Looker Studio vs Zendesk comparison

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Looker Studio

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

Looker Studio and Zendesk compete in the fields of data visualization and customer service management, respectively. Looker Studio is strong in data analytics while Zendesk stands out in customer service features, leaning towards Zendesk for customer-focused operations.

Features: Looker Studio offers excellent data visualization with features like seamless integration with Excel and Google Sheets, data aggregation before visualization, and custom filter creation. Zendesk provides robust customer service management with features like comprehensive ticketing, integration with multiple business applications, and customizable workflows.

Room for Improvement: Looker Studio could enhance its real-time collaboration capabilities, expand its integration options beyond Google products, and improve data model customization. Zendesk may benefit from streamlining its interface for easier navigation, improving integration with non-CRM tools, and offering more affordable pricing for smaller teams.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Looker Studio integrates well with existing data ecosystems, providing instant insights, although it may need enhanced guidance for users. Zendesk requires alignment with CRM systems but compensates with excellent implementation support and comprehensive user training that supports its complex deployment.

Pricing and ROI: Looker Studio's competitive pricing offers good ROI due to its data utilization capabilities without significant initial costs. Zendesk demands a higher upfront investment because of its extensive features; however, it promises high ROI through improved customer satisfaction and retention.

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

Looker Studio vs. Zendesk

December 2025

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Helped 881,082 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

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

5.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Zendesk

Ranking in Reporting

10th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

CRM Customer Engagement Centers (4th), CRM (8th), Help Desk Software (4th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (6th), Sales Force Automation (4th), Knowledge Management Software (3rd), Community Platforms (1st), AI Customer Support (7th), AI IT Support (7th)

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 Zendesk is 1.1%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Reporting Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Zendesk	1.1%
Looker Studio	2.7%
Other	96.2%

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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AmandaSanchez

Consultant and Startup Founder at AimHi Enterprises

Macros and automation have streamlined workflows and reduced manual effort across support teams

The ability to communicate on the Zendesk ticket through the actual user software, so TOPs, would have been helpful. Somehow seeing a user's ticket history within our app would have been beneficial. That is the only thing that I do not think existed at the time that might have been helpful. Some people struggled with Zendesk, but it was always easy enough to show them how to use it and what they were missing. The only times we really had people report concerns about it was when they did not understand that it could do that or how to use it in that way.

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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

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

"The fact that Looker Studio is free and has a free tier was probably the biggest benefit; it is very accessible and not too difficult to use."

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

"The integration with Excel and Google Sheets is a valuable feature, making it easy to access and visualize data."

"The product's initial setup phase is very simple."

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

"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."

More Looker Studio pros

"The collaboration between agents is impressive, and I also use Zendesk Workspace, which provides a seamless experience when communicating through chat and email."

"The stability has been very good."

"Its agility and simplicity are the most valuable features. This tool is very user-friendly."

"It's a very stable tool, very powerful."

"One of the most valuable features is that Zendesk gives you a lot of configurability, and a lot of leeway in terms of customizing the look and theme. Zendesk offers you the facility to design your own landing page, as well as the look and feel of the entire knowledge base. At the same time, they offer themes that you can simply purchase and implement. Either way, it can really be turned into the right look and feel of the knowledge base required by our company, which is very important—if you have a bland-looking page, most of the time, people will lose interest. Zendesk also allows you to test the customizations before you publish it. It gives you a sandbox location where you can test everything new that you're trying to create and publish, which is very interesting."

"The feature to move over my customer experience team tickets for different specialists is very valuable for my team."

"Zendesk has helped us to increase productivity and has reduced the time between when a ticket is opened and when it is completed."

"The most valuable features of Zendesk Support are collaboration, reports, and a self-service portal. The customer and team can see all the information needed from the portal."

More Zendesk pros

Cons

"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."

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

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

"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."

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

"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."

More Looker Studio cons

"I'm going to piggyback on what I said regarding Freshdesk concerning what could be better in Zendesk: incorporate more AI."

"It wasn't easy to set up so we're only using a third of all of the features,"

"From what I recall, the experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Zendesk was quite expensive and that is what prohibited us from expanding usage of it into more users and using more of its capabilities."

"Sometimes if there was a way to just flag the actual issue out of those email chains - that would be really helpful."

"My experience with Zendesk's customer support has not been positive. When I open a ticket for a bug, it often does not expedite the resolution process."

"There could be improvements in integration, which can be achieved with APIs or tools like Zapier."

"Zendesk's stability on inbound calls could be improved as compared to Talkdesk."

"The solution could integrate better with QR codes from some websites such as Facebook."

More Zendesk cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 product is available for free."

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

"The tool is free."

"There are different plans that are offered. We are using the entry-level plan. The overall price of the solution should be reduced. The price is too high."

"We pay for the solution on a yearly basis and my understanding is that the cost is about $30,000. That's the cost for 24 to 25 agents."

"Zendesk's licensing is not cheap. For Enterprise, we are paying $200 per agent. It's a per-month cost, so it's pretty steep. There are some services you need to pay extra for. For example, with Zendesk Guide, we had to buy the most expensive offering in order to get Multibrand and everything. We also had to pay a lot of money for themes."

"From what I hear, Zendesk's pricing is a little expensive."

"The price is very competitive."

"You have to pay extra for better support. So it's not only the license that you pay for, but you have to pay extra for the support as well."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

11%

University

Manufacturing Company

Performing Arts

Computer Software Company

Outsourcing Company

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	36
Midsize Enterprise	21
Large Enterprise	11

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 Zendesk Support?

I found the user experience with vendors on Zendesk to be straightforward, especially when it comes to understanding and searching for specific tickets. The search and navigation tools are easy to ...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zendesk Support?

From what I recall, the experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Zendesk was quite expensive and that is what prohibited us from expanding usage of it into more users and using more o...

What needs improvement with Zendesk Support?

I wish there was a more easily dynamic tool. Currently, it is quite difficult because not all the tools are labeled. A feature that would be beneficial is if hovering over an icon would tell you wh...

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IBM Cognos vs Looker Studio

Compared 3% of the time

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Compared 13% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

Freshservice vs Zendesk

Compared 6% of the time

NICE CXone vs Zendesk

Compared 3% of the time

BMC Helix ITSM vs Zendesk

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Download Looker Studio product report

Looker Studio

January 2026

Download Zendesk product report

January 2026

Also Known As

Data Studio

Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell

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

Zendesk Support is intuitive, and it's built with support agents in mind. Everything they need lives in a single, dynamic help desk interface so it's easy to be productive and manage customer interactions.

Sample Customers

Genesys, Shueisha

Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber