Looker vs Tableau Enterprise comparison

Google and Salesforce are both solutions in the Embedded BI category. Google is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.0, while Salesforce is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.3. Google holds a 8.0% mindshare in EBT, compared to Salesforce’s 26.6% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of Salesforce users who would recommend it.

Looker

Read 19 Looker reviews

2,582 Views
878 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Tableau Enterprise

Read 307 Tableau Enterprise reviews

18,844 Views
2,827 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Looker

Tableau Enterprise

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 4, 2025

Tableau Enterprise and Looker compete in the business intelligence and analytics category. Tableau Enterprise is favored for its robust visualization capabilities, while Looker shines in data modeling with its LookML language.

Features: Tableau Enterprise includes comprehensive dashboards, custom visualizations, seamless data source integration, drag-and-drop analytics, and storytelling features. Looker focuses on modern BI with LookML facilitating data modeling and community-driven insights creation, leveraging flexible data models that adapt to various use-cases.

Room for Improvement: Tableau Enterprise needs better performance with large datasets, enhanced handling of complex data integrations, and stronger enterprise features. Looker should improve its visualization capabilities, user interface, integration options, and ability to handle large datasets efficiently.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Tableau Enterprise offers on-premises, public, and private cloud options, providing highly rated customer service and community support. Looker primarily focuses on public cloud deployment, supported by an active user community, though it requires more personalized technical support compared to Tableau’s broader deployment flexibility and user-friendliness in diverse environments.

Pricing and ROI: Tableau’s pricing is high, yet it provides a strong ROI with flexible licensing options like core-based and user-based licenses, suitable for larger businesses. Looker’s pricing is also considered expensive, especially for smaller enterprises, yet might offer faster ROI in large-scale implementations. Both tools streamline data processes, promising substantial returns on investment.

To learn more, read our detailed Looker vs. Tableau Enterprise Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Looker vs. Tableau Enterprise

September 2025

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Helped 871,688 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

7th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Tableau Enterprise

Ranking in Embedded BI

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

307

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (2nd), Reporting (2nd), Data Visualization (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Embedded BI category, the mindshare of Looker is 8.0%, down from 10.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tableau Enterprise is 26.6%, down from 34.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Embedded BI Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Tableau Enterprise	26.6%
Looker	8.0%
Other	65.4%

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.

Read full review

Uzair Faruqi

Head Of Analytics at Mjunction Services

Ease of developing dashboards and receiving strong technical support have enabled efficient data visualization

Introducing custom features, such as NLP-based reports, is not very good in Tableau. My MD has been asking us for a way to write in natural language to request reports that the system should generate, but that isn't very effective with Tableau. As a developer, I can develop an on-demand report in Python quite easily, but exposing a REST API on the Tableau platform is not a very easy task. AI enablement is an area for improvement for Tableau, and that is something they might have to work upon. I have heard that ThoughtSpot is quite better in this regard, but the cost of ThoughtSpot is much higher. ThoughtSpot has lots of natural language-based report generation features that Tableau lacks.

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

"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."

"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."

"The product is easy to use."

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

"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."

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

More Looker pros

"It is a complete solution allowing a lot of integrations, different graphics, multiple operations and analyzes our date and gives us meaning from it."

"The solution has a lot of customization when comparing to Microsoft BI."

"Tableau is very flexible and easy to learn. It has drag-and-drop function analytics, and its design is very good. It is a very good tool, and it basically brings life into data with good design. We have been creating a lot of interactive visualizations and dashboards. It has a public version. There are public communities from where you can get a lot of examples for practice."

"I like the calculation feature. I would not say it's such a good feature in Tableau, but if you have the knowledge, you can make that feature visible to everyone. It's not a feature that we can drag and drop and get the information. But whatever the data, whatever the calculation, I'm able to do. It's basically the knowledge base. Whatever knowledge I have, I can make that information public and publish it for management."

"It’s good for quick visualization and being able to quickly consume unstructured data to play around with."

"The most important feature is the tool is very easy to use. This makes it simple to introduce it to CxOs. After a rapid demo, they are usual impressed by the results shown, because it has such a rare simplicity."

"It's very easy to set everything up."

"When compared with Power BI, Tableau is much easier."

More Tableau Enterprise pros

Cons

"Stability needs improvement."

"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. 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 integration with different databases must be improved."

"Integrations with other BI tools could be better."

"The product does not have documented material."

"Whenever it comes to specialized visualization, Tableau is an absolute failure."

"It will be good if the server, could be more stable, and I would like to have the technical service to be more reliable."

"Implementation requires a technical background."

"Users would like to be able to export an Excel file when they see a table or something like that. That's not an out-of-the-box feature for Tableau."

"I would like the solution to have certain features allowing the delivery of reports to the email."

"The solution needs to improve its integration capabilities."

"I find data prepping in Tableau challenging to understand, perhaps because I am new to it. It sometimes requires extensive investigation to determine why the data does not appear correctly."

"Improvements can be made in template support. The workbook file structure is really hard to version control. If there was some sort of version control support offered particularly for workbooks, that would help big time."

More Tableau Enterprise cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"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."

"It is cheap."

"The value for money is definitely there."

"Paying for users you never setup or buying expensive desktop licenses for users who can solve their users with web editing on the server are the two biggest expenses."

"The licensing model of Tableau has changed since we initially purchased it three years ago and it is more complicated, and I have found it to be more expensive. They have lost market shares to Microsoft BI. My company will probably change solutions this year because of the increased pricing model."

"Tableau's prices are relatively high for our market. I am from Serbia, so many companies in this market don't have the ability to pay for expensive software. My clients are quite satisfied with a lot of Tableau's qualities except for the prices."

"Best advice on pricing is to anticipate the desire for more licenses once the results of this product are acknowledged in other parts of your company."

"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."

"This license is on a yearly basis."

"We are on an annual license which costs us $1,400 which is very expensive. Microsft BI is less expensive."

More Tableau Enterprise 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…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

12%

Retailer

Media Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

University

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	117
Midsize Enterprise	66
Large Enterprise	182

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

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...

See all answers

Tableau vs. Business Objects - Which is a better solution for visualization and analysis?

Both tools have their positives and negatives. First, I should mention that I am relatively new to Tableau. I have been working on and off Tableau for about a year, but getting to work on it consta...

See all answers

Which would you choose - Tableau or SAP Analytics Cloud?

Tableau is easy to set up and maintain. In about a day it is possible for the entire platform to be deployed for use. This relatively short amount of time can make all the difference for companies ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Power BI vs Looker

Compared 14% of the time

Databricks vs Looker

Compared 13% of the time

Qlik Sense vs Looker

Compared 9% of the time

MicroStrategy vs Looker

Compared 8% of the time

IBM Cognos vs Looker

Compared 7% of the time

More Looker Competitors

Microsoft Power BI vs Tableau Enterprise

Compared 20% of the time

Domo vs Tableau Enterprise

Compared 11% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs Tableau Enterprise

Compared 5% of the time

Databricks vs Tableau Enterprise

Compared 4% of the time

SAP Analytics Cloud vs Tableau Enterprise

Compared 4% of the time

More Tableau Enterprise Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Looker

October 2025

Download Looker product report

Buyer's Guide

Tableau Enterprise

September 2025

Download Tableau Enterprise product report

Also Known As

No data available

Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online

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

Tableau Enterprise offers powerful features for creating interactive visualizations, dashboards, and maps, including drag-and-drop functionality and easy integration with multiple data sources, promoting real-time collaboration and self-service analysis.

Tableau Enterprise stands out with its ability to create user-friendly, interactive visualizations, making it pivotal for business intelligence applications. Users benefit from its seamless connectivity and advanced analytical functions, facilitating data blending and storytelling. Despite a complex learning curve and high licensing costs, its features like geospatial analysis and efficient content distribution drive its indispensable value for data-driven insights. Enhancements in predictive analytics and support integration with machine learning tools further its capabilities across industries.

What are the most valuable features?

Interactive Visualizations: Enables users to create engaging reports.
Drag-and-Drop Functionality: Simplifies data analysis processes.
Data Integration: Offers seamless connectivity with multiple sources.
Real-Time Collaboration: Supports synchronous data sharing.
Advanced Analytics: Provides predictive analytics and geospatial analysis.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Informed Decision-Making: Facilitates data-driven insights.
Efficiency in Reporting: Streamlines dashboard and reporting tasks.
Cost-Effectiveness: Despite high licensing, value in robust analytics tools.
Customizable Options: Tailors analytics to specific needs.

Tableau Enterprise is widely used for business intelligence, supporting industries like healthcare, telecommunications, and finance. Organizations utilize it to analyze performance indicators, operational insights, and financial analytics, enhancing decision-making through interactive reports and real-time data integration.

Salesforce

Sample Customers

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

Accenture, Adobe, Amazon.com, Bank of America, Charles Schwab Corp, Citigroup, Coca-Cola Company, Cornell University, Dell, Deloitte, Duke University, eBay, Exxon Mobil, Fannie Mae, Ferrari, French Red Cross, Goldman Sachs, Google, Government of Canada, HP, Intel, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Macy's, Merck, The New York Times, PayPal, Pfizer, US Army, US Air Force, Skype, and Walmart.

Buyer's Guide

Looker vs. Tableau Enterprise

September 2025

Free Report: Looker vs. Tableau Enterprise

Find out what your peers are saying about Looker vs. Tableau Enterprise and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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