Looker vs. Microsoft Power BI

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
Microsoft Power BI
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Power BI is a visualization and data discovery tool from Microsoft. It allows users to convert data into visuals and graphics, visually explore and analyze data, collaborate on interactive dashboards and reports, and scale across their organization with built-in governance and security.N/A
Pricing
LookerMicrosoft Power BI
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
LookerMicrosoft Power BI
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
LookerMicrosoft Power BI
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.
Microsoft Power BI
Chose Microsoft Power BI
All others apps are enablers and Microsoft Power BI is the visual that end user sees which often adds more value to the end user to make strategic decisions from this. All are equally great but Microsoft Power BI is the end result
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Microsoft Power BI vs. Tableau Power BI cheaper and works well with Microsoft tools. Tableau has better visuals but is costly. Microsoft Power BII vs. Looker Looker is good for big data, but Microsoft Power BI is easier to use. Microsoft Power BI vs. Qlik Qlik is fast for big …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Microsoft Power BI provide a user friendly in many ways to analyse the data and visualization of the data .Stacking makes the works easier easily attach the table ,chart row and column through the various available tool ..it also reduces the work part and manpower mechanically …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Microsoft Power BI is more flexible and it requires less effort in order to create a working environment. The results have an attractive and customizable display. The model is a star schema therefore it do not require specific database adaptation. Excel and csv files could be …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Microsoft Power BI is free. If I didn't want to create a custom platform (i.e. my organization insisted on an existing platform that I *had* to use), I'd use Microsoft Power BI. For any start-up or SMB, I'd just use Claude & Grok to build it quickly, also for free. Would …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Same need to be large scale.
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Microsoft Power BI is easier to learn, a lot of examples on YouTube, internet documentation books helps to the implementation and personalization of the dashboards easier to use than other platforms.
Chose Microsoft Power BI
While excel can be useful for a very quick data dump, Microsoft Power BI is able to bring that data to life, and show trends and the actual story of what is happening. Microsoft Power BI is the ultimate display tool, and allows us to share information quickly to the CORRECT …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Compared to this tool, Microsoft Power BI doesn't involve heavy coding and provides user friendly interface to visualize data. Microsoft Power BI reports can be shared and published without exposing your source code. Also, the reports are interactive providing drill down …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Power BI is much simple to use, and more modern than BusinessObjects, which has now been discontinued. It costs much less to license than Tableau which is perhaps more niche and designed better. It is also much more powerful for data analysis than excel, smartsheet, airtable, …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Some of the strengths are 1. User-Friendliness 2. Self-Service BI (Caters to all levels of the employees 3. Cost-effective. 4. Easy integration with Microsoft Suits. 5. DAX Calculations 6. Familiar Interface like traditional Excel. 7. Easier Self-Service platform for …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
It's got a larger user base and seems better supported. Personally it feels like alot more work getting comparable results from Tableau. Microsoft Power BI will be WAY easier to work with all your various data sources, if you are working in an environment with M365 already. …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
After several years using Google Looker Studio and BigQuery, Microsoft Power BI is a step-up in terms of visualizations. It is also much more powerful, leading to less errors and has a more intuitive interface. Looker studio has a focus on google analytics whereas Microsoft …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
NA - did not use any other software, yet. Happy with the services and features provided by Microsoft Power BI which helps us navigate through the client requests on a daily basis while also providing actionable insights / solutions with maximum efficiency and that too in a …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
It's the most widely used tool in most organizations
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Each has a different function. I think Microsoft Power BI is easier to use than Tableau and cheaper but SQL and databricks have so much more versatility
Chose Microsoft Power BI
We use Microsoft Power BI in addition to other software.
Chose Microsoft Power BI
I prefer Power BI because of its affordability and fewer complicated tools than Tableau. It's easy to use and compatible with other Microsoft products, which are mostly used in the IT industry. It's not limited to only one platform like Looker Studio, which is mostly used in …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Microsoft Power BI is more flexible and can also handle more complex reporting scenarios. While Microsoft Excel is a great tool for analyzing data building visuals is not what it is made for. It is complicated to create Excel reports that will be interactive as a use wants to …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Qlik also builds dashboards upon your data. It's more expensive as Microsoft Power BI and needs as much training as Microsoft Power BI
Chose Microsoft Power BI
Being Microsoft environment it is extremely easy to interconnect the application with other Microsoft tools, such as power point or excel. On top of that, also communication through Microsoft teams is enabled which can result in very good collaboration and exchange of feedback …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
We actually chose both Power BI and Quantum Metric. We use them for different things, but they are very similar tools. Quantum does a good job of integrating with our website and app traffic, whereas we use Power BI for data analysis and importing data sets for further review. …
Chose Microsoft Power BI
We have used Microsoft Power BI for almost seven years. When looking for a reporting platform, remember that you are about to make a long-term choice. Moving reports to another system isn't easy. If you have, for example, more than 100 reports, the move to a different platform …
Features
LookerMicrosoft Power BI
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.6
Ratings
5% above category average
Microsoft Power BI
8.8
Ratings
8% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports8.70 Ratings8.50 Ratings
Customizable dashboards9.00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates8.30 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.5
Ratings
5% above category average
Microsoft Power BI
8.2
Ratings
2% above category average
Drill-down analysis8.10 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Formatting capabilities7.80 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages8.70 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration9.20 Ratings9.00 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
Microsoft Power BI
8.6
Ratings
3% above category average
Publish to Web8.30 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Publish to PDF9.10 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Report Versioning8.60 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling9.10 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 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
Microsoft Power BI
8.7
Ratings
9% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)8.10 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.10 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Predictive Analytics4.60 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings9.00 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
Microsoft Power BI
8.6
Ratings
1% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)8.70 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model8.10 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.10 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control8.10 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Looker
6.2
Ratings
24% below category average
Microsoft Power BI
8.0
Ratings
2% above category average
Responsive Design for Web Access7.40 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Mobile Application5.00 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile7.30 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Looker
-
Ratings
Microsoft Power BI
8.4
Ratings
7% above category average
REST API00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings9.90 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings8.10 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Best Alternatives
LookerMicrosoft Power BI
Small Businesses
BrightGauge
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Score 9.1 out of 10
BrightGauge
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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
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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
LookerMicrosoft Power BI
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(0 ratings)
8.5
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.5
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(0 ratings)
7.9
(0 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
6.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(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
LookerMicrosoft Power BI
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
Microsoft Power BI is great for sales tracking, financial reporting, and real-time operations monitoring. It integrates data from multiple sources, creating interactive dashboards for better decision-making. However, it's less ideal for real-time big data processing, offline access, or when deep customization is needed. It works best for structured reporting but struggles with highly complex data models.
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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 is great at taking in large amounts of data and housing it all.
  • Microsoft Power BI is so user friendly and it's dashboards are very easy on the eye.
  • The ease of sharing dashboards makes it great for use across a large company.
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.
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  • It would be easier for users could Microsoft Power BI and Excel used the same programming languages.
  • Would like to see the online version of Microsoft Power BI be as powerful as the desktop version.
  • Publishing a Microsoft Power BI file online and then having to save the file is somewhat redundant.
  • Would like to export each page or chart as an image.
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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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Microsoft Power BI is an excellent and scalable tool. It has a learning curve, but once you get past that, the sky is the limit and you can build from the most simple to the most complex dashboards. I have built everything from simple reports with only a few data points to complex reports with many pages and advanced filtering.
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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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Takes a little bit to get used to it. Not natively intuitive but fairly straight forward to pick up. Also docking it a few points because you can create a really clean, simple UI in Claude very quickly that's faster than building all of this yourself in Microsoft Power BI.
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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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It is a fantastic tool, you can do almost everything related with data and reports, it is a perfect substitutive of Power Point and Excel with a high evolution and flexibility, and also it is very friendly and easy to share. I think all companies should have Power BI (or other BI tool) in their software package and if they are in the MS Suite, for sure Power BI should be the one due to all the benefits of the MS ecosystem.
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Implementation Rating
Very satisfied, easy to implement
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It was integrated with our erp easily and was accessible on cloud.
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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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All others apps are enablers and Microsoft Power BI is the visual that end user sees which often adds more value to the end user to make strategic decisions from this. All are equally great but Microsoft Power BI is the end result
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.
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  • We're still early in the adoption process at this company, but we've illustrated how bad data keeps us from being more productive. ~25% of a team's work week was dedicated to effectively cleaning up entries, but it was always seen as a normal to them.
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ScreenShots

Looker Screenshots

Screenshot of a Looker dashboard with a geo chart.

Microsoft Power BI Screenshots

Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Turns insights into impact for business usersScreenshot of Power BI integrates easily with Microsoft 365Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - AI-Powered CapabilitiesScreenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Copilot can be used to create reportsScreenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Data HubScreenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Scales as organizational needs grow