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Knowage vs Looker Studio comparison

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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

Knowage
Ranking in Reporting
22nd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (32nd)
Looker Studio
Ranking in Reporting
9th
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 November 2026, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Knowage is 2.0%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Looker Studio is 2.5%, down from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Reporting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Looker Studio2.5%
Knowage2.0%
Other95.5%
Reporting
 

Featured Reviews

AM
General Manager Information Technology & Enterprise Applications Manager at OXFORD HOLDING
Easy to customize, cross-platform capable, and very stable
The only challenge here is that it's a Java-based platform. It requires very high technical skills. When we come to the integration with the single sign-on facilities, that part is very challenging. In Power BI and other tools, it's very easy to integrate with active directory and single sign-on, and identity management is very easy in other business intelligence tools. However, when it comes to Knowage, it's a bit heavy, it's time-consuming sometimes, it's not very fast, and definitely not as fast as other business intelligence tools in terms of getting graphical reports. The solution could be cheaper.
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

"Customer Service: Excellent."
"The most valuable feature of SpagoBI is that it is open source and 100% free without limits."
"Unified interface, a lot of tools for BI, easy configuration, standalone SDK."
"We can easily do our own customizations."
"It's a great product. It has a lot more features than many other BI tools. You can get the most out of machine learning, the best connectivity to Python, and it cuts across enterprise sections."
"Being able to schedule necessary jobs needed for production jobs and programming run times"
"Instead of just relying on emails to disperse our reports, having a central server to do this for us has helped our organization and has pushed us into a better place."
"It's very easy to get the historical reports you need based on the business requirements and this helps our executives for taking decisions."
"Data Studio integrates seamlessly with other Google products, and we can use it with other APIs if we like."
"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and the plethora of query sources."
"We previously used Microsoft Power BI, but Google is better."
"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, allowing us to compare revenues."
"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."
"I would rate this solution eight or nine out of ten."
"The product's initial setup phase is very simple."
"I am impressed with the tool's scheduling mechanism, refresh mechanism, and different types of charts."
 

Cons

"It would be better if more resources were available to help us learn how to use it. I wanted to use Knowage for a more extended period, but learning materials around the product were not really available and were not really straightforward. I've also seen inconsistencies between versions. For example, under the tools, especially in the cockpit, the way you create reports is now different. You will also find some configurations within a particular state, like a line chart, which differs from version to version. I think consistency is an essential feature in a product, especially for business intelligence products."
"I faced difficulties when using the email feature and documentation was scant."
"The only challenge here is that it's a Java-based platform. It requires very high technical skills."
"Development of SpagoBI has now been moved to Knowage. Users interested in further developments of the platform will have to look there."
"There are additional features such as Data Integration, Data Visualization, MobileBI, Cloud BI, Data enrichment and massaging should be implemented in the next release."
"When it comes to Knowage, it's a bit heavy, it's time-consuming sometimes, it's not very fast, and definitely not as fast as other business intelligence tools in terms of getting graphical reports."
"Many things need to be improved, most of all robustness."
"Yes, using Mobile and Desktop Editions, we would sometimes need to restart the service."
"Panels are not as easy to use as other data extraction UIs."
"Stability and scalability an be improved for a full ten."
"There are issues with integration and I encountered limits and warnings, especially with my pivot table size."
"From the perspective of infrastructure, I cannot provide a valuable opinion on the ease of use and customization options of Looker Studio."
"There is a significant degree of sophistication required to compete with Tableau or Cognos."
"The tool should improve on live data integration for quicker data reflection."
"It's not yet a replacement for a complete BI tool."
"Insisting on forums, blogs and community outreach in communications, and posting videos on an established calendar would be useful."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It allows the implementation of an effective reporting system using internal skills at a limited upfront cost."
"Knowage is open-source, and an enterprise edition is also available."
"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 cost is quite affordable based on feature analysis."
"The tool is free."
"The product is available for free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
19%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

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

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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

SpagoBI
Data Studio
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

FIAT Group, Italian air navigation service provider, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Telecom Italia, ASL Genovese, San Giovanni Battista University Hospital
Genesys, Shueisha
Find out what your peers are saying about Knowage vs. Looker Studio and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.