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Looker vs Qlik Sense comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 29, 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
Ranking in Embedded BI
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Qlik Sense
Ranking in Embedded BI
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
125
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (4th), AI Data Analysis (16th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Embedded BI category, the mindshare of Looker is 6.4%, down from 9.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qlik Sense is 10.4%, up from 10.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Embedded BI Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Qlik Sense10.4%
Looker6.4%
Other83.2%
Embedded BI
 

Featured Reviews

Kishore Jhunjhunwala - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Analytics Consultant at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
A cloud solution for operational reporting but is expensive
Some basic feature that is available in other reporting tools is missing. Looker has the ability to show more than 5,000 rows for operational reporting. Some reporting tools allow users to scroll down to see more than 5,000 rows, but in Looker, you have to download the entire dataset. Looker should consider adding a scroll-down option to allow users to view large datasets on screen without downloading them. Looker has some options for granting users access as viewers. However, viewers cannot download the entire dataset. Only superusers can download the whole dataset on the Explore screen. This is a big limitation, as you cannot give any user viewer access. You can give access to superuser access, which is a cost to the company.
reviewer2592669 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director Software Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
In-memory data storage boosts performance
The advantages compared to other BI tools show architectural differences. The main feature is that it keeps all the data in memory. It doesn't retrieve the data from data sources when I need it on the dashboard; instead, it quickly provides the desired data, making it very fast compared to other BI tools. The ROI is very high using Qlik Sense. It offers many benefits of BI. It is flexible from a developer's point of view, allowing me to accomplish many tasks compared to other BI tools. From an end-user perspective, it's convenient and performance-oriented, providing something meaningful from all the organization's data.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"It's quite effortless to navigate through various applications and review their updated data in real-time."
"It is a pretty stable solution because it is a cloud-based product."
"We can centralize all our data models."
"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."
"From a developer's perspective, the way the functionality's being handled is great."
"I would rate the stability a ten out of ten. I didn't face any issues with stability."
"The solution's technical support is good."
"The most valuable features of Qlik Sense are the integration and panel for reports. The integration is very fast even though we process a lot of information."
"The most valuable feature is the mobile platform."
"Set analysis is great for its power user capabilities such as performing an IF on an aggregated column. The ability to create custom coloring expressions based on values is also a good idea although not as easy as I wished it was."
"Data-driven decisions are now easier."
"There are a lot of features available in this solution, it has been very easy to use. We have found it to be less complex and user-friendly compared to other solutions we have used."
"It is simple to develop, which is good."
"The most valuable feature is the drag-and-drop reporting."
 

Cons

"Integrations with other BI tools could be better."
"The integration with different databases must be improved."
"Stability needs improvement."
"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."
"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."
"It needs to be more user-friendly."
"The product does not have documented material."
"The visualization capability of the product is limited."
"From the initial setup of the product we had some struggles getting connections to some of our databases to function, this indicated that some of the data extract drivers can be improved and addition of some of the older database engines need to be added in Qlik Sense."
"More freedom for custom visuals and dashboard creation would be an improvement."
"They should generally focus more on the evolution of current capabilities rather than doing everything but only at 50% effectiveness."
"Qlik Sense is very easy to use, but sometimes integration is a bit challenging."
"The communication with the solution's sales managers in Europe is very bad, making it an area that requires improvement. My company usually gets no response from the tool's sales managers."
"I'd like to see more end-user-friendly UI designs."
"There is not much information available. It is not a mainstream tool that many companies use, so if you are doing something that has not been done before, you can find it challenging to get an answer."
"We need more types of visualizations."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Looker is expensive and could be made better by reducing it."
"It is cheap."
"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's not cheap, but it's not expensive for big companies."
"I do not have to make any payments to use the solution."
"I believe pricing is similar to other products in the same category, if you have it on-premise."
"For personal use, the desktop version of Qlik Sense is absolutely free, and you can share visualizations with others and to a personal cloud space, though limited with storage space."
"Understand the break over price point for switching to the Enterprise license."
"The costs can initially become quite high. Make sure you have a clear understanding of who will truly use the product as opposed to someone that will simply receive the end report."
"The solution is worth it."
"Licensing: Review the named model and move towards a usage model (e.g., cores, memory, computers, API calls, etc.)."
"Licensing is quite good, easy, but slightly expensive."
"For on-premise enterprise users, a number of additional features come at a premium cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
8%
Retailer
8%
Media Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise40
Large Enterprise87
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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...
Seeking lightweight open source BI software
There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I would recommend as follows: 1) If you have legacies of SAP, Oracle - look for SAP...
What do you like most about Qlik Sense?
The most valuable features of Qlik Sense are its speed and seamless development of web technologies.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
QlikSense, Qlik Analytics Platform
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Yahoo!, Etsy, Kohler, Hipcamp, Hubspot, Kickstarter, Venmo, Dollar Shave Club, 600+ customer
Abbvie, Airbus, Barclays, BT Openreach, BMW, Daimler AG, HSBC, IKEA, Nationwide Building Society, Royal Mail Group, Sanofi, Siemens, Wendy'', Vodafone, Volvo
Find out what your peers are saying about Looker vs. Qlik Sense and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.