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Looker vs Sisense comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sisense
Ranking in Embedded BI
9th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (19th), Cloud Analytics (4th), Reporting (14th), Data Visualization (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Embedded BI category, the mindshare of Looker is 9.3%, down from 11.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sisense is 6.0%, up from 5.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Embedded BI
 

Featured Reviews

Kishore Jhunjhunwala - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Wiboon Thabsuwan - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps businesses save time and offers good integration features
I would say that using Sisense on Linux's platform might not be advantageous for everyone. I am more familiar with Windows than Linux. With Windows, the system performs very fast. Even if your data size consists of like 10,00,00,000 loads or whatever, it works very fast. When using Sisense, it is better to have some people with a very good understanding of Linux. I need more technical people who understand about Linux OS. Only two people would be enough to operate the tool.

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."
"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."
"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."
"From a developer's perspective, the way the functionality's being handled is great."
"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."
"Allows us to execute heavy, complex computations on the fly so customers can slice and dice the data based on their business needs."
"I have found the dashboard creating feature helpful."
"Support is very responsive and clearly one of the strengths of Sisense. I have always received a fast response and the staff is very helpful."
"The Sisense solution was very easy to set up, and its visualizations were effective."
"It has allowed me to move my data to the cloud."
"The most valuable thing I have found is the ability for Sisense to connect data from totally different sources."
"Whenever we have an issue or are unsure how to proceed, they manage to simplify the issue and help us execute it in a graceful and scalable way."
"No issues with stability. It is a very stable solution."
 

Cons

"The product does not have documented material."
"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."
"Integrations with other BI tools could be better."
"Stability needs improvement."
"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."
"It needs to be more user-friendly."
"The visualization capability of the product is limited."
"The initial version we purchased only ran on Windows servers, which was less than ideal for our DevOps team. I believe that has been remedied in the latest release."
"I would also like to be able to run a bursts of reports based on different field values with PDF output right in the tool, rather than filtering on each field value and generating each PDF manually."
"This solution does not have tabs. In order to have tabs, you have to download an add-on to mimic the tabs. They should be integrated to improve the solution."
"Larger datasets will sometimes give a "Accumulated logs" error when trying to make minor changes. T"
"They should improve the filters to create downloaded data by moving them to the top of the dashboard."
"At present there are additional costs involved if we wish to share our data queues within this solution, which we would like to see removed."
"I would like to see more development and growth for the support of Knowledge Base and Community forums."
"The administrative side of Sisense is a little cumbersome and confusing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is cheap."
"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."
"It's not cheap, but it's not expensive for big companies."
"I do not have to make any payments to use the solution."
"Compared to Power BI or Tableau, Sisense is much more expensive."
"This solution is more expensive than Tableau, Qlik and Dundas. It is an expensive tool. They charge $75,000 while Tableau is $45,000."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
34%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
15%
University
6%
Government
6%
 

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, ...
What do you like most about Sisense?
The solution's technical support team is good.
What needs improvement with Sisense?
I would like to see an improvement in the live data connection, specifically making the process faster. Additionally, incorporating more self-service capabilities would benefit the product.
What is your primary use case for Sisense?
I was looking into some of our business operations with tow truck companies. I focused on evaluating turnaround times for tow trucks to arrive on-site for accidents and how long it took them to cle...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Yahoo!, Etsy, Kohler, Hipcamp, Hubspot, Kickstarter, Venmo, Dollar Shave Club, 600+ customer
Ebay, WIX, Wave Accounting, ESPN.com, Magellan Luxury Hotel, Paylogic, Sony, Merck, EDA, One Hour Translation, NASA, Plastic Jungle, Philips, Yahoo
Find out what your peers are saying about Looker vs. Sisense and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.