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Databricks vs Looker Studio comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Databricks
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (9th), Data Science Platforms (1st), Streaming Analytics (1st)
Looker Studio
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Databricks is designed for Cloud Data Warehouse and holds a mindshare of 8.3%, up 5.9% compared to last year.
Looker Studio, on the other hand, focuses on Reporting, holds 3.1% mindshare, up 2.4% since last year.
Cloud Data Warehouse Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Databricks8.3%
Snowflake17.7%
Dremio8.9%
Other65.1%
Cloud Data Warehouse
Reporting Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Looker Studio3.1%
Microsoft Power BI23.8%
Tableau Enterprise20.2%
Other52.9%
Reporting
 

Featured Reviews

ShubhamSharma7 - PeerSpot reviewer
Capability to integrate diverse coding languages in a single notebook greatly enhances workflow
Databricks offers various courses that I can use, whether it's PySpark, Scala, or R. I can leverage all these courses in a single notebook, which is beneficial for clients as they can access various tools in one place whenever needed. This is quite significant. I usually work with PySpark based on client requirements. After coding, I feed the Databricks notebooks into the ADF pipeline for updates. Databricks' capability to process data in parallel enhances data processing speed. Furthermore, I can connect our Databricks notebook directly with Power BI and other visualization tools like Qlik. Once we develop code, it allows us to transform raw data into visualizations for clients using analysis diagrams, which is very helpful.
Vijay Subramanyam - PeerSpot reviewer
The ability to perform aggregation before visualization allows for effective data slicing and dicing
Looker's ability to perform aggregation before visualization allows for effective data slicing and dicing. The seamless integration with Excel and Google Sheets and custom filter creation features facilitate detailed trend reports and analysis. Looker has significantly improved productivity by reducing the time spent on creating summary reports from weeks to a day.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We have the ability to scale, collaborate and do machine learning."
"I like cloud scalability and data access for any type of user."
"It's easy to increase performance as required."
"Databricks allows me to automate the creation of a cluster, optimized for machine learning and construct AI machine learning models for the client."
"Databricks integrates well with other solutions."
"It's great technology."
"The ability to stream data and the windowing feature are valuable."
"It can send out large data amounts."
"The product's initial setup phase is very simple."
"I would rate this solution eight or nine out of ten."
"The ability to integrate with a great variety of data sources."
"I am impressed with the tool's scheduling mechanism, refresh mechanism, and different types of charts."
"I find it favorable regarding speed of development, ease of building, and flexibility."
"Looker's ability to perform aggregation before visualization allows for effective data slicing and dicing."
"Valuable features include advanced integrated analysis and easy implementation."
"The ability to design complex data models and equations."
 

Cons

"Databricks would have more collaborative features than it has. It should have some more customization for the jobs."
"One area of improvement is the Databricks File System (DBFS), where command-line challenges arise when accessing files. Standardization of file paths on the system could help, as engineers sometimes struggle."
"The solution could improve by providing better automation capabilities. For example, working together with more of a DevOps approach, such as continuous integration."
"The interface of Databricks could be easier to use when compared to other solutions. It is not easy for non-data scientists. The user interface is important before we had to write code manually and as solutions move to "No code AI" it is critical that the interface is very good."
"I think setting up the whole account for one person and giving access are areas that can be difficult to manage and should be made a little easier."
"The product cannot be integrated with a popular coding IDE."
"It's not easy to use, and they need a better UI."
"Databricks is an analytics platform. It should offer more data science. It should have more features for data scientists to work with."
"Other tools might be worth considering if you need more advanced features or support for a larger user base."
"From the perspective of infrastructure, I cannot provide a valuable opinion on the ease of use and customization options of Looker Studio."
"The tool has a lot of room for improvement. It's not very professional and allows for only simple tasks like indicating KPIs or quick calculations. It lacks a good calculation-based language like Power BI's DAX, making it less suitable for professional use. Additionally, the variety of visualization tools is limited, and customization options are restricted."
"The performance of Looker needs improvement, particularly the report loading time, which is critical for business users."
"Stability and scalability an be improved for a full ten."
"There is a significant degree of sophistication required to compete with Tableau or Cognos."
"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 tool should improve on live data integration for quicker data reflection."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am based in South Africa, where it is expensive adapting to the cloud, and then there is the price for the tool itself."
"We only pay for the Azure compute behind the solution."
"Databricks uses a price-per-use model, where you can use as much compute as you need."
"The cost for Databricks depends on the use case. I work on it as a consultant, so I'm using the client's Databricks, so it depends on how big the client is."
"The basic version of this solution is now open-source, so there are no license costs involved. However, there is a charge for any advanced functionality and this can be quite expensive."
"The cost is around $600,000 for 50 users."
"I would rate Databricks' pricing seven out of ten."
"I rate the price of Databricks as eight out of ten."
"The cost is quite affordable based on feature analysis."
"The product is available for free."
"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 solution is free but the Google Looker is expensive."
"The tool is free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
University
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise56
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

Which do you prefer - Databricks or Azure Machine Learning Studio?
Databricks gives you the option of working with several different languages, such as SQL, R, Scala, Apache Spark, or Python. It offers many different cluster choices and excellent integration with ...
How would you compare Databricks vs Amazon SageMaker?
We researched AWS SageMaker, but in the end, we chose Databricks. Databricks is a Unified Analytics Platform designed to accelerate innovation projects. It is based on Spark so it is very fast. It...
Which would you choose - Databricks or Azure Stream Analytics?
Databricks is an easy-to-set-up and versatile tool for data management, analysis, and business analytics. For analytics teams that have to interpret data to further the business goals of their orga...
What do you like most about Google Data Studio?
The company dashboard is useful because we could share it via a link as a reminder for everyone to check it weekly. We observed the progress of our portfolio from last week to the current week, all...
What needs improvement with Google Data Studio?
We are aware that there are areas in Looker Studio that could be improved. Out of the box, if you don't utilize a template or create a template, which can take significant time, it's not the most u...
What is your primary use case for Google Data Studio?
Regarding the product, I was doing research for a client in the LMS industry. I was seeing what else was out there and why certain things were pulling for certain reasons. I wouldn't say I'm techni...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash
Data Studio
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware
Genesys, Shueisha
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