Looker vs ThoughtSpot comparison

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Looker

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 29, 2025

Looker and ThoughtSpot compete in the business intelligence and data analytics category. ThoughtSpot appears to have an advantage in user-friendliness with its intuitive search capabilities, while Looker stands out due to its integration with Google BigQuery.

Features: Looker emphasizes an advanced developer experience using LookML to allow business users to model data and create visualizations effortlessly. It supports SQL integration for flexible data exploration and connects seamlessly with Google BigQuery. ThoughtSpot focuses on ease of use for non-technical users with its intuitive search capabilities. The AI-driven engine enhances data exploration and integrates well with platforms like Slack and Jira.

Room for Improvement: Looker could improve in offering more customizable visualization capabilities similar to Tableau. It also lacks options for direct data integration with Excel or REST APIs, reducing flexibility. ThoughtSpot needs improvement in visualization customization and integration with various tools. Users report challenges in governance and complex dashboard organization, and there can be slow responses to new feature requests.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Looker primarily operates on the public cloud but satisfies private cloud needs, backed by strong technical support known for quick responses. However, some users experience delays with complex issues. ThoughtSpot, available on public and on-premises clouds, is recognized for its proactive support team and integration across various platforms. Both services have commendable customer service, with Looker showing slightly higher user satisfaction.

Pricing and ROI: Looker may have prohibitive pricing for smaller businesses, offering value for larger enterprises with significant ROI potential in decision-making. ThoughtSpot offers competitive pricing compared to Tableau, yet is more expensive than Power BI. Its flexible pricing model supports cost control. Both platforms show ROI potential, but ThoughtSpot emphasizes reducing costs through efficient data management.

To learn more, read our detailed Looker vs. ThoughtSpot Report (Updated: July 2025).

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Looker vs. ThoughtSpot

July 2025

Helped 865,384 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

6th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

ThoughtSpot

Ranking in Embedded BI

5th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (11th), Data Visualization (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Embedded BI category, the mindshare of Looker is 8.3%, down from 11.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ThoughtSpot is 5.1%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Embedded BI

Featured Reviews

Kishore Jhunjhunwala

Sr Analytics Consultant at a tech vendor 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.

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Sushma Polavarapu

Sr Data Analytics Consultant at Capgemini

Creates user-friendly analysis environments for large datasets

The tool is user-friendly for the end users. It is primarily a search-based tool. Users do not need a technical background to work directly on the dataset. Its compatibility with most databases, including the latest from FlexMovely and Redshift, allows users to create joins and worksheets easily. ThoughtSpot is fast, even with one to ten terabytes of 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

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

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

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

"The product is easy to use."

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

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

"We can centralize all our data models."

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

More Looker pros

"It's easy to drill down or expand data to get more details right out of the box."

"I would say the return on investment is good. Whatever we invested, we got results. We have been finding it easy to use and onboard new use cases."

"ThoughtSpot is much easier to work with and maintain than other BI solutions, and it significantly reduces costs related to manual labor."

"The tool is user-friendly for the end users."

"The main core of ThoughtSpot is to create models, connect data pipelines, and create business models and dashboards on top of them."

"The self-service analytics capabilities are unrivaled, making it a top-notch solution."

"It is easy to set up the solution."

"I like ThoughtSpot's search capabilities. You can also create custom analytics even if you aren't an experienced data analyst. We have users with no data analytics experience making some of the dashboards we've created, copying components, and customizing them to their specific use cases."

More ThoughtSpot pros

Cons

"Integrations with other BI tools could be better."

"The visualization capability of the product is limited."

"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 product does not have documented material."

"It needs to be more user-friendly."

"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."

"The integration with different databases must be improved."

"Some areas for improvement include the pixel-perfect dashboards, which are not as refined as those in Tableau."

"The dashboards could give you more ability to fine tune the appearance. You get a great deal more control over how something looks in Power BI than you do in ThoughtSpot."

"The customer service and support are not good. I stopped opening tickets due to insufficient and untimely responses."

"A crucial feature we needed is missing, which involves restricting views of certain KPIs when users select conflicting parameters. We had to create a workaround, which impacted performance by loading pinboards slowly."

"ThoughtSpot lacks an intermediate layer for data loading, unlike Qlik, which affects dashboard stability when the database has issues."

"ThoughtSpot is a fairly new product, so some usability aspects aren't as mature as we'd like them to be. One example is their organizational methodology, like how objects are organized in their dashboards inside the product. They're all on a flat list, which works if you've got five or 10 dashboards. However, it's insufficient when you're a large enterprise with multiple groups looking at the same dashboards. It isn't organized well."

"If I want to order columns, this feature is not there."

"The most difficult thing I found is that it only deals with the files and does not have direct connectivity to databases."

More ThoughtSpot cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"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."

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

"I give the pricing a six out of ten."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Retailer

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Looker?

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

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Looker?

I do not have to make any payments to use the solution. In the beginning, Looker may work fine for its users. If advanced users who have experience with BI tools use Looker, then they may find it t...

What needs improvement with Looker?

The visualization capability of the product is limited. From an improvement perspective, the product should have more visualization capability. I can't clean data in Looker, and if I try to do it, ...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ThoughtSpot?

The pricing is on the higher end but reasonable for what ThoughtSpot offers.

What needs improvement with ThoughtSpot?

I do not think there is anything that needs improvement at the moment. It is being improved continuously. They are connecting to many AI-type tools. Their pricing has recently changed to be more pr...

What is your primary use case for ThoughtSpot?

Clients use ThoughtSpot because of its search facility. It is easy for searching and does not require analysts to provide reports. There is no drill-down path on the data, so users can drill data a...

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Product Reports

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Looker

August 2025

Download ThoughtSpot product report

July 2025

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

ThoughtSpot is a powerful business intelligence tool that allows easy searching and drilling into data. Its ad hoc exploration and query-based search features are highly valued, and it is easy to set up, stable, and scalable.

The solution is used for reporting purposes, self-service BI, and embedding into other applications for customers to do self-service analytics. It helps businesses with metrics, KPIs, and important insights by sourcing data from various sources into one golden source and visualizing it in an easy way for the business to consume. The pricing model is ideal, charging for data rather than the number of users.

Sample Customers

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

Primary Capital Mortgage, Sterling Backcheck, RichRelevance, Rambus, Batteries Plus Bulbs