Looker Studio vs Sisense comparison

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96% willing to recommend

Looker Studio

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

Sisense and Looker Studio are key players in the business intelligence tools category, each offering unique features. Sisense seems to have the upper hand in handling diverse data sources and providing robust analysis capabilities.

Features: Sisense is favored for powerful data integration, ease of use, and rapid deployment. It allows non-technical users to create custom analytics and provides a user-friendly setup. Looker Studio offers seamless Google services integration, ease of collaboration, and simplicity, ideal for teams utilizing Google's ecosystem.

Room for Improvement: Sisense could improve handling of large datasets and integration with tools like R. It lacks advanced settings for data manipulation. Looker Studio needs faster live data integration, a more sophisticated data modeling layer, and better scalability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Sisense provides flexibility with on-premises and cloud options and strong customer support, praised for its responsiveness. Looker Studio operates mainly in public and hybrid clouds. Its customer service is good but can improve in support communication.

Pricing and ROI: Sisense, perceived as expensive, offers a return on investment through reduced manual reporting and efficient business solutions. Looker Studio is mainly free, although additional integrations incur costs. Users appreciate its affordability but recognize the need for further expenses for complete data analysis.

To learn more, read our detailed Looker Studio vs. Sisense Report (Updated: September 2026).

Looker Studio vs. Sisense

September 2026

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Helped 920,929 peers since 2012

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

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

5.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Sisense

Ranking in Reporting

11th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (12th), Cloud Analytics (4th), Data Visualization (11th), Embedded BI (6th)

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Looker Studio is 2.5%, down from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sisense is 2.1%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Reporting Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Looker Studio	2.5%
Sisense	2.1%
Other	95.4%

Reporting

Featured Reviews

Heron Ziegel

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.

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Gemipas Micah

Lead Software Engineer at Ernst & Young

Unified finance dashboards have accelerated data-driven decisions and improved forecasting

The best features Sisense offers include that it is fast due to its In-Chip methodology. It uses great visualization. BI becomes easy with Sisense. Millions of data can be loaded in a few seconds, which did not seem possible with other traditional reporting tools. It has a robust architecture and provides REST APIs to access it externally. That speed impacts my workflow significantly as it represents the greatest step and latest in the business intelligence market. It provides In-Chip technology for accessing millions of data in the shortest span of seconds and provides the best visual efforts for our business data to make data-driven decisions easily. Sisense has positively impacted my organization as it reduces the time it takes to obtain an optimal return on investments. It delivers the instant analysis required to merge our financial numbers and statistics with a pretty accurate dashboard landscape. Hence, we are able to make data-driven decisions easily. Sisense has improved our decision-making speed and saved my team, especially the data team, time. They are able to focus on more strategic other tasks because Sisense has done the work of providing analytics and deep insights where we are able to make data-driven analytics easily.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I appreciate about Looker Studio is mostly the clean visuals, which is good, as I prefer a dashboard with a clean aesthetic rather than feeling sort of an old Windows type of dashboard."

"I find it favorable regarding speed of development, ease of building, and flexibility."

"This has improved our organization by allowing people to see their data and develop visualizations themselves."

"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."

"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."

"We previously used Microsoft Power BI, but Google is better."

More Looker Studio pros

"Sisense positively impacts our organization by speeding up the process of getting and presenting the data to customers or stakeholders, which normally takes a lot of time due to curation and presentation efforts."

"I have found the dashboard creating feature helpful."

"It's really user friendly and fast, so I can use the product during customer meetings not only to show dashboards, but to create and process data analytics in real-time, making it perfect for consultant workshops where you can't work with static dashboards."

"A very simple setup: Easy to download, install, and updates are pain free."

"Sisense's documentation and video tutorials were thorough and helpful in starting off with the basic usage of the product."

"ROI was realized immediately by reducing manual report labor."

"Sisense can integrate with multiple sources at one time."

"We have been very pleased with our experience with Sisense to date."

More Sisense pros

Cons

"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."

"There is a significant degree of sophistication required to compete with Tableau or Cognos."

"It's not yet a replacement for a complete BI tool."

"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."

"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 user-friendly from an interface perspective."

"Panels are not as easy to use as other data extraction UIs."

"Looker Studio did not fit our needs for scalability."

More Looker Studio cons

"Users with viewer access have less capabilities than similar users in Tableau."

"I would like Sisense to improve its performance, particularly when we are dealing with large-scale data."

"The document is definitely a sore spot as well as the limited inner join functionality of the cubes."

"Some flexibility with the labeling of visualizations would be nice."

"They should improve the filters to create downloaded data by moving them to the top of the dashboard."

"When your data cubes become too complex (many layers of custom tables), the performance of the tool might be slightly affected."

"Sometimes the platform works great, but other times, it's a drag and users are always on our necks to speed it up."

"The administrative side of Sisense is a little cumbersome and confusing."

More Sisense cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is quite affordable based on feature analysis."

"The product is available for free."

"The tool is 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."

"This solution is more expensive than Tableau, Qlik and Dundas. It is an expensive tool. They charge $75,000 while Tableau is $45,000."

"Compared to Power BI or Tableau, Sisense is much more expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

Construction Company

11%

Outsourcing Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	32
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	16

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...

What needs improvement with Sisense?

Areas where Sisense can be improved include AI integration, particularly effective deployment of the AI tool, rather than just having AI, and addressing the challenges around infra-scaling to suppo...

What is your primary use case for Sisense?

My main use case for Sisense during our three-year period involved a review, an implementation, and then a progression upgrade. A specific example of how I used Sisense during that time is that we ...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sisense?

Regarding pricing, setup cost, and licensing, the version six point three point one release was good initially, but I had to keep a close eye on costs, as it requires maintaining a tight format to ...

Microsoft Power BI vs Looker Studio

Comparisons

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Amazon QuickSight vs Looker Studio

Compared 7% of the time

RStudio Connect vs Looker Studio

Compared 6% of the time

Zendesk vs Looker Studio

Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Sisense

Compared 6% of the time

Omni vs Sisense

Compared 5% of the time

Embeddable vs Sisense

Compared 4% of the time

Qlik Sense vs Sisense

Compared 3% of the time

More Sisense Competitors

Product Reports

Download Looker Studio product report

Looker Studio

October 2026

Download Sisense product report

October 2026

Also Known As

Data Studio

No data available

Overview

Looker Studio offers seamless integration with Google products, supporting business visualization and collaboration through efficient data management and analytics, catering to teams aiming for quick analytics solutions.

Looker Studio combines diverse data source integration including SQL and MongoDB with powerful visualization and custom filter creation. Users find its visuals clean and its platform user-friendly, enhanced by collaboration features and pricing. It aids decision-making and is popular for tracking metrics and analyzing sales funnels. Despite its strengths, users seek faster report loading, simpler data modeling, and better interface usability. Advertising system limitations, delayed data reflections, and integration challenges affect performance. Security and stability improvements alongside a richer data modeling layer are desirable, with pricing impacting large organizations.

What are the most important features of Looker Studio?

Google Integration: Easily integrates with Google products for efficient workflow.
Diverse Data Sources: Connects to databases like SQL and MongoDB.
Custom Filters: Offers flexible filter options for tailored analyses.
Data Visualization: Enables powerful, clear visual data representation.
Collaboration: Supports team collaboration for shared insights.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Ease of Use: Accessibility and user-friendly operation for teams.
Decision-Making Support: Facilitates informed business decisions.
Flexibility: Adapts to different business analytics needs.
Cost-Effectiveness: Competitive pricing for budget-conscious teams.

Looker Studio supports business visualization for different industries, creating dashboards and reports for sales and marketing analysis. It's used to track metrics and sales funnels from sources like Google Sheets and BigQuery. Many companies integrate Looker Studio within web apps, providing data insights tailored to sectors such as e-commerce, finance, and more.

Google

Sisense enables data visualization and analytics with ease of use and fast setup, effectively integrating different data sources for efficient decision-making.

Sisense provides an intuitive platform for companies to handle data visualization and advanced analytics without requiring extensive technical knowledge. Quick deployment, custom dashboard creation, and seamless embedding are supported by an API-first approach. It allows integration of data from multiple databases, enhancing speed through in-chip methodology and real-time updates. Users benefit from its ElastiCube Manager and reduced deployment time, contributing to data-driven decisions. Comprehensive documentation supports users in navigating potential challenges.

What are the key features of Sisense?

Ease of Use: Facilitates quick data visualizations without technical expertise.
ElastiCube Manager: Allows custom data management and dashboard creation.
API-First Approach: Enhances integration flexibility across databases.
Real-Time Updates: Ensures timely and accurate data insights.
In-Chip Methodology: Optimizes processing speed and performance.

What benefits should users expect from Sisense?

Reduced Deployment Time: Accelerates analytics implementation.
Data-Driven Decisions: Facilitates informed decisions with comprehensive insights.
Customer Support: Provides reliable assistance and documentation.

Sisense is commonly used across industries such as product development, sales, and marketing to deliver tailored analytics and dashboards for diverse departmental needs. Organizations leverage Sisense's capabilities for embedding analytics, optimizing financial models, and improving sales strategies. Its intuitive interface allows non-technical teams to efficiently handle and derive insights from large datasets.

Sample Customers

Genesys, Shueisha

Ebay, WIX, Wave Accounting, ESPN.com, Magellan Luxury Hotel, Paylogic, Sony, Merck, EDA, One Hour Translation, NASA, Plastic Jungle, Philips, Yahoo