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Looker vs Qlik Sense comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Looker
Ranking in Embedded BI
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Qlik Sense
Ranking in Embedded BI
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
115
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Embedded BI category, the mindshare of Looker is 25.9%, up from 24.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qlik Sense is 17.6%, down from 23.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Embedded BI
 

Featured Reviews

Subramani R - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Jennifer Sinn - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 26, 2023
Easy to use with robust reporting and great visualizations
I am not sure what improvements could be made. Qlik Sense is very user-friendly. The only thing I would like to see is the ability to create a master app that opens when a user creates a new app that has all the master items, colors, logos, etc., that my organization uses. This would help with keeping master items the same across the apps and would make development a little quicker. This feature would also make it easier for our business users when they want to create an app since they wouldn't need to worry about adding all the needed data sources to it, it they were already there, and they could just press load.

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."
"From a developer's perspective, the way the functionality's being handled is great."
"We can centralize all our data models."
"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."
"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's quite effortless to navigate through various applications and review their updated data in real-time."
"Faster time to delivery utilizing useful charts and graphs, which allows for on-demand generation of analytical data in tables, graphs, and charts."
"Allowing the users to be able to take snapshots and create their own story without ever leaving the application is a very good feature."
"Qlik Sense brings in the concept of shared libraries where one user can create custom dimensions (even with drill-down functionality), measures, and even visualizations and save it to the "Master Items," from which the other users can simply drag and drop to use it for their analysis."
"Qlik has made life easier by visualising data."
"It offers good control. Loading the logs is also a good thing."
"Set analysis is a powerful scripting functionality which calculates complex queries into simple terms."
"The drag and drop UI has been the most useful to me."
"Qlik Sense provides features to manage and govern data, ensuring data security, accuracy, and regulation compliance."
 

Cons

"The integration with different databases must be improved."
"The product does not have documented material."
"The visualization capability of the product is limited."
"It needs to be more user-friendly."
"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."
"Integrations with other BI tools could be better."
"Stability needs improvement."
"Qlik Sense could include additional features for data preparation and integration, making it easier for users to clean, transform, and integrate data from various sources."
"There is an inability to effectively manage (pre)caching (scheduling, assigning for respective user groups, etc), especially without community extensions or uour own development."
"They need to make security rules to access applications and data security easier and customizable."
"The solution needs to make improvements to the licensing model. They need to make it more affordable at scale, and to make it more affordable for those companies at the low end of the market as well."
"My advice to others is to make sure they have a good technical team. We have found that a lot of the consultants go in and out of the business and sometimes you are left alone without assistance."
"Qlik has a fast learning curve due to great online training resources (Qlik continuous classroom), but those are lacking the advance features like building extensions and using the API."
"In my opinion, collaborative development of the Qlik Apps is a bit tricky and difficult in the Qlik Sense Cloud."
"This solution would be improved by adding some Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Deep Learning (DL) components that are easier to interpret and design."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is cheap."
"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."
"Looker is expensive and could be made better by reducing it."
"I do not have to make any payments to use the solution."
"It's not cheap, but it's not expensive for big companies."
"The solution is worth it."
"Qlik Sense is pretty good in terms of price."
"Licensing is quite good, easy, but slightly expensive."
"Start small with tokens. You can always buy more."
"You need to pay 5,000 Norwegian kroner per user. Microsoft Power BI is slightly more expensive than Qlik Sense."
"Qlik Sense and its pricing model can follow any scalability."
"I believe pricing is similar to other products in the same category, if you have it on-premise."
"QlikSense offers a Hybrid environment architecture, which is very cost effective based on where the enterprise data resides."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
35%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
56%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

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.
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...
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, ...
Seeking lightweight open source BI software
It depends on the Data architecture and the complexity of your requirement. Some great tools in the market are Qlik Sense, Power BI, OBIEE, Tableau, etc. I have recently started using Cognos Enter...
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...
What do you like most about Qlik Sense?
The most valuable features of Qlik Sense are its speed and seamless development of web technologies.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
QlikSense
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Yahoo!, Etsy, Kohler, Hipcamp, Hubspot, Kickstarter, Venmo, Dollar Shave Club, 600+ customer
Abbvie, Airbus, Barclays, BT Openreach, BMW, Daimler AG, HSBC, IKEA, Nationwide Building Society, Royal Mail Group, Sanofi, Siemens, Wendy'', Vodafone, Volvo
Find out what your peers are saying about Looker vs. Qlik Sense and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.