Looker vs Sisense comparison

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Looker

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 29, 2025

Sisense and Looker both compete in the business intelligence space. Looker seems to have the upper hand due to its advanced features and powerful data modeling language, despite its higher cost.

Features: Sisense is known for its ease of use, fast implementation, and ability to seamlessly combine multiple data sources. Its simplicity and range of visualizations cater to quick deployments without requiring technical expertise. Looker is praised for its flexibility and powerful data modeling capabilities via LookML, which enables sophisticated data manipulation and sharing, especially for SQL-experienced users looking to democratize data access.

Room for Improvement: Sisense could enhance its support for statistical packages and intricate data cubes that impact complex data blending capabilities. Users express a need for more customization options and improved handling of larger datasets. Looker, while strong in advanced analytics, could improve data source integration, visualization options, and user accessibility, offering more intuitive features for non-technical users and managing interface complexity for improved ease of use.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Sisense stands out with options for on-premises, private, and public cloud deployments, complemented by exceptional customer service and technical support that are both responsive and helpful. Looker primarily operates in the public cloud and requires strong technical knowledge for deployment. While offering customer support, some users feel that response times and problem resolution could be more efficient.

Pricing and ROI: Sisense is competitively priced, offering value for small to mid-sized businesses but is considered expensive compared to alternatives like Tableau and Power BI. Its ROI is viewed positively, with users noting time savings and improved reporting. Looker, while possibly costly for smaller businesses, justifies its expense with efficiency and advanced capabilities attractive to larger, data-intensive organizations. Pricing varies widely, typically aligning with user numbers and specific needs.

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

Looker vs. Sisense

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Helped 885,264 peers since 2012

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

10th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Sisense

Ranking in Embedded BI

7th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (11th), Cloud Analytics (3rd), Reporting (9th), Data Visualization (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Embedded BI category, the mindshare of Looker is 6.4%, down from 9.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sisense is 5.8%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Embedded BI Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Sisense	5.8%
Looker	6.4%
Other	87.8%

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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Caramel Moana

Senior Business Analyst at Target

Data analytics has transformed our KPI tracking and now drives faster sales decisions

This tool has given me the power to convert data into new analytical applications, giving me transparency about working on multiple platforms, and since it is cloud-based, it combines different pages for a complete progress report. Overall, it is playing a perfect, fantastic role in my organization. Some of the best features Sisense offers include its speed due to the In-Chip methodology, great visualization that makes BI easier, and the ability to load millions of data in seconds, which did not seem possible with other traditional reporting tools. It also has a robust architecture and provides REST APIs for external access. I emphasized the In-Chip methodology because it allows for accessing millions of data in a short span of seconds while providing the best visual effects for our business data.

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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 most valuable features are the ability to create visualizations for non-technical employees, as well as the ability to provide ways to dynamically slice the data."

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

"Looker is an extremely valuable product that can really transform your company's ability to use data to answer challenging questions."

"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."

"We LOVE Looker here at Snagajob."

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

More Looker pros

"The customer service provided by Sisense is excellent; it's clear that the company is invested in their clients successfully implementing and using their product."

"The dashboard design interface is very intuitive and allows you to quickly and easily produce professional, innovative dashboards."

"The best part about this solution is how easy it is to mash up the data from many sources, and Sisense is fast compared to other solutions."

"Sisense has helped us gain knowledge about our customers, as well as highlighting data quality issues to correct."

"The Sisense data cube allows us to execute heavy, complex computations on the fly so customers can slice and dice the data based on their business needs."

"The Sisense solution was very easy to set up, and its visualizations were effective."

"We implemented the solution into an environment that had been using Excel as a business intelligence tool with data delivered on a monthly basis and we have freed our sales staff from being Excel pivot table experts."

"Sisense is an excellent tool set, hitting all of the BI sweet spots and stacking up very well against the top players in the BI market."

More Sisense pros

Cons

"They need to work more on interactivity in order to help users interact with the tool itself, and 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."

"Looker depends on the database components. For example, if you have a underperforming database, then you likely will have a poor performance experience."

"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."

"Looker doesn't connect to Excel, which is a huge disappointment because a lot of data is presented in Excel."

"Some of the visualizations are a bit limited on how much you can customize them."

"This product is useful for non-technical users, who are able to use the interface to easily slice data. But for the admin users who are responsible for maintaining the schemas and files behind the scenes, it can easily become a chore, as there is a lot of manual work involved in defining the schemas of the connected database(s), as well as any refactored tables; the restrictive syntax also makes maintenance difficult."

"The integration with different databases must be improved."

More Looker cons

"My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is cost-effective, but for smaller organizations working under a tight budget, this tool might be a bit expensive for them."

"During the introductory training, our trainer wasn't able to accompany us on this subject and there is no return on experience from the community, probably because integration with R seems to be new."

"I would like to see more development and growth for the support of Knowledge Base and Community forums."

"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"

"I would like Sisense to improve its performance, particularly when we are dealing with large-scale data."

"There are some functionalities missing regarding built-in capabilities, which can only be added by using JavaScript, requiring technical knowledge from the dashboard designer to implement."

"Users with viewer access have less capabilities than similar users in Tableau."

More Sisense cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"It is cheap."

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

"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."

"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

Financial Services Firm

13%

Retailer

Computer Software Company

Media Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Marketing Services Firm

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	28
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	15

Questions from the Community

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What needs improvement with Sisense?

So far, Sisense is performing well, but some visualizations lack flexibility in design options. Sisense should improve on handling extremely large data sets, and they should improve on maintaining ...

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What is your primary use case for Sisense?

In our organization, we use Sisense for business intelligence where it helps us with complex data from multiple sources and provides excellent insights, which makes it easy for us to make data-driv...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sisense?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been positive, as the price is relatively affordable compared to other solutions, and I have no challenges with the pricing. The setup is s...

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Comparisons

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Product Reports

Looker

Download Looker product report

Download Sisense 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

Sisense is an end-to-end business analytics software that enables users to easily prepare and analyze large, complex datasets. Sisense’s Single-Stack BI software includes data preparation, data management, analysis, visualization and reporting capabilities.

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

Looker vs. Sisense