Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Looker Studio vs QlikView 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
11th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
QlikView
Ranking in Reporting
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
163
Ranking in other categories
Embedded BI (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Looker Studio is 2.7%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of QlikView is 4.1%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Reporting Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
QlikView4.1%
Looker Studio2.7%
Other93.2%
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.
MA
Managing Director at Hurricnae
Rapid development and flexibility transform commercial decision-making processes
In QlikView, I believe the improvement that should be made is to bring the costs down, as you'll have to be competitive with Power BI, aiming for at least a 30% reduction to stop the hemorrhaging to Power BI, considering that you're losing a lot of customers to Power BI. Reducing costs is the main improvement needed, as this is the biggest burden currently faced in the South African market, with Microsoft converting QlikView customers due to the perceived cost reduction. I am aware of several big corporations, such as Sanofi and Aspen Pharmacare, which have left QlikView due to cost issues.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"The integration with Excel and Google Sheets is a valuable feature, making it easy to access and visualize data."
"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."
"I would rate this solution eight or nine out of ten."
"Looker's ability to perform aggregation before visualization allows for effective data slicing and dicing."
"Scripting as per a customer's need, which is a pretty cool feature and not available in other tools."
"The user interface and dashboards are very good."
"We use QlikView for its cost-effectiveness and ease of integration with databases."
"Our Qlikview applications help us to get a good idea of our Client Base Performance and assist us in the decision making for Seasonal Specials. On the other hand QlikView helps us to get a grasp on our Suppliers and helps us to negotiate pricing with them."
"The language support is very good."
"Its ability to build, very quickly, very complicated models."
"I had the option to prepare data myself instead of always having to depend on the data team."
"The in-memory feature gives us better insight. It's also easy to drill down into the information and select information."
 

Cons

"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."
"It's not yet a replacement for a complete BI tool."
"The performance of Looker needs improvement, particularly the report loading time, which is critical for business users."
"The tool should improve on live data integration for quicker data reflection."
"There are issues with integration and I encountered limits and warnings, especially with my pivot table size."
"Other tools might be worth considering if you need more advanced features or support for a larger user base."
"There is a significant degree of sophistication required to compete with Tableau or Cognos."
"Improvements are required in the hide and unhide functionality that falls under the layout container feature that has been used in my company in recent times."
"Enhancing user-friendliness would be highly beneficial."
"Sometimes the filters are disappearing, and I'm not sure why this is happening."
"There is no automation or drag and drop functionality."
"Scalability really depends on the size of your data and QlikView server architecture. For the biggest data sets, it could become an issue at some point."
"QlikView lacks self-service capabilities, which means users depend on the IT team to make changes."
"I really wish the application was easier to use in the development phase."
"If a user wanted to see something not included in the application the new object had to be created by a power user or developer because Qlik view's scripting has somewhat of a learning curve."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is free."
"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 platform's pricing is considered quite expensive, particularly given the dollar-based pricing."
"It is expensive for small companies."
"The pricing is too high compared to the other solutions on the market."
"It has an annual license. It is expensive as compared to other competitive tools that do more for less. In South African rands, we pay about 100,000 to 200,000 a year."
"Its licensing costs are moderate, but it can get expensive due to the numerous add-ons available like those for printing."
"QlikView is more expensive than one of its competitors."
"The setup costs for QlikView are fair as are the yearly maintenance fees. The licensing becomes a bit more expensive and requires some planning for onboarding."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one being low price and ten being high price, I rate pricing a four."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Reporting solutions are best for your needs.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
6%
Performing Arts
6%
 

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 Business73
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise76
 

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?
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 do you like most about QlikView?
If you correctly use the product for your use cases, it provides value for money.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for QlikView?
I would rate the pricing for QlikView as not cheap, but it is reasonable.
What needs improvement with QlikView?
We are not using analytics features and possibly predictive analytics and forecasting features in QlikView, although they are available. QlikView is very flexible, but we are currently using only t...
 

Also Known As

Data Studio
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Genesys, Shueisha
Canon, Gatorade, Amcor, Panasonic, Fila, Cambridge University Hospitals, Global Retail Bank, North Yorkshire Police department, Lanoo Group Publishers, and AonGroep Nederland.
Find out what your peers are saying about Looker Studio vs. QlikView and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.