Looker vs Tableau Enterprise comparison

Google and Salesforce are both solutions in the Embedded BI category. Google is ranked #9, while Salesforce is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.2. Google holds a 6.4% mindshare in EBT, compared to Salesforce’s 17.9% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of Salesforce users who would recommend it.

Looker

Read 19 Looker reviews

2,435 Views
901 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Tableau Enterprise

Read 309 Tableau Enterprise reviews

19,124 Views
2,869 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Looker

Tableau Enterprise

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 15, 2026

Tableau Enterprise and Looker compete in the business intelligence tools category. Tableau appears to have an edge due to its superior visualization capabilities and broader data source support.

Features: Tableau Enterprise's features include highly intuitive and interactive visualizations, extensive data source support, and dynamic graph and dashboard creation. Looker offers exceptional data modeling capabilities with LookML, seamless SQL database integration, and centralized, accurate data management.

Room for Improvement: Tableau could improve its ETL capabilities, handling of large datasets, and incorporate more AI and machine learning features. Additionally, its pricing and licensing are complex. Looker users seek more customization in visualizations, better integration with popular data sources such as Excel, and improvements in its user interface and training resources.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Tableau provides flexible deployment options, including private clouds and on-premises. It is noted for strong customer service backed by an active community. Looker focuses on public and private cloud deployment and offers service generally well-received, though not as praised as Tableau's. Both have extensive online resources but face some dissatisfaction with response times, especially Looker.

Pricing and ROI: Tableau's pricing is higher than Power BI but competitive with similar tools. It offers extensive functionality and a structured pricing model, with a higher price justifiable due to its Salesforce integration and visualization capabilities. Looker, though potentially expensive for smaller businesses, provides value with advanced features and promises good ROI, particularly appealing to larger businesses with complex analytics needs.

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

Buyer's Guide

Looker vs. Tableau Enterprise

February 2026

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Helped 882,180 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

9th

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

6.1

Number of Reviews

309

Ranking in other categories

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

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 Tableau Enterprise is 17.9%, down from 34.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Embedded BI Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Tableau Enterprise	17.9%
Looker	6.4%
Other	75.7%

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

"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."

"We can centralize all our data models."

"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 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."

More Looker pros

"It's the ease of use. It is also a self-service tool so it decreases the burden on having centralized IT-type teams or developers."

"The most valuable features of the solution are the permission management and the user management."

"It is a stable solution."

"The drill-down approach and interactivity in Tableau are highly effective."

"Show Me is a feature to help with knowing which chart is an appropriate one for the selected variables, and it makes helps in creating appropriate visuals."

"Better interaction and less time spent with end users."

"Self-service is most valuable. Users can pick up quickly and do the resolution. There are a lot of out-of-the-box features, and it satisfies most of the needs. If users are properly trained, they can deal with any situation."

"It is an excellent tool for data capture, processing, and visualization."

More Tableau Enterprise pros

Cons

"The integration with different databases must be improved."

"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 product does not have documented material."

"It needs to be more user-friendly."

"Integrations with other BI tools could be better."

"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."

"Stability needs improvement."

"In the cloud sometimes the performance is a little bit slow."

"We need big servers to perform the operations that we are doing. They should probably relook at its architecture."

"When we put more information on a single screen, it gets compressed and superimposed in many places while scrolling."

"When it comes to visualizations, Tableau has a limitation as compared to Power BI. It has a limited set of visualizations. Power BI has the entire marketplace, so you can connect and import many visualizations and use them, whereas Tableau has only 10 or 15 visualizations. There should be more visualizations, and there should also be data integration with more cloud providers."

"The user story model is the most deceptive part of Tableau. It is a big marketing option, however, the reality is that it is not enough."

"Tableau could be improved by introducing a data manipulation layer within the tool itself. Currently, data manipulations require using additional tools like Alteryx. If Tableau included these capabilities, it would reduce the need for external dependencies. The tool gets slower when we feed huge amounts of data."

"With Tableau, there is a gap in its ability to handle very large-scale data."

"To be the best in the market, Tableau has to improve its user interface and also look into developing implementing the best machine learning algorithms."

More Tableau Enterprise 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."

"The solution's licensing is based on user-basis. It depends on the business ROI it offers. It's not on the higher side or too cheap; it falls in the medium-cost range. The price is determined by user usage, so the cost will also increase as the number of users increases."

"The price of Tableau could improve. The license is too expensive."

"Buy 50 at a time. Project your use base every three months, and project your requirements forward."

"The cost is high."

"It's an annual fee with everything included but it's quite expensive."

"Tableau has core-based and user-based licensing, and it is tied to scalability. The core-based licensing is about you buying a certain number of cores, and there is no restriction on the number of users who can use Tableau. The restriction is only on the number of cores. In user-based subscription licensing, there is a restriction on the number of users. Big companies and government organizations with a lot of users typically go for core-based licensing. User-based subscription licensing is a more common model. It has user roles such as creator, explorer, and viewer. A creator is someone who does the groundwork or development work. An explorer is someone who is into middle management but is not technically savvy, such as a category head. A viewer is like a typical decision-maker in senior management. For each role, Tableau is priced differently. The viewer role has the minimum price, and the creator role has the highest price. This pricing is available on their website. Everybody can see it."

"The license is very expensive."

"I'm using Tableau Public, which is free."

More Tableau Enterprise pricing and cost advice

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Product Manager at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

May 2, 2013

MicroStrategy vs. Tableau

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

Retailer

Media Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing 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	67
Large Enterprise	184

Questions from the Community

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Comparisons

Microsoft Power BI vs Looker

Compared 13% of the time

Databricks vs Looker

Compared 10% of the time

MicroStrategy vs Looker

Compared 9% of the time

Qlik Sense vs Looker

Compared 7% of the time

ThoughtSpot vs Looker

Compared 7% of the time

More Looker Competitors

Microsoft Power BI vs Tableau Enterprise

Compared 17% of the time

Domo vs Tableau Enterprise

Compared 7% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs Tableau Enterprise

Compared 4% of the time

Julius AI vs Tableau Enterprise

Compared 3% of the time

Oracle OBIEE vs Tableau Enterprise

Compared 1% of the time

More Tableau Enterprise Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Looker

February 2026

Download Looker product report

Buyer's Guide

Tableau Enterprise

January 2026

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

February 2026

Free Report: Looker vs. Tableau Enterprise

Find out what your peers are saying about Looker vs. Tableau Enterprise and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.

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