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

"The product is easy to use."

"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 stability of Looker has been good since I have been using it. However, it depends on what components are being used."

"We can centralize all our data models."

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

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

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

More Looker pros

"It is more user-friendly compared to SSRS."

"The tool's most valuable features are slicer and Microsoft Copilot integration. It also allows users to see reports on mobile devices. The solution can also integrate with various data sources."

"The scalability overall has been quite good."

"It is in the cloud, which makes it easy for mobile access of reports and data."

"The most valuable feature is integration with Python."

"This is a self-service BI tool, so it doesn't require a huge amount of technical training, knowledge, or a background in BI in order to induct new people into it."

"What I like about Power BI is how fast you are able to create dashboards and how fast you are able to fetch the data. You can connect to the database or data source, and then you can design your dashboards very easily."

"It is very good, and it supports the Microsoft ecosystem, including Excel, etc."

More Microsoft Power BI pros

Cons

"It needs to be more user-friendly."

"Integrations with other BI tools could be better."

"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."

"The integration with different databases must be improved."

"The product does not have documented material."

"The visualization capability of the product is limited."

"Stability needs improvement."

"I would like for the next release to have better desktop performance, especially for big databases. Additionally, I would like to have more integrations with programs like Salesforce in order to get more live data coming in."

"The solution could improve the mobile application design. It is difficult to use compared to the desktop version."

"They asked you to pay if you want to synchronize more than eight times, you would have to go to a Power BI enterprise license, which is much more costly."

"I believe the price should be degressive, and we should have a lower, or better unit price if we have more users."

"Power BI's administration could use some work, and the user experience needs to improve because it is a client-based tool. If you want to generate a model or report, you need to use client tools, but client tools are limited for end-users who don't have enough hardware. For example, maybe a client lacks enough memory or CPU power for report generators. If you use a model that requires a massive amount of data, your client will face several problems."

"The way you navigate the product, compared to other products in this industry, that could be improved a bit."

"The reporting part of Microsoft BI is rather limited compared to other reporting tools."

"here are some limitations with the data models needed to build the report."

More Microsoft Power BI cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is cheap."

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

"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."

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

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

"If you purchase a license for a server, for users, or the professional version, you might not have to. The free version I think it can satisfy many customers' needs."

"Licensing is on a monthly basis, but I am not sure."

"I'm not very familiar with the licensing aspect, as it operates in the cloud as a SaaS (Software as a Service) model. Essentially, you pay based on cloud cost models, which might include hourly rates or similar billing structures introduced by Microsoft. Many organizations utilize it and pay for its services, somewhat like Office 365. It's a cloud-based platform that provides the necessary services, including support, for development, and you pay accordingly for the usage."

"Microsoft BI is very cost-effective and this is why we use it."

"Microsoft BI is considered to be competitively priced when compared to other similar solutions in the market."

"The solution is priced well for what they offer. However, the premium version is very expensive."

"I would advise that Microsoft BI products are rightly priced and the licensing is easy to follow and to fulfill."

"Paid for itself in the first month."

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

37%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

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 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 23% of the time

Databricks vs Looker

Compared 15% of the time

Tableau vs Looker

Compared 12% of the time

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs Looker

Compared 8% of the time

Domo vs Looker

Compared 6% of the time

More Looker 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

December 2024

Download Looker product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI

December 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: November 2024.

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824,053 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.