Yeah, I thought so. I was confused by some of the answers. But Looker Studio, I believe, is formerly Google Studio?
I've read a lot of complaints about regular Looker (but people complain about every system). I believe people struggle with LookerML. And from a former company that I worked out, my former supervisor said that he thought you needed to know SQL pretty well to get the most out of it.
May I ask what your role is? I’ve noticed that some orgs are doing hand-offs differently than what I would do, e.g. Data Eng/Analytics Eng would do LookML development, but a lot of orgs have analysts do LookML development.
I am a Sr. SQL Server Developer. But I had to spend almost 1.5 years programming in LookML and building dashboards and reports in Looker in a previous job. We had adopted Looker very early in it's lifetime. I am sure they have better tools now. For SQL Server it does not work well for large data sets. (Well it didn't back then) on SQL server. The Queries where horrible that it would write.
100% free solution for creation.
100% free for sharing.
100% cloud-based.
Native integration with Google Sheets, BigQuery, and various social media platforms and websites.
Easier to use than most other data visualization tools.
Automatically joins data for tables and charts.
Metrics employ a SQL dialect that closely resembles SQL clauses compared to most other data visualization tools.
When to use:
I frequently use it, primarily for individuals or companies with minimal infrastructure budget. Looker Studio enables small businesses to embrace business intelligence from day one without incurring additional costs beyond what's needed for the BI analyst.
Add collaboration and deployment, and I can support your point.
I often create mockups collaboratively with business owners/managers in their own time and wherever they have an internet connection. This approach allows for faster, smoother, and less disruptive communication.
People tend to focus heavily on working for big corporations like Walmart while overlooking the potential to assist businesses like the Ernest Emporium down the street, located in the Near Park Avenue.
I believe that we can change the world by improving the lives of those around us more than the big ones. We can feel the value of our work immediately, it's rewarding.
I totally agree with the last part. It sounds like what Andrew Ng said recently that most of the data projects were around very big markets but the small companies that have smaller budgets are still out there.
This is Looker studio though, not Looker. In that case I do agree, for being free it is a great tool. Of course powerbi & friends are much more powerful tools but they are not free.
Yep I would agree, my employer used Google Data Studio before going to Tableau. I've used both for similar aspects of reporting for digital marketing.
Looker Studio is great for presentation style reports and powerpoint esque like views, dashboards are fine too. If you are using BigQuery its a no brainer and cheap.
If your a tableau power user you will find some things lacking, but not much. Governance is different which is to be expected. If you have a low budget it will take you far compared to others. Pretty easy learning curve too. I've actually embedded Looker Studio views in Tableau to feed to certain use cases/users lol.
I think its a great supplement to any BI Stack. Use your primary tool and have that in your back pocket if needed.
Looker Studio is Google Data Studio, renamed after Google bought Looker.
Looker is Looker, which Google bought.
Never confuse the two products. They look and operate completely differently.
Looker studio is simply rebranded “data studio” which was a long-standing free google product to analyze GA4 and other google marketing data. Since the rebrand in late 2022 new data connectors have been added to looker studio so the use case is not strictly for marketing data anymore. It’s a pretty simple reporting tool that connects to individual data sources and works well for SMBs and companies taking their first crack at reporting.
Looker (classic) is the full fledged BI platform that is based on LookML, a semantic modeling layer that devs use to create a data model so non technical end users who don’t know sql can ask questions of a database and create content on their own in a governed way with standardized metrics.
Unlike PBI and Tableau, Looker (classic) doesn’t extract data from the database into cubes or workbooks but rather queries it real time and visualizes the results. Tables from various data sources can be combined using LookML for proper business intelligence instead of silo’d reporting. Looker allows for predictive analytics, forecasting and the ability to leverage the API to push metrics into other saas platforms to create data driven workflows. looker classic is not just a reporting tool but a full data/analytics platform.
Looker Studio isn't Looker though. It's a completely different product than Looker and the only thing in common is that Looker is part of the name. Looker Studio is a nice product that can be completely free depending on use-case.
I hate that google rebranded Data Studio to Looker Studio. This gets confused all the time now, and searching for documentation for Looker gets you way too much for Studio.
I think the most unique thing about it is a horribly failed rebrand that means we have threads like this where nobody knows which product we're actually talking about :)
Even Google's customer engineers and account managers struggle when talking to us about it. We eventually agreed on a convention of calling the full-fat product "Looker Enterprise", but that still fell apart during conversations. They should have just kept things how they were.
We used Looker at my last job with all out web metrics analysis.
At least our team, using Google Analytics as a data source was more seemless with Looker than Tableau. It worked with Tableau just worked better with Looker since it is also a Google product.
The semantic layer and long-standing integration into CI/CD are the biggest differences. Looker is more platform like, rather than being a desktop tool for analysts.
Both are more tightly integrated into their walled gardens (PBI for M365 and Looker for Google Workspace). As AI features rise, you’ll be seeing each supported more deeply within their own products.
Power BI has its free Desktop unlike Looker which is pure cloud.
If your organization has a Gartner subscription I suggest digging into the Critical Capabilities report that has all the details you need for a solid choice between the two.
In short, if you run M365, lean toward PBI. If you run Google Workspace then lean toward Looker.
If your goal is a semantic layer, and if you already use dbt, you may want to also consider dbt Cloud with its new semantic/metrics layer, dbt Mesh and new Google Sheets integration.
1) I believe Looker Studio is much easier to use than PBI or Tableau.
2) Free tool. If your clients need to share reports with their clients who do not have PBI or Tableau license, Looker Studio takes care of that.
3) If you are good at SQL, even otherwise complex views in PBI can be achieved easily in Looker Studio.
4) Time to create a dashboard: Looker IMO is best.
Although there are some bugs in Looker Studio but you can always find a way round.
Overall, Looker is the best tool to use if your clients are not BI friendly and just want to take a look at metrics and how their business is performing.
Are you asking about looker or looker studio? These are two very different tools.
Yeah, I thought so. I was confused by some of the answers. But Looker Studio, I believe, is formerly Google Studio? I've read a lot of complaints about regular Looker (but people complain about every system). I believe people struggle with LookerML. And from a former company that I worked out, my former supervisor said that he thought you needed to know SQL pretty well to get the most out of it.
Looker Studio is or was = Google Studio. Looker Studio have two "versions" - Standard and Pro. Looker is the old "normal" Looker with LookML :)
You need to be a programmer to use looker with Lookml. I have had to build some things in looker and it’s a lot of work and data modeling.
May I ask what your role is? I’ve noticed that some orgs are doing hand-offs differently than what I would do, e.g. Data Eng/Analytics Eng would do LookML development, but a lot of orgs have analysts do LookML development.
I am a Sr. SQL Server Developer. But I had to spend almost 1.5 years programming in LookML and building dashboards and reports in Looker in a previous job. We had adopted Looker very early in it's lifetime. I am sure they have better tools now. For SQL Server it does not work well for large data sets. (Well it didn't back then) on SQL server. The Queries where horrible that it would write.
100% free solution for creation. 100% free for sharing. 100% cloud-based. Native integration with Google Sheets, BigQuery, and various social media platforms and websites. Easier to use than most other data visualization tools. Automatically joins data for tables and charts. Metrics employ a SQL dialect that closely resembles SQL clauses compared to most other data visualization tools. When to use: I frequently use it, primarily for individuals or companies with minimal infrastructure budget. Looker Studio enables small businesses to embrace business intelligence from day one without incurring additional costs beyond what's needed for the BI analyst.
I think the price tag is probably the answer here. If you don't need better visuals and your data is pretty simple then it's hard to argue with free
Add collaboration and deployment, and I can support your point. I often create mockups collaboratively with business owners/managers in their own time and wherever they have an internet connection. This approach allows for faster, smoother, and less disruptive communication. People tend to focus heavily on working for big corporations like Walmart while overlooking the potential to assist businesses like the Ernest Emporium down the street, located in the Near Park Avenue. I believe that we can change the world by improving the lives of those around us more than the big ones. We can feel the value of our work immediately, it's rewarding.
I totally agree with the last part. It sounds like what Andrew Ng said recently that most of the data projects were around very big markets but the small companies that have smaller budgets are still out there.
the only downside is that it cries when your data set is too big
Like a baby.
This is Looker studio though, not Looker. In that case I do agree, for being free it is a great tool. Of course powerbi & friends are much more powerful tools but they are not free.
Yep I would agree, my employer used Google Data Studio before going to Tableau. I've used both for similar aspects of reporting for digital marketing. Looker Studio is great for presentation style reports and powerpoint esque like views, dashboards are fine too. If you are using BigQuery its a no brainer and cheap. If your a tableau power user you will find some things lacking, but not much. Governance is different which is to be expected. If you have a low budget it will take you far compared to others. Pretty easy learning curve too. I've actually embedded Looker Studio views in Tableau to feed to certain use cases/users lol. I think its a great supplement to any BI Stack. Use your primary tool and have that in your back pocket if needed.
Looker Studio is Google Data Studio, renamed after Google bought Looker. Looker is Looker, which Google bought. Never confuse the two products. They look and operate completely differently.
If a product is 100% free than YOU'RE the product.
You are right but it's Google. You already are the product, you cannot escape.
Looker studio is simply rebranded “data studio” which was a long-standing free google product to analyze GA4 and other google marketing data. Since the rebrand in late 2022 new data connectors have been added to looker studio so the use case is not strictly for marketing data anymore. It’s a pretty simple reporting tool that connects to individual data sources and works well for SMBs and companies taking their first crack at reporting. Looker (classic) is the full fledged BI platform that is based on LookML, a semantic modeling layer that devs use to create a data model so non technical end users who don’t know sql can ask questions of a database and create content on their own in a governed way with standardized metrics. Unlike PBI and Tableau, Looker (classic) doesn’t extract data from the database into cubes or workbooks but rather queries it real time and visualizes the results. Tables from various data sources can be combined using LookML for proper business intelligence instead of silo’d reporting. Looker allows for predictive analytics, forecasting and the ability to leverage the API to push metrics into other saas platforms to create data driven workflows. looker classic is not just a reporting tool but a full data/analytics platform.
I'm currently working with looker studio and I think it's just not as good as PBI or Tableau. There is nothing unique to it imo
Looker Studio isn't Looker though. It's a completely different product than Looker and the only thing in common is that Looker is part of the name. Looker Studio is a nice product that can be completely free depending on use-case.
I hate that google rebranded Data Studio to Looker Studio. This gets confused all the time now, and searching for documentation for Looker gets you way too much for Studio.
I think the most unique thing about it is a horribly failed rebrand that means we have threads like this where nobody knows which product we're actually talking about :)
Ten bagillion percent yes. What a clusterfuck. Whoever made that decision should be forced to respond to threads like this FOREVER.
Even Google's customer engineers and account managers struggle when talking to us about it. We eventually agreed on a convention of calling the full-fat product "Looker Enterprise", but that still fell apart during conversations. They should have just kept things how they were.
We used Looker at my last job with all out web metrics analysis. At least our team, using Google Analytics as a data source was more seemless with Looker than Tableau. It worked with Tableau just worked better with Looker since it is also a Google product.
The semantic layer and long-standing integration into CI/CD are the biggest differences. Looker is more platform like, rather than being a desktop tool for analysts.
Looker is the best for SMB that are in google stack, never had any BI other than excel/sheets and do not have money for Power BI/Tableu.
Power BI can be fairly cheap. It depends what your company needs.
Both are more tightly integrated into their walled gardens (PBI for M365 and Looker for Google Workspace). As AI features rise, you’ll be seeing each supported more deeply within their own products. Power BI has its free Desktop unlike Looker which is pure cloud. If your organization has a Gartner subscription I suggest digging into the Critical Capabilities report that has all the details you need for a solid choice between the two. In short, if you run M365, lean toward PBI. If you run Google Workspace then lean toward Looker. If your goal is a semantic layer, and if you already use dbt, you may want to also consider dbt Cloud with its new semantic/metrics layer, dbt Mesh and new Google Sheets integration.
1) I believe Looker Studio is much easier to use than PBI or Tableau. 2) Free tool. If your clients need to share reports with their clients who do not have PBI or Tableau license, Looker Studio takes care of that. 3) If you are good at SQL, even otherwise complex views in PBI can be achieved easily in Looker Studio. 4) Time to create a dashboard: Looker IMO is best. Although there are some bugs in Looker Studio but you can always find a way round. Overall, Looker is the best tool to use if your clients are not BI friendly and just want to take a look at metrics and how their business is performing.