Looker vs. Spotfire

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
Spotfire
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Spotfire, formerly known as TIBCO Spotfire, is a visual data science platform that combines visual analytics, data science, and data wrangling, so users can analyze data at-rest and at-scale to solve complex industry-specific problems.N/A
Pricing
LookerSpotfire
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
LookerSpotfire
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional DetailsMust contact sales team for pricing.For Enterprise engagements, contact Spotfire directly for a custom price quote.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
LookerSpotfire
Considered Both Products
Looker

No answer on this topic

Spotfire
Chose Spotfire
Spotfire is appropriate for every organization of any size because it can be a recipient of data for better decision-making. Being a robust development platform for creating reports and dashboards, creating a new Spotfire dashboard is relatively simple. Developers can create …
Chose Spotfire
Spotfire does a few things very well compared to the other software. It has its own pros and cons. Spotfire was selected because of its mobility support, 1-click 1-step easy reports and capture of analytics. Geographical location can be captured with this tool which was a major …
Features
LookerSpotfire
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.7
Ratings
6% above category average
Spotfire
-
Ratings
Pixel Perfect reports8.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable dashboards9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates8.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.5
Ratings
5% above category average
Spotfire
-
Ratings
Drill-down analysis8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Formatting capabilities7.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages8.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration9.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.8
Ratings
6% above category average
Spotfire
-
Ratings
Publish to Web8.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Publish to PDF9.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Versioning8.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling9.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Looker
7.0
Ratings
13% below category average
Spotfire
-
Ratings
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)8.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Predictive Analytics4.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.3
Ratings
2% below category average
Spotfire
-
Ratings
Multi-User Support (named login)8.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Looker
6.2
Ratings
24% below category average
Spotfire
-
Ratings
Responsive Design for Web Access7.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Application5.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile7.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform Connectivity
Comparison of Platform Connectivity features of Product A and Product B
Looker
-
Ratings
Spotfire
7.2
Ratings
15% below category average
Connect to Multiple Data Sources00 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Extend Existing Data Sources00 Ratings7.40 Ratings
Automatic Data Format Detection00 Ratings7.80 Ratings
MDM Integration00 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Data Exploration
Comparison of Data Exploration features of Product A and Product B
Looker
-
Ratings
Spotfire
9.1
Ratings
8% above category average
Visualization00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Interactive Data Analysis00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Data Preparation
Comparison of Data Preparation features of Product A and Product B
Looker
-
Ratings
Spotfire
7.4
Ratings
10% below category average
Interactive Data Cleaning and Enrichment00 Ratings7.20 Ratings
Data Transformations00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Data Encryption00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Built-in Processors00 Ratings7.50 Ratings
Platform Data Modeling
Comparison of Platform Data Modeling features of Product A and Product B
Looker
-
Ratings
Spotfire
7.6
Ratings
10% below category average
Multiple Model Development Languages and Tools00 Ratings7.50 Ratings
Automated Machine Learning00 Ratings8.50 Ratings
Single platform for multiple model development00 Ratings7.60 Ratings
Self-Service Model Delivery00 Ratings6.70 Ratings
Model Deployment
Comparison of Model Deployment features of Product A and Product B
Looker
-
Ratings
Spotfire
7.4
Ratings
14% below category average
Flexible Model Publishing Options00 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Security, Governance, and Cost Controls00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
LookerSpotfire
Small Businesses
BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 9.1 out of 10
Jupyter Notebook
Jupyter Notebook
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Posit
Posit
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Kyvos Semantic Intelligence Layer
Kyvos Semantic Intelligence Layer
Score 9.9 out of 10
Posit
Posit
Score 10.0 out of 10
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User Ratings
LookerSpotfire
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(0 ratings)
8.4
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.5
(0 ratings)
9.6
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Performance
6.0
(0 ratings)
7.1
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(0 ratings)
8.7
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.3
(0 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.4
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(0 ratings)
7.1
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
10.0
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(0 ratings)
5.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(0 ratings)
5.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
LookerSpotfire
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
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Spotfire was used to look at a large data set of an in process manufacturing step. The data visualization was set up to look at yield as a function of several inputs (chemical / equipment / operator). After only a short analysis it was immediately obvious that there was a 5% yield discrepancy based on the operator using the equipment. The operators were retrained and the yield gap was eliminated.
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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.
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  • It has the best coding integration (python, R) of any BI product
  • The ability to work with very large datasets (10 mil+) is better than competitors
  • Export options are more complete and have better functionality
  • The data canvas is the best tool to join and transform data vs. competitors
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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.
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  • They should have a lower price point for users to access the analyst version who don't require advanced capabilities. For example, a lower price if users just need to do some basic slicing and dicing with their data and not have to the data science functionality (ie. K-means clustering, regression modeling, classification modeling, etc.).
  • Currently, you can't change the font type/color on the axis, which I'm sure will eventually be available in the future as they have a Spotfire Ideas portal that they're fairly responsive to and act on. I guess at the end of the day, it's about the data and what insights you get from it.
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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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It's a very powerful tool that allows for a myriad of customizations within the analysis files themselves, particularly with the custom expression functionality. There have been some great strides with the quality of the visualization options (which were not great to begin with) and I hope to see more improvements made as the product gets updated.
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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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Basic tasks like generating meaningful information from large sets of raw data are very easy. The next step of linking to multiple live data sources and linking those tables and performing on the fly analysis of the imported data is understandably more difficult.
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Reliability and Availability
No objections
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Even though, it's a rather stable and predictable tool that's also fast, it does have some bugs and inconsistencies that shut down the system. Depending on the details, it could happen as often as 2-3 times a week, especially during the development period.
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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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Generally, the Spotfire client runs with very good performance. There are factors that could affect performance, but normally has to do with loading large analysis files from the library if the database is located some distance away and your global network is not optimal. Once you have your data table(s) loaded in the client application, usually the application is quite good performance-wise.
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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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Support has been helpful with issues. Support seems to know their product and its capabilities. It would also seem that they have a good sense of the context of the problem; where we are going with this issue and what we want the end outcome to be.
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In-Person Training
No answers on this topic
The instructor was very in depth and provided relevant training to business users on how to create visualizations. They showed us how to alter settings and filter views, and provided resources for future questions. However, the instructor failed to cover data sources, connecting to data, etc. While it was helpful to see how users can use the data to create reports, they failed to properly instruct us on how to get the dataset in to begin with. We are still trying to figure out connections to certain databases (we have multiple different types).
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Online Training
No answers on this topic
The online training is good, provides a good base of knowledge. The video demonstrations were well-done and easy to follow along. Provided exercises are good as well, but I think there could be more challenging exercises. The training has also gone up in price significantly in the last 3 years (in USD, which hurts us even more in Canada), and I'm not sure it is worth the money it now costs (it is worth how much it cost 3 years ago, but not double that.)
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Implementation Rating
Very satisfied, easy to implement
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The original architecture I created for our implementation had only a particular set of internal business units in mind. Over the years, Spotfire gained in popularity in our company and was being utilized across many more business units. Soon, its usage went beyond what the original architectural implementation could provide. We've since learned about how the product is used by the different teams and are currently in the middle of rolling out a new architecture. I suggest:
  • Have clearly defined service level agreements with all the teams that will use Spotfire. Your business intelligence group might only need availability during normal working hours, but your production support group might need 24/7 availability. If these groups share one Spotfire server, maintenance of that server might be a problem.
  • Know the different types of data you will be working with. One group might be working with "public" data while another group might work with sensitive data. Design your Library accordingly and with the proper permissions.
  • Know the roles of the users of Spotfire. Will there only be a small set of report writers or does everyone have write access to the Library?
  • ALWAYS add a timestamp prompt to your reports. You don't want multiple users opening a report that will try and pull down millions of rows of data to their local workstations. Another option, of course, is to just hard code a time range in the backing database view (i.e. where activity_date >= sysdate - 90, etc.), but I'd rather educate/train the user base if possible.
  • This probably goes without saying, but if possible, point to a separate reporting database or a logical standby database. You don't want the company pounding on your primaries and take down your order system.
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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.
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Spotfire is appropriate for every organization of any size because it can be a recipient of data for better decision-making. Being a robust development platform for creating reports and dashboards, creating a new Spotfire dashboard is relatively simple. Developers can create highly customized dashboards using the tools it provides. I will recommend this software to others
Read full review
Scalability
No answers on this topic
In an enterprise architecture, if Spotfire Advanced Data services(Composite Studio),data marts can be managed optimally and scalability in a data perspective is great. As the web player/consumer is directly proportional to RAM, if the enterprise can handle RAM requirement accomodating fail over mechanisms appropraitely, it is definitely scalable,
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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.
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  • Spotfire really helped a lot of people in terms of analysis. It eliminates data analysis in excel. Because even underlying data you can explore it in Spotfire.
  • Spotfire helps data analysts to investigate data and also help analysts solve inconsistency of data.
  • Spotfire helps data analysts in building great dashboard that provide insights to users to make decisions to drive revenue and manage the churn.
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ScreenShots

Looker Screenshots

Screenshot of a Looker dashboard with a geo chart.

Spotfire Screenshots

Screenshot of Smart Visual AnalyticsScreenshot of Geospatial AnalyticsScreenshot of Intelligent Data WranglingScreenshot of Point-and-click Data ScienceScreenshot of Real-time Streaming Analytics