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Looker Studio vs Microsoft Power BI 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

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
Microsoft Power BI
Ranking in Reporting
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
332
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Looker Studio is 2.4%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 12.9%, down from 25.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Reporting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Power BI12.9%
Looker Studio2.4%
Other84.7%
Reporting
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Hemanthreddy Vakiti - PeerSpot reviewer
Data engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Interactive dashboards have transformed restaurant data into faster daily business decisions
Microsoft Power BI has many features and there is not a lot to improve. However, the licensing can be confusing. When deciding between Pro and Premium, I find it difficult to distinguish what features are offered by Pro and what features are offered by Premium, including the particular differences to choose between both licensing models. Additionally, some features such as DAX, which I mentioned previously, involve DAX calculations and complex data modeling, which are somewhat advanced and not easily understandable. Prior knowledge is required or you need to go through the documentation. If the documentation is made comprehensive so that anyone with no knowledge on DAX can easily use it by going through the documentation, it would be really helpful. Additionally, if the integration with non-Microsoft tools is improved and performance is optimized, then Microsoft Power BI can become a top-ranked visualization tool. The user experience with Microsoft Power BI is quite good. The intuitive user interface makes it easy for both technical and non-technical users to create reports. However, only the advanced features are somewhat complex, and if the documentation is improved, it can be easily accessible.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution is a powerful way to have several tools integrated at one location and convert data into beautiful reports that can be easily edited and viewed."
"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."
"Data Studio integrates seamlessly with other Google products, and we can use it with other APIs if we like."
"The ability to design complex data models and equations."
"We previously used Microsoft Power BI, but Google is better."
"The ability to integrate with a great variety of data sources."
"The product's initial setup phase is very simple."
"The integration with Excel and Google Sheets is a valuable feature, making it easy to access and visualize data."
"We're making a dashboard that can show specific details and can be easily customized."
"It works well with our product and it's something that customers are familiar with and they often already have a lot of licensing with Microsoft."
"For example, I recently migrated an application from TeraData to SQL Server and the response times for some functions were cut down from 90 seconds to about less than 1 second!"
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten."
"Provides good data flow related to the container and control flow."
"The demand estimation and forecasting profitability are the most effective features of Microsoft Power BI, along with vendor and supply chain risk analysis, inventory and stock forecasting, real-time production monitoring, and quality control through defect tracking and root cause analysis."
"There was a lot of manual work involved with Excel, whereas once we moved on to Microsoft Power BI, it was a cleaner dashboard and it was faster too."
"Our most valuable features are the dashboard and the reporting feature because, before that, our organization used to only use Excel."
 

Cons

"The performance of Looker needs improvement, particularly the report loading time, which is critical for business users."
"Insisting on forums, blogs and community outreach in communications, and posting videos on an established calendar would be useful."
"The tool should improve on live data integration for quicker data reflection."
"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 come up with data modeling layer features that are present in other products like Power BI."
"Other tools might be worth considering if you need more advanced features or support for a larger user base."
"The challenges with Google Data Studio are associated with the security part, making it an area where improvements are required."
"There are issues with integration and I encountered limits and warnings, especially with my pivot table size."
"The limitation that we normally face is related to the direct query mode. When it comes to the direct query mode, most of the functionality is not working, which is an issue for us."
"The main reason I would give it a seven instead of a higher or lower score is that it is free and has a maximum rating of seven."
"There is need to improve the graphical and dashboard reports; they must have tabs."
"I would like to see Machine Learning for Power Bi Pro users or an intermediate license to enable Machine Learning if you don't have access to a Premium account."
"If you need data in real-time, it's not an ideal solution."
"here are still better UI designs they can go through. I'm assuming they are focusing more on capabilities rather than look-and-feel designs."
"There needs to be support for more data sources in DirectQuery."
"The real-time data refresh capabilities is one of the things I had issues with"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is available for free."
"The cost is quite affordable based on feature analysis."
"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."
"The solution is affordable."
"The solution's pricing is medium."
"It is somewhere in the middle in terms of price. Licensing is quite clear."
"If you purchase a license for a server, for users, or the professional version, you might not have to. The free version I think it can satisfy many customers' needs."
"Licensing is on a monthly basis, but I am not sure."
"It would be better if the price was cheaper."
"This product offers good value for the money."
"Remove the cost of a licence to show a dashboard within SharePoint. Why should readers of a dashboard have to pay to view? ​"
report
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Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager - BI Head with 5,001-10,000 employees
Feb 4, 2015
Comparison of SAP BO, Tableau, QlikView, Cognos, Microsoft, OBIEE and Pentaho
1. SAP BO/BI Enterprise scalability Security Ease of use Semantic layer 2. Tableau Visualization Data discovery Turnaround time 3. IBM Cognos Enterprise scalability Security In-memory feature 4. MS BI - Flexibility 5. Pentaho - Open source but still enterprise grade 6. QlikView Data…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Retailer
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business137
Midsize Enterprise59
Large Enterprise171
 

Questions from the Community

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...
Seeking lightweight open source BI software
There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I would recommend as follows: 1) If you have legacies of SAP, Oracle - look for SAP...
Is Power BI a complete platform or only a visualization tool?
Power BI is an advanced visualization tool oriented to big data with a very complete set of widgets to visualize information, control users accessing information, the configuration of governance po...
How does Oracle OBIEE compare with Microsoft BI?
Oracle OBIEE is great in allowing design and creativity per the individual needs of the organization. Dashboards are fully customizable and very user-friendly. This solution is very stable. Oracle ...
 

Also Known As

Data Studio
SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Genesys, Shueisha
Accenture Adidas Aetna AIG Airbus Alibaba Allstate Amazon American Express Aon AT&T Audi Bank of America BASF Bayer Berkshire Hathaway Boeing Coca-Cola Comcast Cisco Coca-Cola Dell Disney Emirates Equinix FedEx Ford GE Google H&M Home Depot Honda IBM Intel JPMorgan Chase Kellogg's Kroger L'Oréal McDonald's Merck MetLife Microsoft Nike Oracle P&G PepsiCo Procter & Gamble Prudential Financial SAP Siemens Snapchat Spotify Starbucks Target Toyota T-Mobile Unilever Visa Walmart WeWork World Bank Xerox
Find out what your peers are saying about Looker Studio vs. Microsoft Power BI and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.