Looker vs. Qlik Sense

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
Qlik Sense
Score 7.4 out of 10
N/A
Qlik Sense® is a self-service BI platform for data discovery and visualization. It supports a full range of analytics use cases—data governance, pixel-perfect reporting, and collaboration. Its Associative Engine indexes and connects relationships between data points for creating actionable insights.
$200
per month
Pricing
LookerQlik Sense
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Starter
$200
per month
Standard
$825
per month
Premium
$2,750
per month
Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows
Contact Sales
Enterprise
Custom Quote
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
LookerQlik Sense
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional DetailsMust contact sales team for pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
LookerQlik Sense
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.
Qlik Sense
Chose Qlik Sense
We use both Qlik Sense and QlikView. Both bring valué. However, due to simpler development Qlik Sense is the main tool.
Chose Qlik Sense
Qlik Sense cost of licensing is cheaper compared with other tools which always gives an upper edge in analytics industry with good functionality. More enhanced level of security with better user community group available to discuss about new updates. Understanding of Qlik Sense …
Chose Qlik Sense
We use Microsoft Power BI too as a BI tool, in my point of view, Qlik Sense's ETL is much better than PowerBi. In another side, PowerBI learning curve is small than Qlik Sense, especially the PowerBI Desktop.
Chose Qlik Sense
Kibana is data visualization tool in Elastic Stack to visualize and analyze Real Time Logs Capture.
It captures Live Streaming data and helps to detect any anomalies, error and bugs, monitoring aspects of any service/ IOT Device.
Chose Qlik Sense
The customization of the platform opens up plenty of other options depending on the use cases. The API layer is incredibly rich and makes integration of Qlik based visualization into web pages a simple and effective pattern. It's been very easy to use with a great community …
Chose Qlik Sense
Both are good data visualisation platforms; with certain applications where one is better than the other
Chose Qlik Sense
Qlik Sense offers a broad variety of functions that are not easily achievable using PowerBi. However, I was not involved with the selection.
Chose Qlik Sense
Qlik Sense is a fast tool to implement; you can have a functional dashboard in a few days, and the ETL processes are quite easy to build it. You can have the ROI in a short period of time.
Chose Qlik Sense
Qlik Sense comes out as a superior product as well as more cost efficient than some of the other products we evaluated as a part of our Enterprise Business Intelligence stack. It offers unified view of our data and extensibility. Qlik Sense being the most interactive …
Chose Qlik Sense
Qlik Sense is relatively cheaper and more futuristic
Chose Qlik Sense
Qlik Sense is one of the best reporting systems. It is stronger than PBI and Tableau when speaking about complex KPIs. It is really similar to Microstrategy Analytics when you speak about obtained results, but it is easier to use, especially as it is more code-based. But is it …
Chose Qlik Sense
Qlik Sense can easily integrate multiple data models to visualize customer data. Tableau is easy to use—perhaps more manageable than Qlik—but expensive. Microsoft BI was chosen because it was similar to previously used
Chose Qlik Sense
We originally went with Qlik Sense because the desktop version used to be free for single users and was a very good proposition for us (we are a non-profit with a limited budget). However, from what I see, the functionality is comparable, and Qlik Sense stacks up well.
Chose Qlik Sense
As soon as you want to pull data from two or more separate tables, Qlik Sense leaves the rest in the dust, since it does not require joins or complex transformations. Zoho CRM analytics are limited to the data located in the product itself. No external tables can be combined.
Chose Qlik Sense
Other tools were not able to handle complex business requirements and performance was not too good with very huge volume data. we were required to maintain history, time-based data backups, and snapshots. Also, some of the tools were too costly compare to Qlik [Sense] solutions.
Chose Qlik Sense
We had a QlikView deployment and it made sense to utilize what was existing for our Qlik Sense use.
Chose Qlik Sense
When it comes to working with large datasets out of the box, Qlik in my opinion is unrivaled amongst the competitor. However, the overall user experience and customization options available to developers require a lot of work. When compared to other options on the market, …
Chose Qlik Sense
We thought we were getting a good (financial) deal. We had internal resources who were already familiar with Qlik.
Chose Qlik Sense
BI has some amazing features, but it requires a good understanding of DAX. It's not as user-friendly as Qlik Sense.
Features
LookerQlik Sense
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.6
Ratings
5% above category average
Qlik Sense
8.5
Ratings
4% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports8.60 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.90 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates8.30 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.4
Ratings
4% above category average
Qlik Sense
8.6
Ratings
7% above category average
Drill-down analysis8.10 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Formatting capabilities7.80 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages8.70 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration9.10 Ratings9.00 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
Qlik Sense
8.8
Ratings
6% above category average
Publish to Web8.30 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Publish to PDF9.00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Report Versioning8.60 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling9.10 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings8.80 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
Qlik Sense
8.7
Ratings
9% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)8.00 Ratings8.50 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Predictive Analytics4.60 Ratings8.70 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
Qlik Sense
9.0
Ratings
6% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)8.70 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model8.10 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.10 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control8.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Looker
6.2
Ratings
23% below category average
Qlik Sense
7.4
Ratings
6% below category average
Responsive Design for Web Access7.40 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Mobile Application5.00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile7.20 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Looker
-
Ratings
Qlik Sense
8.6
Ratings
10% above category average
REST API00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings8.40 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings8.50 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Best Alternatives
LookerQlik Sense
Small Businesses
BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 9.1 out of 10
BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 9.1 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
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
LookerQlik Sense
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(0 ratings)
8.5
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.5
(0 ratings)
8.4
(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)
7.3
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
7.3
(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)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
LookerQlik Sense
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
Qlik Sense is a program whose purpose is to greatly improve all your operations and use of all data in an organic way. The mission will always be to increase the economic and commercial processes of the company in a short time. I recommended it for its high technology, which was Created for this area, the results are successful. We have noticed how it has increased relationships with our clients thanks to the credibility and security that we provide.
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
  • Self-Service Visualization and Discovery
  • Fullstack BI from ETL to Visualization, its built-in ETL engine can transform disparate data sets into a common data structure
  • Uses HTML5 based responsive design which visualization automatically adapt to the screen size and orientation of the users device
  • Actively engaged community and resources to help you learn this software in the best possible manner
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
  • Not a lot of room for customization as we were used to in QlikView
  • UI and default navigation can be very clunky and not user friendly
  • Although the backend is fantastic, the front end experience leaves a lot to be desired. As a developer you don't have a lot of options to customized your app unless you turn to Javascript, CSS and HTML. This is not a common stack you would find in most BI developers
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
Read full review
Qlik Sense is a constantly improving it's software and working with its' users to make it better. They are great at keeping their users informed of progress and care about delivering a quality product
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Qlik Sense has a better and easy to learn user interface compared with other analytics tool which always help us to create regular and adhoc reports within the stipulated time frame and can be easily refreshed at a scheduled time and sent to multiple stakeholders for timely update regarding the Key metrics indicator.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
No objections
Read full review
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
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Not only can you ask the support team for help, but you can also ask the community. Also with the community there is a vast amount of problems that have already been solved. The problem you are encountering has a likely chance of already being discussed and even solved in the community section saving you time from reaching out.
Read full review
In-Person Training
No answers on this topic
The instructor was very knowledgeable.
Read full review
Online Training
No answers on this topic
The online instructor was very knowledgeable.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Very satisfied, easy to implement
Read full review
Hire Qlik consultants. It's better done by them or with their aid.
Read full review
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
The customization of the platform opens up plenty of other options depending on the use cases. The API layer is incredibly rich and makes integration of Qlik based visualization into web pages a simple and effective pattern. It's been very easy to use with a great community made up of professionals. Qlik Sense has introduces artificial Intelligence into my data visualization and reporting activity.
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
  • The impact has undoubtedly been positive, it is difficult to quantify it, however in terms of effectiveness or efficiency I give it a 90%.
  • I don't give it 100% because to use the complete package you have to pay, and it's not that cheap and on the other hand because it has some deficiencies, such as technical support and some issues like windows that are not so friendly and easy to work with.
  • Still, I can't stop using it.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Looker Screenshots

Screenshot of a Looker dashboard with a geo chart.

Qlik Sense Screenshots

Screenshot of Qlik Sense Cash Flow DashboardScreenshot of Qlik Sense Global Smart SearchScreenshot of Qlik Sense Smart Data Compression - Get immediate insight on large dataScreenshot of Extend, mix and mash-up with our APIsScreenshot of Add "External data" with Qlik DataMarket - Data as a ServiceScreenshot of Visualization Bundle