Looker Studio vs Tableau comparison

Google and Salesforce are both solutions in the Reporting category. Google is ranked #11 with an average rating of 7.6, while Salesforce is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.5. Google holds a 2.5% mindshare in RT, compared to Salesforce’s 22.6% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of Salesforce users who would recommend it.

Looker Studio

Read 12 Looker Studio reviews

1,051 Views
1,158 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Tableau

Read 296 Tableau reviews

12,019 Views
10,093 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Looker Studio

Tableau

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

Tableau and Looker Studio compete as robust data visualization tools. Tableau has an upper hand due to its flexibility and user-friendly visualization capabilities, appealing to larger enterprises, while Looker Studio offers cost-effective integration with Google products, suiting smaller organizations.

Features: Tableau provides drag-and-drop analytics, real-time decision-making, and flexible data handling. It supports extensive data visualization and complex analytics for enterprises. Looker Studio offers strong connectivity with Google products, ease of integration with existing systems, and simpler analytics solutions beneficial for smaller organizations.

Room for Improvement: Tableau can improve by reducing its premium pricing, enhancing large dataset management, and expanding data preparation features. Looker Studio can enhance real-time data integration, improve report loading speeds, and introduce more advanced features to better compete in complex business needs.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Tableau offers versatile deployment options, including on-premises, cloud, and hybrid models. Customer service is generally positive but has noted gaps due to high demand. Looker Studio focuses on seamless integration with Google's cloud systems, offering user-friendly deployments but relies heavily on community support with varying response quality.

Pricing and ROI: Tableau is considered expensive compared to competitors like Power BI, but delivers strong ROI by reducing manual reporting efforts. Looker Studio's free base model appeals to budget-conscious users, but advanced features may require a Google Cloud subscription, affecting cost-effectiveness for larger projects.

To learn more, read our detailed Looker Studio vs. Tableau Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Looker Studio vs. Tableau

March 2025

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Helped 845,040 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

11th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Tableau

Ranking in Reporting

2nd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

296

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (2nd), Data Visualization (1st), Embedded BI (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Looker Studio is 2.5%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tableau is 22.6%, down from 23.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Reporting

Featured Reviews

Srini-Dhanaraj

Founder & CEO at imfine.club

Available for free and can help businesses resolve their data migration problems

It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten. Google Data Studio is a cloud-based tool. With cloud-based tools, there can be two challenges, the first one being associated with the bandwidth of your data strength. If I run a report from my home because of the wi-fi connection, it may give an excellent response. When I run the reports, Google Data Studio develops reports from my home, and because of wi-fi, it works in an excellent manner. When I am on the road or at the wheel, if I use the internet data from my mobile to browse my reports, the performance may not be good, and this issue is not because of the product but because of the bandwidth. The second issue arises when you connect Google Data Studio to a source system to extract the data to do the visualization. If the source system is not responding as quickly as expected, it could be the reason why the report may be printed slowly. Considering the aforementioned aspects, the problem may not be because of Google Data Studio but because of the source system.

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ROMIL SHAH

Deputy General Manger - Information Technology at Nayara Energy

Provides fast data access with in-memory extracts, makes it easy to create visualizations, and saves time

When it comes to visualizations, Tableau has a limitation as compared to Power BI. It has a limited set of visualizations. Power BI has the entire marketplace, so you can connect and import many visualizations and use them, whereas Tableau has only 10 or 15 visualizations. There should be more visualizations, and there should also be data integration with more cloud providers. Tableau has recently launched a paid version for the documentation. So, documentation has become a little bit challenging when it comes to Tableau development because we do not have any tool to export the data out of it. It is a license-based feature that you need to purchase to prepare documentation. So, on the documentation front, for preparing clear documentation for any dashboard, it would help if we get an embedded option, rather than buying a license for each user for the documentation. To document anything, if I have to connect to each workbook and see what has been written as a formula and then document in the Word document, it is pretty time-consuming. We have the Microsoft stack, and we are currently evaluating Power BI because Tableau has a limitation of 50 columns for a drill-down report. If we want more than 50 columns, we have found a hack, but there is no ready-made option for doing it. So, we have to use another tool in case we need a drilled report with more than 50 columns. There are many instances where users need 80 or 90 columns for their analysis, and switching between two technologies becomes a challenge. It is not a cost-effective approach for us. Their support should be improved. We are not happy with their support. Whenever we raised queries, we were pointed to a few blogs, and we didn't get a proper solution from them. Their licensing should also be improved. They want us to purchase a Tableau Creator license for business users, whereas Power BI Desktop is free for business users. They should come up with a basic license with one or two connectors that our business users can use for preparing their visualizations. Tableau also charges us per user for users who want the data only through email.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Data Studio integrates seamlessly with other Google products, and we can use it with other APIs if we like."

"Looker's ability to perform aggregation before visualization allows for effective data slicing and dicing."

"The ability to integrate with a great variety of data sources."

"I am impressed with the tool's scheduling mechanism, refresh mechanism, and different types of charts."

"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."

"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."

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

"The solution is free so that is a good feature."

More Looker Studio pros

"Although Tableau isn't the best for us when it comes to processing and working on live data, it is very good at extracting data for analysis."

"I like the visualization component."

"This solution has transformed us from an Excel reporting environment to one of visual exploration."

"It's very easy to use and users don't need any IT support to access it as the information is right there."

"Tableau is very flexible and easy to learn. It has drag-and-drop function analytics, and its design is very good. It is a very good tool, and it basically brings life into data with good design. We have been creating a lot of interactive visualizations and dashboards. It has a public version. There are public communities from where you can get a lot of examples for practice."

"It is so easy to do a lot of things. There is a lot of flexibility and creativity in this product. In other products, you don't have this flexibility."

"From my perspective, it enables clients to better understand our data and make better decisions based on that information."

"The feature that is currently most valuable is the import feature where I can link to an Excel data source. I'm not using it with any other data source, such as SQL Server. I directly link it to an Excel sheet, and if I change anything in that Excel sheet, the changed data immediately gets reflected in the virtualization. This is something that is very convenient for me as of now."

More Tableau pros

Cons

"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."

"Stability and scalability an be improved for a full ten."

"The tool should come up with data modeling layer features that are present in other products like Power BI."

"There are issues with integration and I encountered limits and warnings, especially with my pivot table size."

"The tool should improve on live data integration for quicker data reflection."

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

"Insisting on forums, blogs and community outreach in communications, and posting videos on an established calendar would be useful."

"The performance of Looker needs improvement, particularly the report loading time, which is critical for business users."

More Looker Studio cons

"I have noticed that Tableau is not very compatible with ClickHouse. There's no direct connection to ClickHouse; you have to set up an ODBC connection."

"The solution does have scalability issues."

"The data processing in Tableau is pathetic compared to Qlik."

"The user experience for less savvy or non-technical people (from my experience)."

"I take a long time to process the hundreds of thousands or millions of records that must be processed every day."

"The price of Tableau is too high."

"People are migrating to Microsoft BI due to the speed, which is quite slow to load, and the lack of visualization options."

"An area needing improvement involves the complexity of the product should you need to alter a lot of parameters. If you have technical servers, much interface, different providers and more serious processes, that will be time consuming."

More Tableau cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is available for free."

"The solution is free but the Google Looker is expensive."

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

"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."

"Tableau can be costly (but this can be indefinable, such as user experience vs. cheaper etc.)"

"Buy 50 at a time. Project your use base every three months, and project your requirements forward."

"This license is on a yearly basis."

"This solution is a bit expensive. The pricing options have become more difficult over the years. I think they are bordering on pricing themselves out of the market. They need different pricing options for various-sized businesses. Where my organization is a large organization, we are happy to pay a higher price because we can leverage the products very extensively. For smaller enterprises, different pricing options would be good."

"For our organization, the cost hasn't been an issue."

"It is reasonable based on what it offers."

"I wish there was more of a subscription model with the pricing when it comes to Tableau, so you can get all the latest version upgrades/features if you pay monthly/annually."

"Tableau is an expensive solution compared to Power BI."

More Tableau pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user6330

Product Manager at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

May 2, 2013

MicroStrategy vs. Tableau

After a recent presentation, several attendees asked me about the applications of Visual Insights and Tableau. Many companies are investing in both tools and are trying to figure out the right tool for specific applications Tableau has found its sweet-spot as an agile discovery tool that analysts…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Educational Organization

44%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Google Data Studio?

The tool should improve on live data integration for quicker data reflection. Currently, changes in Google Sheets take about three to five minutes to reflect in Looker Studio. Overall, the interfac...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Google Data Studio?

I use Looker Studio primarily for dashboard creation and data analytics. I have integrated it with Google Sheets, and I use it for project plan maintenance and data tracking.

See all answers

Seeking lightweight open source BI software

It depends on the Data architecture and the complexity of your requirement. Some great tools in the market are Qlik Sense, Power BI, OBIEE, Tableau, etc. I have recently started using Cognos Enter...

See all answers

Tableau vs. Business Objects - Which is a better solution for visualization and analysis?

Both tools have their positives and negatives. First, I should mention that I am relatively new to Tableau. I have been working on and off Tableau for about a year, but getting to work on it consta...

See all answers

Which would you choose - Tableau or SAP Analytics Cloud?

Tableau is easy to set up and maintain. In about a day it is possible for the entire platform to be deployed for use. This relatively short amount of time can make all the difference for companies ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Amazon QuickSight vs Looker Studio

Compared 46% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Looker Studio

Compared 21% of the time

IBM Cognos vs Looker Studio

Compared 6% of the time

Qlik Sense vs Looker Studio

Compared 4% of the time

Databricks vs Looker Studio

Compared 3% of the time

More Looker Studio Competitors

Microsoft Power BI vs Tableau

Compared 19% of the time

Domo vs Tableau

Compared 13% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs Tableau

Compared 7% of the time

Databricks vs Tableau

Compared 6% of the time

SAP Analytics Cloud vs Tableau

Compared 5% of the time

More Tableau Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Looker Studio

March 2025

Download Looker Studio product report

Buyer's Guide

Tableau

March 2025

Download Tableau product report

Also Known As

Data Studio

Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online

Overview

Google Looker Studio is a free tool designed to help users create visually appealing reports and dashboards, making data easier to understand. It allows you to connect to various data sources such as Google Analytics, Facebook Ads, and spreadsheets. With Looker Studio, you can create charts and graphs to showcase trends and comparisons, build comprehensive dashboards that provide an overview of your data, and customize reports to match your brand or preferences. Additionally, you can share your reports online or export them as PDFs for wider distribution.

Google

Tableau is a tool for data visualization and business intelligence that allows businesses to report insights through easy-to-use, customizable visualizations and dashboards. Tableau makes it exceedingly simple for its customers to organize, manage, visualize, and comprehend data. It enables users to dig deep into the data so that they can see patterns and gain meaningful insights.

Make data-driven decisions with confidence thanks to Tableau’s assistance in providing faster answers to queries, solving harder problems more easily, and offering new insights more frequently. Tableau integrates directly to hundreds of data sources, both in the cloud and on premises, making it simpler to begin research. People of various skill levels can quickly find actionable information using Tableau’s natural language queries, interactive dashboards, and drag-and-drop capabilities. By quickly creating strong calculations, adding trend lines to examine statistical summaries, or clustering data to identify relationships, users can ask more in-depth inquiries.

Tableau has many valuable key features:

Tableau dashboards provide a complete view of your data through visualizations, visual objects, text, and more.
Tableau provides convenient, real-time options to collaborate with other users and instantly share data in the form of visualizations, sheets, and dashboards.
Tableau ensures connectivity to both live data sources and data extraction from external data sources as in-memory data. This gives users the flexibility to use data from more than one source without any restrictions.
Tableau gives many data source option, ranging from spreadsheets, big data, on-premise files, relational databases, non-relational databases, data warehouses, and big data, to on-cloud data.
Tableau has a lot of pre-installed information on maps, such as cities, postal codes, and administrative boundaries.
Tableau has a foolproof security system based on authentication and permission systems for data connections and user access. Tableau also gives you the freedom to integrate with other security protocols.

Tableau stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Some of these include its fast data access, easy creation of visualizations, and its stability. PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features in their reviews:

Romil S., Deputy General Manager of IT at Nayara Energy, notes, "Its visualizations are good, and its features make the development process a little less time-consuming. It has an in-memory extract feature that allows us to extract data and keep it on the server, and then our users can use it quickly.

Ariful M., Consulting Practice Partner of Data, Analytics & AI at FH, writes, “Tableau is very flexible and easy to learn. It has drag-and-drop function analytics, and its design is very good.”

Salesforce

Sample Customers

Genesys, Shueisha

Accenture, Adobe, Amazon.com, Bank of America, Charles Schwab Corp, Citigroup, Coca-Cola Company, Cornell University, Dell, Deloitte, Duke University, eBay, Exxon Mobil, Fannie Mae, Ferrari, French Red Cross, Goldman Sachs, Google, Government of Canada, HP, Intel, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Macy's, Merck, The New York Times, PayPal, Pfizer, US Army, US Air Force, Skype, and Walmart.

Buyer's Guide

Looker Studio vs. Tableau

March 2025

Free Report: Looker Studio vs. Tableau

Find out what your peers are saying about Looker Studio vs. Tableau and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.

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