Looker vs Sisense comparison

Google and Sisense are both solutions in the Embedded BI category. Google is ranked #10, while Sisense is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.4. Google holds a 6.4% mindshare in EBT, compared to Sisense’s 5.8% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Sisense users who would recommend it.

Looker

Read 19 Looker reviews

2,532 Views
1,013 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Sisense

Read 47 Sisense reviews

3,211 Views
867 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Looker

Sisense

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 29, 2025

Sisense and Looker both compete in the business intelligence space. Looker seems to have the upper hand due to its advanced features and powerful data modeling language, despite its higher cost.

Features: Sisense is known for its ease of use, fast implementation, and ability to seamlessly combine multiple data sources. Its simplicity and range of visualizations cater to quick deployments without requiring technical expertise. Looker is praised for its flexibility and powerful data modeling capabilities via LookML, which enables sophisticated data manipulation and sharing, especially for SQL-experienced users looking to democratize data access.

Room for Improvement: Sisense could enhance its support for statistical packages and intricate data cubes that impact complex data blending capabilities. Users express a need for more customization options and improved handling of larger datasets. Looker, while strong in advanced analytics, could improve data source integration, visualization options, and user accessibility, offering more intuitive features for non-technical users and managing interface complexity for improved ease of use.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Sisense stands out with options for on-premises, private, and public cloud deployments, complemented by exceptional customer service and technical support that are both responsive and helpful. Looker primarily operates in the public cloud and requires strong technical knowledge for deployment. While offering customer support, some users feel that response times and problem resolution could be more efficient.

Pricing and ROI: Sisense is competitively priced, offering value for small to mid-sized businesses but is considered expensive compared to alternatives like Tableau and Power BI. Its ROI is viewed positively, with users noting time savings and improved reporting. Looker, while possibly costly for smaller businesses, justifies its expense with efficiency and advanced capabilities attractive to larger, data-intensive organizations. Pricing varies widely, typically aligning with user numbers and specific needs.

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

Buyer's Guide

Looker vs. Sisense

March 2026

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Helped 884,873 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

Ranking in Embedded BI

10th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Sisense

Ranking in Embedded BI

7th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (11th), Cloud Analytics (3rd), Reporting (9th), Data Visualization (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 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 Sisense is 5.8%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Embedded BI Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Sisense	5.8%
Looker	6.4%
Other	87.8%

Embedded BI

Featured Reviews

Kishore Jhunjhunwala

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.

Read full review

Caramel Moana

Senior Business Analyst at Target

Data analytics has transformed our KPI tracking and now drives faster sales decisions

This tool has given me the power to convert data into new analytical applications, giving me transparency about working on multiple platforms, and since it is cloud-based, it combines different pages for a complete progress report. Overall, it is playing a perfect, fantastic role in my organization. Some of the best features Sisense offers include its speed due to the In-Chip methodology, great visualization that makes BI easier, and the ability to load millions of data in seconds, which did not seem possible with other traditional reporting tools. It also has a robust architecture and provides REST APIs for external access. I emphasized the In-Chip methodology because it allows for accessing millions of data in a short span of seconds while providing the best visual effects for our business data.

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

"We can centralize all our data models."

"Looker offers incredible business visualization and analytical tools: graphs, charts, tables, and single numbers."

"It is easier and quicker to find things in the database."

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

"In the past, adding a new dashboard to our product was a multi-week development effort, now our nontechnical product management and client success teams can create, launch, and maintain high quality dashboards with no interruption to the development team."

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

"The product is easy to use."

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

More Looker pros

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

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

"We found the ease of use to be our primary factor for choosing Sisense."

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

"The client we have deployed this for is now able to easily make decisions based on the visualizations from this BI solution."

"The Sisense solution was very easy to set up, and its visualizations were effective."

"The dashboard design interface is very intuitive and allows you to quickly and easily produce professional, innovative dashboards."

"Sisense has been an excellent tool in positively impacting our organization through automated reporting, which has reduced manual data processing, enabling our teams to focus on core tasks and hence save considerable costs for us."

More Sisense pros

Cons

"Features related to visualization should continue to be improved."

"The product does not have documented material."

"It needs to be more user-friendly."

"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."

"Integrations with other BI tools could be better."

"The integration with different databases must be improved."

"Stability needs improvement."

"This product is useful for non-technical users, who are able to use the interface to easily slice data. But for the admin users who are responsible for maintaining the schemas and files behind the scenes, it can easily become a chore, as there is a lot of manual work involved in defining the schemas of the connected database(s), as well as any refactored tables; the restrictive syntax also makes maintenance difficult."

More Looker cons

"My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is cost-effective, but for smaller organizations working under a tight budget, this tool might be a bit expensive for them."

"I would also like to be able to run a bursts of reports based on different field values with PDF output right in the tool, rather than filtering on each field value and generating each PDF manually."

"The only thing I am missing is the option to plug in any data from any source easily since Sisense only offers a limited amount of supported data providers."

"This solution does not have tabs. In order to have tabs, you have to download an add-on to mimic the tabs. They should be integrated to improve the solution."

"Admins can't view all of the dashboards when needed; only dashboards that have been shared with the admins."

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

"I would like to see more development and growth for the support of Knowledge Base and Community forums."

"I did encounter an issue with the Dashboard load time to be slow considering that we had a basic dashboard with five reports and no more than 300 rows was disconcerting."

More Sisense cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

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

"It is cheap."

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Retailer

Computer Software Company

Media Company

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Marketing Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	28
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	15

Questions from the Community

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What needs improvement with Sisense?

So far, Sisense is performing well, but some visualizations lack flexibility in design options. Sisense should improve on handling extremely large data sets, and they should improve on maintaining ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Sisense?

In our organization, we use Sisense for business intelligence where it helps us with complex data from multiple sources and provides excellent insights, which makes it easy for us to make data-driv...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sisense?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been positive, as the price is relatively affordable compared to other solutions, and I have no challenges with the pricing. The setup is s...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 13% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Looker

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Compared 9% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

Embeddable vs Looker

Compared 2% of the time

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Microsoft Power BI vs Sisense

Compared 9% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Sisense

Compared 8% of the time

Embeddable vs Sisense

Compared 6% of the time

Apache Superset vs Sisense

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Looker

March 2026

Download Looker product report

Buyer's Guide

Sisense

February 2026

Download Sisense product report

Overview

Looker is a powerful data analytics platform that empowers businesses to explore and analyze their data in real time.

With its intuitive interface and robust features, Looker enables users to easily create and share interactive dashboards, reports, and visualizations.

The product's advanced data modeling capabilities and seamless integration with popular data sources make it a top choice for organizations looking to gain valuable insights from their data.

Google

Sisense is an end-to-end business analytics software that enables users to easily prepare and analyze large, complex datasets. Sisense’s Single-Stack BI software includes data preparation, data management, analysis, visualization and reporting capabilities.

Sisense

Sample Customers

Yahoo!, Etsy, Kohler, Hipcamp, Hubspot, Kickstarter, Venmo, Dollar Shave Club, 600+ customer

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

Buyer's Guide

Looker vs. Sisense

March 2026

Free Report: Looker vs. Sisense

Find out what your peers are saying about Looker vs. Sisense and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.

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