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Looker Studio vs Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services 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
9th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft SQL Server Report...
Ranking in Reporting
3rd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Looker Studio is 3.0%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is 3.4%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Reporting
 

Featured Reviews

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.
MartinSimons - PeerSpot reviewer
Ensures database access and monitoring have been manageable, but batch load analysis needs better support
There are occasions during maintenance runs when the Check Point monitoring system reports a lot of blocked sessions. This is typically due to system processes or maintenance processes that temporarily block themselves. Additionally, a tool within the studio for performing SQL analysis does not provide useful information for batch load processes, often advising not to use an index, which is expected with batch loads.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Looker's ability to perform aggregation before visualization allows for effective data slicing and dicing."
"The product's initial setup phase is very simple."
"I find it favorable regarding speed of development, ease of building, and flexibility."
"The integration with Excel and Google Sheets is a valuable feature, making it easy to access and visualize data."
"I would rate this solution eight or nine out of ten."
"Valuable features include advanced integrated analysis and easy implementation."
"The solution is free so that is a good feature."
"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."
"We can create quality reports in real time."
"With SQL Server Reporting Services, I can create reports and printable reports, known as paginated reports."
"It is scalable."
"In Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services, the installation and configuration are easy."
"We get good support from Microsoft."
"The SQL Server Reporting Services makes it very easy to get the data whenever we need it."
"The stability of SSRS has been reliable, with minimal issues encountered during our usage."
"We were able to embed the report builder within our internal proprietary systems, improving our reporting capabilities."
 

Cons

"The challenges with Google Data Studio are associated with the security part, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The tool should improve on live data integration for quicker data reflection."
"Panels are not as easy to use as other data extraction UIs."
"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."
"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."
"There are issues with integration and I encountered limits and warnings, especially with my pivot table size."
"Stability and scalability an be improved for a full ten."
"It's not yet a replacement for a complete BI tool."
"I haven't contacted Microsoft technical support because of this tool, but for some other things I have, and I found them quite lacking."
"Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services needs to improve performance."
"Tableau is more user-friendly because it doesn't need to do any extra programming. It has drag-and-drop functionality."
"Technical support is in minor need of improvement so that they can solve problems in a more timely manner."
"The product could be improved by reducing the time it takes to build and deploy reports."
"Sometimes, we need to make sure that the configuration stays consistent across the reporting instances. They all connect to the same database. So, it shares that same backend, but the reporting services itself can also be configured. On the application level, for reporting level. And it is, based on my own experience, it is a manual effort to make sure that the reporting servers are configured the same across the environment."
"It doesn't have quite the flexibility of a Tableau or something like that. Many users are more comfortable with Tableau and I'm not quite sure why that is right now, but it seems to be the case."
"The solution's interface is old."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is 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 product is available for free."
"The cost is quite affordable based on feature analysis."
"The solution is expensive."
"Value-wise, the solution's pricing is good for the price that we pay."
"The product pricing is reasonable in terms of suitable features for business."
"The pricing is high."
"The solution is free to use for developers."
"The tool's licensing costs are expensive."
"The price is pretty good."
"The solution is cheaper than its alternatives."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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?
From the perspective of infrastructure, I cannot provide a valuable opinion on the ease of use and customization options of Looker Studio. I can ask our designers how they feel since they have expe...
What is your primary use case for Google Data Studio?
We use Looker and Looker Studio, as Looker licenses Looker Studio for data presentation and reporting. With GCP, we use Cloud Functions, Cloud Run, Kubernetes, and we utilize BigQuery extensively. ...
What do you like most about Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services?
I mainly use the solution for the ease of reporting and for executive dashboards.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services?
I would consider it cost effective for our environment, and we don't have to invest in another big tool to generate these reports, making it all integrated and easier. Otherwise, you need to write ...
What needs improvement with Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services?
I am thinking that with all the Copilot integration within the Microsoft environment, that could be integrated as well, so that you could issue a prompt and it generates designs.
 

Also Known As

Data Studio
SQL Server Reporting Services, Microsoft SSRS, SSRS, MS SQL Server Reporting Services
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Genesys, Shueisha
CMS Wire, The New York Times
Find out what your peers are saying about Looker Studio vs. Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.