Looker vs Microsoft Power BI comparison

"Looker allows you to generate the most optimal SQL queries in a DC through UI actions. We had signed a contract with Google Cloud to use BigQuery. That was the primary reason we adopted Looker. It works better with BigQuery than any other BI platform. We also like how this tool was developed. It was designed with an eye toward microservices architecture."

"The stability of Looker has been good since I have been using it. However, it depends on what components are being used."

"With Looker, I have experienced benefits in terms of usability and shareability."

"The product is easy to use."

"I would rate the stability a ten out of ten. I didn't face any issues with stability."

"It's quite effortless to navigate through various applications and review their updated data in real-time."

"From a developer's perspective, the way the functionality's being handled is great."

"It is a pretty stable solution because it is a cloud-based product."

"Reports, dashboards, and visualizations are most valuable."

"Its visualization capabilities are pretty good. It is very easy to use. You can easily make your dashboard."

"Ability to extract data from a variety of sources and systems."

"Its seamless integration with Microsoft products, such as Microsoft SQL Server or Microsoft Excel, is the most valuable."

"Management reporting solution that's very stable and scalable."

"It has greatly improved our reporting capabilities."

"Provides a full platform (database, ETL, reporting, analysis, and so on)"

"Power BI is a complete ecosystem. It has an integrated ETL tool and good connectivity with applications such as Office 365 and SQL. There are also solutions for RPA, such as Microsoft Power Automate and Microsoft Power Apps. Power BI now has integration with Power Query, which has an AI feature for text analytics. Text analytics is a very good feature. This feature is also there in Tableau, but I like it in Power BI because you can write something like, "What is the total sale in the Eastern region?", and it will give you the answer. For example, when you have different types of user opinions, you just run one algorithm and you will have the output that provides the number of positive and negative responses. You can even have a dashboard with positive remarks. This feature has been introduced recently. Power BI supports the DAX and Power Query M languages. These languages are making Power BI very strong in data analytics, and you can do many types of analysis."

"Looker doesn't connect to Excel, which is a huge disappointment because a lot of data is presented in Excel. Also, it can't consume data directly from REST APIs, which is necessary. Looker needs to expand its horizons when it comes to data sources. The inability to connect to different data sources is hampering our use cases. Currently, it only has an ODBC connection that connects to a database. It needs to connect to other data sources, such as Excel, APIs, and different platforms."

"It needs to be more user-friendly."

"The integration with different databases must be improved."

"The visualization capability of the product is limited."

"The product does not have documented material."

"Stability needs improvement."

"The main area of concern in Looker is probably related to blending the data from the different sources, including the data present internally in the company and on the cloud."

"Integrations with other BI tools could be better."

"I think that the product would benefit by increasing the range of visuals and graphics readily available, as opposed to using a third party included as part of the product."

"If you have to pull multiple data sources performance is somewhat lacking."

"Its desktop tool is a little bit memory CPU intensive, and it can be improved, but the machines nowadays come with a lot of memory. For the desktop users who are using it on the desktop, we recommend that they do an upgrade. It is a minor issue. We can fix it on the desktop."

"The one thing that I noticed specifically was the graphical features, and some of the analytical features. They were stronger on the Tableau side."

"The on-premises version lacks some technical features that are available with the Cloud version."

"I would like them to provide a license that just allows us to see dashboards. What I don't like about this solution is that in order to just watch a dashboard, you need a license. Currently, you need to purchase a full license of Power BI Pro just to see something, which is not attractive. If you have a license, you can see a shared dashboard, but you can also build a dashboard or you can collaborate with other people. However, if you only want to see a dashboard, there is no license for that. I only want to see the dashboard, and I don't want to do anything more than watching the information on the dashboard. There is no license that allows you to see a shared dashboard. This is one of the areas of opportunity because I would like a lot of people to be able to see a shared dashboard, not to interact with it or to collaborate online with it. I would like to see more compatibility with non-Microsoft data sources. Given the fact that everything is related to Microsoft Azure and all services available on Microsoft Azure, I see that they're building more connections to Microsoft Azure services instead of other non-Microsoft services. I understand the strategy, but it would be good to have more compatibility with non-Microsoft data sources."

"The Power Query feature needs to be improved to handle large amounts of data. This feature is also slow for large data transfers making it better to use some kind of script."

"If I compare it to Tableau, I'd say the visualizations can be better. We should have multiple options. By that I mean, while there are multiple options for the visualization, the look and feel of the dashboard when you compare to Tableau is on the lower side. Tableau has a much better visualization."

"Looker is expensive and could be made better by reducing it."

"I do not have to make any payments to use the solution."

"It's not cheap, but it's not expensive for big companies."

"The price of Looker usually depends on the solution's provider, but it is usually cheaper than the other products in the market. Looker is offered at different prices for different companies."

"It is cheap."

"The pricing is very reasonable compared to any other tool."

"The pricing for the solution is relatively higher compared to other alternatives."

"Setup is easy, and the cost is economical. You do sometimes need to pay additional costs for third party products which "plug-in" to Microsoft BI."

"The cost of the solution is more flexible for us because the desktop is free and we pay as we use it in the cloud."

"I would advise that Microsoft BI products are rightly priced and the licensing is easy to follow and to fulfill."

"All in all, for the price, this is an excellent tool for helping your organization turn mounds of data into useful insights."

"The solution's costs are quite reasonable given the range of features provided."

"The current licensing model that Microsoft BI has is expensive. My customers have told me the cost is approximately $20 per user and this can get expensive fast. There should be a one-time purchase option if the customer has a lot of users."