Looker vs MicroStrategy comparison

Google and MicroStrategy are both solutions in the Embedded BI category. Google is ranked #9, while MicroStrategy is ranked #3 with an average rating of 7.6. Google holds a 6.4% mindshare in EBT, compared to MicroStrategy’s 7.8% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of MicroStrategy users who would recommend it.

Looker

Read 19 Looker reviews

2,435 Views
901 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

MicroStrategy

Read 162 MicroStrategy reviews

4,704 Views
1,693 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Looker

MicroStrategy

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 29, 2025

MicroStrategy and Looker compete in the business intelligence category. MicroStrategy appears to have the upper hand in handling complex data requirements and enterprise scalability, while Looker excels in its ease of use and ability to democratize data.

Features: MicroStrategy is known for its strong data integration options, a powerful SQL engine, advanced mobile solutions, and enterprise scalability, making it suitable for large-scale data processing. It also offers robust metadata management and advanced report customization. Looker shines with its intuitive data modeling language, LookML, which simplifies data modeling for business users. It also provides effective data democratization and seamless integration with cloud platforms, offering a modern approach to business intelligence.

Room for Improvement: MicroStrategy users mention challenges with report performance and complex licensing, often desiring more user-driven customization and quicker feature rollouts. On the other hand, Looker users want more customization options, improved visualization variety, and greater interactivity in reports and dashboards.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: MicroStrategy offers both on-premises and hybrid cloud solutions, with customer support quality varying by location. Looker, primarily a cloud-based solution, benefits from a strong community but has limited direct support, with some users finding its issue resolution process complicated.

Pricing and ROI: MicroStrategy is noted for its significant upfront costs but is considered cost-effective long-term for enterprises due to strong feature sets and scalability. It requires careful licensing assessment to manage expenses effectively. Looker offers a flexible pricing model perceived as lower-cost and higher-value, especially suitable for large operations.

To learn more, read our detailed Looker vs. MicroStrategy Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Looker vs. MicroStrategy

February 2026

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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

Ranking in Embedded BI

9th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

MicroStrategy

Ranking in Embedded BI

3rd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

162

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (11th)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Embedded BI category, the mindshare of Looker is 6.4%, down from 9.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MicroStrategy is 7.8%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Embedded BI Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
MicroStrategy	7.8%
Looker	6.4%
Other	85.8%

Embedded BI

Featured Reviews

Kishore Jhunjhunwala

Sr Analytics Consultant at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

A cloud solution for operational reporting but is expensive

Some basic feature that is available in other reporting tools is missing. Looker has the ability to show more than 5,000 rows for operational reporting. Some reporting tools allow users to scroll down to see more than 5,000 rows, but in Looker, you have to download the entire dataset. Looker should consider adding a scroll-down option to allow users to view large datasets on screen without downloading them. Looker has some options for granting users access as viewers. However, viewers cannot download the entire dataset. Only superusers can download the whole dataset on the Explore screen. This is a big limitation, as you cannot give any user viewer access. You can give access to superuser access, which is a cost to the company.

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AnkushSingh

Lead Software Engineer at Momentus

Provides strong data visualization and security while easing deployment across multiple sectors

The most effective features of MicroStrategy for data analysis in my experience are the security, the metadata management, and the administration, along with the options of different workarounds available to accommodate different types of requirements. MicroStrategy's data visualization capabilities are great, and I would rate them nine out of 10.

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

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

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

"The product is easy to use."

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

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

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

"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."

"We can centralize all our data models."

More Looker pros

"It has had a direct impact on bottomline improvements."

"We've made a few enhancements to our Enterprise Manager system to allow self-reporting to grow. We see that as a very useful system. It's been incredibly beneficial in diagnosing production performance issues, diagnosing what reports are running slowly, where the SQL could be optimized, opportunities or metrics where we see long-time running performance. Enterprise Manager has been absolutely vital in giving us some of the insights about our system."

"It has landing pages, and that makes life easy for exhibiting things."

"We use MicroStrategy as an integrated solution with some of their other CRM type applications."

"In terms of functionality, MicroStrategy is alright. It's a solid BI tool and can handle most tasks you'd expect."

"You can build once and deploy to multiple operating systems. Also, it resizes in the way you want it to."

"Building apps is easy. You just drag in your data, and then you drag in all the elements that you want on your app. It's drag and drop design, and then you can customize your visuals. They make it all easy with plug and play widgets."

"Scalability is fantastic. It can go from a small operation up to a gigantic operation. "

More MicroStrategy pros

Cons

"The product does not have documented material."

"The visualization capability of the product is limited."

"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."

"Integrations with other BI tools could be better."

"The integration with different databases must be improved."

"Stability needs improvement."

"I prefer the capabilities of a single platform, but it does not always work. We are a huge company. Some areas do not use MicroStrategy, so you have to blend whatever systems they are using together to get the data points that you are looking for."

"There might be opportunities for reporting or data analysis, perhaps even in the realm of simulation."

"MicroStrategy lacks that community support. You're either stuck figuring things out yourself or paying expensive fees to MicroStrategy consultants for help."

"The solution lacks good visualization. They should work on the user interface to make it more slick and modern."

"There is room for improvement in data visualization."

"When we come to them with a problem, they might know more of a generalized solution, but not one targeted to our industry."

"MicroStrategy could learn from Power BI's user-friendly interface."

"They should provide more tutorials and include some project files."

More MicroStrategy cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

"It is cheap."

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

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

"We have a license with packages, and there are additional costs for extra components."

"There is no subscription, I am using the free version."

"We are waiting to switch to Microsoft Power BI because MicroStrategy is too costly."

"There have been actual direct bottomline impacts in terms of extra revenue created from the reporting solutions."

"It would be nice if there was a sticker price that says, "This software costs this amount of money." But I think that's just indicative of all software vendors. A lot of people are in it to make money, commissions, so it's just the nature of the business. But I would like to see more transparency, more equality, on pricing. Some people get better deals than others, I think."

"MicroStrategy's licensing cost is higher than that of other tools in the market. My company uses the enterprise edition of the product."

"While initial cost of MicroStrategy is still on the higher side, the long-term benefits brings down overall cost of ownership significantly as compared to other tools like Tableau/Cognos."

"The pricing for MicroStrategy is always on the higher side. They should seriously start thinking about their pricing and licensing strategy."

More MicroStrategy pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user6330

Product Manager at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

May 2, 2013

MicroStrategy vs. Tableau

After a recent presentation, several attendees asked me about the applications of Visual Insights and Tableau. Many companies are investing in both tools and are trying to figure out the right tool for specific applications Tableau has found its sweet-spot as an agile discovery tool that analysts…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Retailer

Computer Software Company

Media Company

Financial Services Firm

13%

Marketing Services Firm

Retailer

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	37
Midsize Enterprise	26
Large Enterprise	100

Questions from the Community

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Earn 20 points

What do you like most about MicroStrategy?

The stability of the product is good.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MicroStrategy?

My company has many licenses for MicroStrategy because we can build reports in this tool. I don't know what the cost is for these licenses.

See all answers

What needs improvement with MicroStrategy?

I don't have any issues with MicroStrategy and would not suggest how it can be improved. I would not change anything because it's a great tool to build reports. I would appreciate improvements in M...

See all answers

Comparisons

Tableau Enterprise vs Looker

Compared 13% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Looker

Compared 13% of the time

Databricks vs Looker

Compared 10% of the time

Qlik Sense vs Looker

Compared 7% of the time

ThoughtSpot vs Looker

Compared 7% of the time

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Microsoft Power BI vs MicroStrategy

Compared 12% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs MicroStrategy

Compared 11% of the time

QlikView vs MicroStrategy

Compared 7% of the time

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs MicroStrategy

Compared 6% of the time

Qlik Sense vs MicroStrategy

Compared 5% of the time

More MicroStrategy Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Looker

February 2026

Download Looker product report

Buyer's Guide

MicroStrategy

January 2026

Download MicroStrategy product report

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.

Google

Company: Founded in 1989, MicroStrategy (Nasdaq: MSTR) is a leading worldwide provider of enterprise software platforms. With direct operations in 26 countries worldwide and approximately 2,000 employees, our mission is to provide enterprise analytics, mobility, and security platforms that are flexible, powerful, scalable and user-friendly. To learn more, visit MicroStrategy online, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Product portfoilio:

MicroStrategy 10 Secure Enterprise™ empowers leading organizations to analyze vast amounts of data and distribute actionable business insight throughout an enterprise through two distinct offerings: MicroStrategy Analytics™ and MicroStrategy Desktop™. MicroStrategy Analytics delivers reports and dashboards, and enables users to conduct ad hoc analysis and share insights anywhere, anytime, via mobile devices or the Web. It also combines the agility and productivity of self-service visual data discovery with the security, scalability, and governance features of enterprise-grade business intelligence. MicroStrategy Desktop is a standalone, on-premise visual data discovery tool designed to enable business users to analyze and understand their data. MicroStrategy Mobile™ enables organizations to rapidly build custom business applications that deliver analytics combined with transactions, multimedia, and custom workflows to mobile devices. MicroStrategy Secure Cloud™ combines all of the enterprise analytics, mobile, and security features in MicroStrategy 10 Secure Enterprise with powerful and scalable data integration, validation, and warehousing services — all delivered in an environment where organizations can deploy transformational analytics applications in minutes.

Usher, MicroStrategy’s breakthrough security solution, is a powerful mobile security platform designed to dematerialize traditional forms of identity verification (such as passwords, tokens, and physical badges) and replace them with a single mobile identity badge that is cryptographically linked to its owner’s smartphone and dynamically linked to an enterprise’s existing identity repositories. Usher works on standard Android and iOS smartphones, and also boasts an Apple Watch™ integration.

MicroStrategy

Sample Customers

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

Allstate Insurance, Barneys New York, Boston Children's Hospital, Buenos Aires Department of the Treasury, Campbell Soup Company, DHL, eBay, eHarmony, Facebook, Four Seasons Hotels Inc., Godiva, Hard Rock International, LinkedIn, Netflix, Pfizer, SECO (Swiss Government Unemployment Agency), Starbucks, Texas A&M University, Thomson Reuters Markets, US House of Representatives, and the US Postal Service.

Buyer's Guide

Looker vs. MicroStrategy

February 2026

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