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Board vs Looker Studio comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

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

Board
Ranking in Reporting
18th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (21st), Business Performance Management (7th)
Looker Studio
Ranking in Reporting
10th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Board is 1.7%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Looker Studio is 2.5%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Reporting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Looker Studio2.5%
Board1.7%
Other95.8%
Reporting
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2645016 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Software Delivery at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Offers flexibility in design and saves time in budgeting and forecasting processes
I find Board to be simple and easy to use. It offers significant flexibility in designing solutions. The system overall is very useful, with many capabilities that provide flexibility. Our budgeting and forecasting processes support around three hundred twenty users who would otherwise rely on Excel, making Board invaluable for saving time.
Heron Ziegel - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Engineer at Quartz Consulting Group
Has supported quick dashboard creation and data sharing but lacks tools for managing multiple reports efficiently
We integrated Looker Studio with other platforms in our data ecosystem; we tried integrating with Sheets, and that went okay, but it could have been better. It could have been better because it needed a very specific format to read the data, so we had to reformat the sheet file. Looker Studio was mostly just helpful in that it provided live updating charts for tracking performance indicators in the organization. Integrating with a database was very difficult because there wasn't a lot of feedback for what was going wrong with the connection. I don't remember if we reached out to support. I didn't personally reach out, but my boss may have. I didn't reach out to support, so I do not have experience with it to rate it. We worked with the free version of Looker Studio initially, and we upgraded at some point to the pro version; I don't remember if we actually paid for it or if it was just a free trial. The pricing was reasonable. I remember doing a price comparison, and it was pretty reasonable, but it did have fewer features than a lot of other software, which was okay for a comparable price but a little cheaper.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"I like this solution because it's so versatile, you can really model it after your specific business practices."
"The primary use case is developing a demand planning and collaboration platform, and it is performing well."
"Instead of taking two people a week each month to perform our internal KPI reporting, the same two people can have it done in a day."
"A lot of flexibility from the data modeling standpoint. It can add specific line items into our budget, for example, or if we want to make changes to the data model itself, we have that flexibility."
"Depending on your data, and what kind of business you are doing, I think investing in BOARD is a good, viable solution, because it's very user-friendly, and once you get the hang of it you can do wonders."
"It is useful for self-analysis regarding company data and helps to find areas where we can improve."
"BOARD provides in-depth insight to enable users in their decision-making process."
"BOARD continues to grow and develop, and understands the needs of dynamic organizations, and seems to adopt their product to that."
"I would rate this solution eight or nine out of ten."
"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and the plethora of query sources."
"I find it favorable regarding speed of development, ease of building, and flexibility."
"The best thing about the tool is that it allows you to share information easily and dashboards with colleagues and teammates because it's all online. No matter where you are, as long as you have the Internet, you can connect and use these dashboards. Google made good documentation for this tool. There are many examples of how to use and create dashboards and videos on YouTube. So, I think it's easy to learn."
"This has improved our organization by allowing people to see their data and develop visualizations themselves."
"Valuable features include advanced integrated analysis and easy implementation."
"This is a great tool if your organization leverages other sets of Google tools and needs some quick ideas that are a prettier and more interactive than Google Analytics."
"We previously used Microsoft Power BI, but Google is better."
 

Cons

"The Windows client is a different story. It's not scalable at all, so we decided to go with the Web."
"Data import error messages can be improved to provide more information on why a record failed to get imported."
"In terms of scalability, I would say that there are some limitations in the solution. It cannot handle data that is too big."
"​We are looking for ways to distinguish zeros versus nulls in BOARD."
"The one thing that I think we would like to see in terms of improvement of the application is the ability to print."
"What could be better is the manual... nowadays, most people use a web client, but on the Board manual website, a lot of the information is only about the Windows client. If they could update that, it would be helpful."
"We can't delete entities and cubes in Boards because it interrupts our whole data model."
"Sometimes, the data disappears from the product."
"I would appreciate improvements in the data modeling features, as it's not straightforward, and it's not what people in analytics are used to."
"When you physically install a product on one machine instead of the cloud, you have a better visibility, best icon quality, etc.. It's more of an issue with how we are adapting to the transition. We are still in the early moments of using this tool, and we need to go deeper to discover some improvements."
"The performance of Looker needs improvement, particularly the report loading time, which is critical for business users."
"Panels are not as easy to use as other data extraction UIs."
"Other tools might be worth considering if you need more advanced features or support for a larger user base."
"It's not yet a replacement for a complete BI tool."
"There are issues with integration and I encountered limits and warnings, especially with my pivot table size."
"There is a significant degree of sophistication required to compete with Tableau or Cognos."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's price is a bit high compared to other solutions."
"​In terms of the pricing, it was reasonable. BOARD is not the lowest in the market, but it was reasonable for us."
"Find a partner who will take responsibility for the implementation, and be available for support."
"The solution is quite expensive, if it is made cheaper then we can have more clients. I rate it four out of ten."
"It is not the cheapest product on earth, but you get so much. It provides good value for money."
"The cost is quite affordable based on feature analysis."
"The product is available for free."
"The solution is free but the Google Looker is expensive."
"I think the tool is cheap because you don't need to pay anything for using the tool. However, when connecting and analyzing other data sources, you should consider where to analyze this information because Google Data Studio doesn't handle much data well. You must also consider how you will connect this data to it. In this case, you might need to hire DevOps or a data team to help with these issues."
"The tool is free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Construction Company
9%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

Is Board better than Anaplan as a Business Intelligence (BI) solution?
We've had several FP&A departments include Anaplan in their analytics discussions, and while BI information IS generated, the focus is generally on compiling input from various sources and simu...
What needs improvement with Board?
Board's integration could be a bit more robust, but what we have works. If the design isn't right, the flexibility of Board can negatively impact performance.
What is your primary use case for Board?
Our organization primarily uses Board ( /products/board-reviews ) for budgeting and forecasting.
What needs improvement with Google Data Studio?
I would appreciate improvements in the data modeling features, as it's not straightforward, and it's not what people in analytics are used to. Specifically, most people using this visualization too...
What is your primary use case for Google Data Studio?
I used Looker Studio mainly for reporting, where I created multiple dashboards on it. I wouldn't say I made the most of the usage of the connections because all the connections were based on flat f...
What advice do you have for others considering Google Data Studio?
I confirm that we have a call regarding my experience with Zoho. Looker Studio is a good visualization tool, but I wouldn't say there's a specific feature that stands out in terms of tracking metri...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Data Studio
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Coca-Cola, Puma, Desigual, Ricoh, KPMG, H&M, Groupe SEB
Genesys, Shueisha
Find out what your peers are saying about Board vs. Looker Studio and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.