Looker vs. Metabase

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Looker
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Looker is a BI application with an analytics-oriented application server that sits on top of relational data stores. It includes an end-user interface for exploring data, a reusable development paradigm for data discovery, and an API for supporting data in other systems.N/A
Metabase
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
Metabase aims to bring data tools with the simplicity of consumer products to the crufty world of enterprise business intelligence. Their open source analytics and business intelligence applications connect to most commonly used databases to let anyone in a company ask questions, and create dashboards or nightly emails without knowing SQL. Metabase Enterprise enables the user to embed branded analytics into customer applications.
$85
per month (includes 5 users, then $5 per user, per month)
Pricing
LookerMetabase
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Starter
$85
per month (includes 5 users, then $5 per user, per month)
Starter
$85
per month up to 5 users
Pro
$500
per month up to 10 users
Growth
$749
per month (includes 10 users, then $15 per user, per month)
Enterprise
15,000
per year
Open Source
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
LookerMetabase
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional DetailsMust contact sales team for pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
LookerMetabase
Considered Both Products
Looker
Chose Looker
Better in terms of data configuration with slight harder learning curve, available help material is not that much and we usually have to connect with Looker Help with chat for our data and analysis questions. While Looker offers a wide range of visualization options, there were …
Chose Looker
It takes forever sometimes to have data ready in tableau dashboard, and also it takes effort to maintain each dashboards. We do not have so many efforts to maintain all. Also, we need to be able to see data faster and therefore take actions and work faster. With Looker we might …
Chose Looker
Looker Studio is not as robust as Tableau or Microsoft BI. So it does not provide quite as much insight or depth and it has more limitations overall then the other major reporting products. However, it is also free and connects perfectly with other Google products. Plus, all of …
Chose Looker
Technically, Power BI is much more complete and powerful, but it's like an ocean liner. I didn't need all that equipment. In my case, I needed to move more quickly, like on a speedboat, to build a page with several data sources in a single source of truth that could be easily …
Chose Looker
Looker is a free tool to use on the basic level, which can't really compare apples to apples since all of the other services are paid services. Looker already has a leg up because of that. The other platforms definitely have more features and capabilities off the bat because it …
Chose Looker
The learning curve for Tableau Cloud was too steep for our team. After watching a couple of YouTube videos, anyone can begin connecting data sources and creating reports with Looker. Looker is also free with Google Workspace, making the decision between Looker and Tableau a …
Chose Looker
Tableau did not have the customization that we were told it had, and it was expensive. Domo looks promising, but is also expensive so we haven't purchased it (we may in the future). Google Sheets was very basic and did fine for what it was, but we needed something a bit more …
Chose Looker
Looker seems to be all inclusive in data analysis and reporting. Along with the ability to forecast and add specific metrics to data sets. The automatic reporting sending them on scheduled days is great as well. The only concern is the ease of use as it requires high level …
Chose Looker
I don't remember much about Tableau, but it was chaotic and poorly set up for our company.
Chose Looker
I have not used any other products like Looker before and the company has been using Looker since I've joined. We've talked about replacing other software vendors in the past but never discussed replacing Looker because of how vital it is to our organization.
Chose Looker
Looker is a great fit for our company because we have collaborative analytics workflows and complicated data ecosystems and because of its strengths in data modeling, integration, and collaboration.
Brand name and peer recommendations also helps us to select Looker against …
Chose Looker
Our organization is going all in on Google products so switching out of the Microsoft suite of tools is a no brainer. All the Google tools work incredibly well together and once you transition it’s incredibly hard to be half in half out between Google and Microsoft. If you’re a …
Chose Looker
Looker is more mailable; it allows more dynamic visualisations, filters, drilldowns etc. It's sharing capabilities are also more streamlined than AWS Quicksight. However in contrast to this AWS Quicksight can leverage AWS IAM roles and policies which can be quite scalable. …
Chose Looker
Looker is free, so it's certainly better bang for your buck. It's a good platform for someone who just needs a quick way to look at the data they have. It doesn't have some of the advanced functionality that Tableau has, but it integrates well with the Google ecosystem, so it's …
Chose Looker
In terms of reporting specifically Looker Studio allows to integrate way more sources into a single report. If needed sources can be blended and parameters can be created with calculations etc
Chose Looker
We haven't had a proper benchmarking done. We might consider looking at other options, but this thing is deeply integrated into our platform, so not anytime soon.
Chose Looker
I choose Looker when I need quick charts. It is easier to start and configure, browser-based, and easy to connect with Google Sheets. This gives it a good competitive advantage when comparing pricing—other similar tools have expensive licenses. In a corporate Google …
Chose Looker
Looker and Tableau are similar products with benefits and drawbacks according to which software you choose to employ. Looker is a Google product whereas Tableau is a Salesforce product. Depending on your existing tech stack it is recommended to leverage the integrated, native …
Chose Looker
Looker is web based app and much easier to use.¨ON the othe hand Power BI offers robust integration with Microsoft products (like Azure, SQL Server, and Excel) and a wide range of other data sources. Power BI's ability to seamlessly connect and import data from these sources is …
Chose Looker
We use both Looker and Tableau. It depends on the specific team. However, there is a clear correlation that we use Tableau more often when there are more data sources, including financial data.
Metabase
Chose Metabase
It does not stack up against Metabase, they complete each other.
Chose Metabase
I used Looker in a previous role and found it clunky, difficult to navigate, hard to collaborate on, and ultimately massively expensive. I evaluated Looker to see if it would be right to implement it as a solution in my current role, but Metabase was the clear winner - the ease …
Chose Metabase
I thought Metabase was the easiest option that allowed for flexibility. However, I did need dedicated engineering resources to get the system configured and basic queries started
Features
LookerMetabase
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.6
Ratings
5% above category average
Metabase
7.5
Ratings
8% below category average
Pixel Perfect reports8.60 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.90 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates8.30 Ratings6.40 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.4
Ratings
4% above category average
Metabase
8.3
Ratings
3% above category average
Drill-down analysis8.10 Ratings8.50 Ratings
Formatting capabilities7.80 Ratings7.40 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages8.70 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration9.10 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.7
Ratings
5% above category average
Metabase
8.7
Ratings
5% above category average
Publish to Web8.30 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Publish to PDF9.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Report Versioning8.50 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling9.10 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Looker
6.9
Ratings
14% below category average
Metabase
8.8
Ratings
10% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)8.00 Ratings8.50 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Predictive Analytics4.60 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.2
Ratings
3% below category average
Metabase
9.5
Ratings
11% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)8.70 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model8.10 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.00 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control8.10 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Looker
6.1
Ratings
25% below category average
Metabase
9.0
Ratings
14% above category average
Responsive Design for Web Access7.40 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Mobile Application5.00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile7.20 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Looker
-
Ratings
Metabase
8.8
Ratings
12% above category average
REST API00 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
LookerMetabase
Small Businesses
BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 9.0 out of 10
BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Kyvos Semantic Intelligence Layer
Kyvos Semantic Intelligence Layer
Score 9.9 out of 10
Kyvos Semantic Intelligence Layer
Kyvos Semantic Intelligence Layer
Score 9.9 out of 10
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User Ratings
LookerMetabase
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(0 ratings)
8.5
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.5
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
6.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
LookerMetabase
Likelihood to Recommend
When you need to create a centralised dashboard for multiple stakeholders that blends cross-channel reporting. As an SEO agency reporting for clients - Looker is a great solution. It's less appropriate depending on the intended users. For instance, in my experience Looker reports have been under-utilised because they're not accessed regularly, provide too much noise or often simple PDF reports are preferred
Read full review
Getting data using query with multiple joins is very fast with Metabase, and role-based access to the reports can be provided to users. The only place it lags right now is the filter for page and page size. This comes with great support for container-based deployment and on-system deployment, too. I did both container and system direct installation, and direct deployment became a bit challenging. On the other hand, it really provides very good support for data representation.
Read full review
Pros
  • It is very easy to start a new dashboard and configure what you want to display by just selecting/dragging from the list of available columns.
  • It is intuitive, mainly if you use other Google services like Google Sheets.
  • The look and feel is modern and nice.
  • It it very useful to have an immediate visual overview of the data in a spreadsheet.
Read full review
  • Store Data
  • Make Querying easy
  • Quickly ingest data from many sources
Read full review
Cons
  • I wish I could get more granular in the Google ad data, such as down to the campaign type, instead of having to see only all campaigns.
  • The setup can be time-consuming if you're not using the product regularly.
  • Editing the dashboard requires a few logins; I wish it was more seamless.
Read full review
  • The layout could be more modern
  • Would be great to have a drag and drop option to build dashboards
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
We are very haooy with Looker, it provides us with all the funciomalities we need for both the day to day oerformance tracking and longer periods reporting. It is easy to use for account managers, configurable and customizable for soecialists and what is most imoortant, our clinets generally really love it
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No answers on this topic
Usability
Looker is relatively easy to use, even as it is set up. The customers for the front-end only have issues with the initial setup for looker ml creations. Other "looks" are relatively easy to set up, depending on the ETL and the data which is coming into Looker on a regular basis.
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The tool serves as the purpose of what we were looking for. I am giving us eight because it is cumbersome and needs separate deployment on production; otherwise, it creates memory issues for small servers. Apart from this, this is an excellent tool, providing data features some analysts want. Its backend is heavy, but it works pretty smoothly on front-end users.
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Reliability and Availability
No objections
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No answers on this topic
Performance
Somehow resources heavy, both on server and client. I recommned at least 50Mbs data rate and high performance desktop comouter to be abke to run comolex tasks and configure larger amount of data. On the other hand, the client does not need to worry when viewing, the performance is usually ok
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Never had to work with support for issues. Any questions we had, they would respond promptly and clearly. The one-time setup was easy, by reading documentation. If the feature is not supported, they will add a feature request. In this case, LDAP support was requested over OKTA. They are looking into it.
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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Very satisfied, easy to implement
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
In my opinion, Looker is no Power BI. It is good, but I think Power BI is amazing. That said, in my experience, Power BI is nowhere near as easy to setup and report on Google services as Looker is. We plan to continue using Power BI for c-suite and corporate reporting, especially for internal databases, but will gladly use Looker for our marketing information for AdWords, Analytics, Search Console, and YouTube.
Read full review
It does not stack up against Metabase, they complete each other.
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • Other than some people not liking the numbers, I don't see any negative impacts; we haven't experienced that.
  • The reports help us unravel the story of our users and how they are sifting through our pages.
  • Our clients enjoy seeing the numbers to understand better what stands out on their sites.
  • The reports have helped us see what campaigns are working and where we need to tweak things.
  • The reports have enabled us to have better conversations with stakeholders about how their web pages should be modified, edited, etc., to reflect the data.
Read full review
  • Departmental Reporting - allows each department to measure and track KPIs
  • Visibility - everyone has access to the data they need and context on the rest of the business' goals
  • Churn - Helps to predict churn from our partners given their sales and forecasts
Read full review
ScreenShots

Looker Screenshots

Screenshot of a Looker dashboard with a geo chart.