Looker Studio vs. Microsoft Power BI

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Looker Studio
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Looker Studio is a data visualization platform that transforms data into meaningful presentations and dashboards with customized reporting tools.N/A
Microsoft Power BI
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Power BI is a visualization and data discovery tool from Microsoft. It allows users to convert data into visuals and graphics, visually explore and analyze data, collaborate on interactive dashboards and reports, and scale across their organization with built-in governance and security.
$10
per month per user
Pricing
Looker StudioMicrosoft Power BI
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Looker StudioMicrosoft Power BI
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Looker StudioMicrosoft Power BI
Considered Both Products
Looker Studio
Chose Looker Studio
Easy availability and accessible with Google suits. Sharing is smooth.
Chose Looker Studio
We selected Google Data Studio because it is easier to make connections with third-party data sources. Also Google Data Studio can understand connections between different tables and databases better that its competitors such as Power BI. Compared to Power BI you do not need to …
Chose Looker Studio
Google holds it's own against these competitors as they each have their own strengths and weaknesses. While Tableau provides user-interactive reporting, its formatting options can be quickly rigid and frustrating.
Chose Looker Studio
Google Data Studio provides a great feature set considering its price point, especially when compared to commercial options from Microsoft and Tableau. While it may not be as versatile when it comes to working with and developing complex datasets, there is enough charm in its …
Chose Looker Studio
Google Data Studio is much more intuitive to pick up and start using immediately. There was very little need for formal training or onboarding to start using the tool quickly. Power BI was much more difficult to start using.

The formatting in GDS is also very customizable, and …
Chose Looker Studio
Compared with Tableau and Power BI, I would say Google Data Studio is fairly placed or a pretty decent tool. We need to understand, this is a free tool and it will have its own limitations - apart from that this is a pretty decent tool compared to the biggies in the market.
Chose Looker Studio
Officially we are still on Tableau Desktop. We are nearing the end of our "exploration" phase with Google Data Studio. Tableau's products are expensive, especially for a small organization like us. There are many better uses of the software budget than Tableau. Google Data …
Chose Looker Studio
I selected Google Data Studio because it was free. In general it compares favorably against BIME but less against PowerBI and Tableau. I was looking for a free tool to help surface metrics company-wide and this tool was perfect for me. PowerBI and Tableau have much more data …
Chose Looker Studio
Google Data Studio provides basic functionalities for visualizing data and creating simple reports, but it certainly does not provide the advanced visualizations and features that Tableau and Power BI offer.
Moreover, Tableau offers built-in advanced functions and data …
Chose Looker Studio
Google Data Studio is widely available and accessible, can be shared easily, and it only takes 20-30 min to build a rudimentary dashboard. It has very little setup and does not rely on internal data architecture and development. For later development purposes, Tableau, Power …
Microsoft Power BI

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Looker StudioMicrosoft Power BI
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker Studio
7.6
51 Ratings
10% below category average
Microsoft Power BI
7.3
138 Ratings
12% below category average
Pixel Perfect reports8.335 Ratings6.6118 Ratings
Customizable dashboards9.150 Ratings8.1138 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates5.449 Ratings7.3126 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker Studio
6.4
50 Ratings
23% below category average
Microsoft Power BI
7.1
139 Ratings
13% below category average
Drill-down analysis7.442 Ratings7.3138 Ratings
Formatting capabilities8.246 Ratings6.5137 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages3.323 Ratings7.6102 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration6.750 Ratings7.0134 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Looker Studio
7.6
50 Ratings
9% below category average
Microsoft Power BI
7.8
133 Ratings
7% below category average
Publish to Web9.144 Ratings8.2128 Ratings
Publish to PDF7.243 Ratings8.2121 Ratings
Report Versioning8.131 Ratings7.3101 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling5.034 Ratings8.6103 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers8.718 Ratings6.973 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Looker Studio
8.8
49 Ratings
7% above category average
Microsoft Power BI
7.6
135 Ratings
6% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)9.249 Ratings7.6130 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization9.346 Ratings7.9121 Ratings
Predictive Analytics7.924 Ratings7.5101 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Looker Studio
-
Ratings
Microsoft Power BI
8.2
126 Ratings
5% below category average
Multi-User Support (named login)00 Ratings8.2120 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model00 Ratings8.8102 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)00 Ratings8.3110 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings8.694 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Looker Studio
-
Ratings
Microsoft Power BI
7.9
117 Ratings
1% below category average
Responsive Design for Web Access00 Ratings8.0111 Ratings
Mobile Application00 Ratings7.493 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile00 Ratings7.5112 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Looker Studio
-
Ratings
Microsoft Power BI
8.4
80 Ratings
6% above category average
REST API00 Ratings8.172 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings9.556 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings8.055 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings7.946 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings8.263 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings8.344 Ratings
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Looker StudioMicrosoft Power BI
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User Ratings
Looker StudioMicrosoft Power BI
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(51 ratings)
8.0
(140 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(3 ratings)
8.9
(56 ratings)
Support Rating
6.7
(10 ratings)
8.0
(52 ratings)
User Testimonials
Looker StudioMicrosoft Power BI
Likelihood to Recommend
Google
Does great at open canvas editing and letting you fully customize without the need for a grid. It is democratizing self-service no-code analytics. You do not need to be a data or analytics engineer to get started, and you can go very far based on how intuitive and straightforward the UI is. Some of the biggest challenges with Looker Studio relate to user management/security, embedding options, and issue support. For a long time, every user needed to have a Gmail to invite them to view a dashboard via login, not sure if that has been improved yet. You can let any user view without logging in, but that is not always recommended due to security reasons. In terms of embedding, you can only iframe dashboards. More sophisticated BI tools let you embed elements via API or Javascript. Iframing dashboards also make drill downs and dashboard to dashboard navigation tricky/near impossible. There is also no ability to contact Google for support when bugs or outages happen. They point everyone to the Data Studio community. There is some ability to get in contact with Google if you have an enterprise-level contract with Google Cloud, but the path for support is very ad hoc and not always fruitful.
Read full review
Microsoft
In operations we use the tool for many different topics, from factory quality systems to high level reviews. We have created kind of an internal "App Store" based on Power BI where you have a lot of different dashboards for different solutions (cost, cash, health and safety, sales, factories, distribution centers...) and you as an user just need to get in that "App Store" and enter in whatever tool can be useful for you. It is open to all the operations employees and can use on demand. Also it has raised the imagination of our colleagues, as they are not only working by themselves creating new reports, but also raising fantastic ideas that can be extended for the usage of all the community.
Read full review
Pros
Google
  • Self-service
  • Easy to use, point and click
  • Little to no training required
  • Easy to share internally and externally
  • Rich visualizations
  • Canned reports
  • Easy to copy/paste/dupe existing reports
  • Ability to join data sets
  • Easy integration with various data sources
  • Flexible data integrations, including lowest common denominator (CSV, XLS, G-Sheets)
  • Wide range of APIs
  • Secure / authentication via Google SSO
  • Easy to share / re-assign ownership of reports and data sources
Read full review
Microsoft
  • Quickly filter and view granular data sets with easily configurable reporting figures.
  • The ability to quickly switch between tabs allows for historical data comparisons and progress tracking.
  • It's helpful to dive into the data and break it down from high levels to small.
  • Achieve actionable insights faster by using real-time data. It's incredible to have online access to reports.
Read full review
Cons
Google
  • Few functionalities are very exclusive only for data studio.
  • It's time taking to load data and at the same time only single Data source can be connected.
  • When editing the reports you have to switch between Edit and View mode to see how does the change looks like.
Read full review
Microsoft
  • The desktop app is great but needs a lot of performance improvements
  • No MacOS Version for the Desktop app, this is a big limitation for business since executives prefer Macs
  • Premium Cloud Version of Power BI is awfully expensive
  • On-Premise Version of the Power BI Reports Server is bundled only with SQL Server Enterprise License and cannot be purchased separately and requires Software Assurance Subscription
  • On-Premise Power BI Report Server doesn't support ADFS, AzureAD or any Claims-Based authentication platform, a sad disadvantage for enterprises
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Google
It is the simplest and least expensive way for us to automate our reporting at this time. I like the ability to customize literally everything about each report, and the ability to send out reports automatically in emails. The only issue we have been having recently is a technical glitch in the automatic email report. Sadly, there is almost no support for this tool from Google, but is also free, so that is important to take into consideration
Read full review
Microsoft
I find it helpful and easy to use
Read full review
Usability
Google
Google Data Studio has a clean interface that follows a lot of UX best practices. It is fairly easy to pick up the first time you use it, and there is a lot of documentation on line to help troubleshoot, if needed
Read full review
Microsoft
At this point, I think we all know who has taken the lead in the business intelligence and analytics market worldwide. With fresh new updates every other day on top of an already robustly built product with all features that one can dream of is a no brainer, I feel. Microsoft will invariably be synonymous with quality and professionalism.
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Support Rating
Google
I give it a lower support rating because it seems like our Dev team hasn't gotten the support they need to set up our database to connect. Seems like we hit a roadblock and the project got put on pause for dev. That sucks for me because it is harder to get the dev team to focus on it if they don't get the help they need to set it up.
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Microsoft
I can't really speak to the support overall, [but] I will say that in the almost three years I have used the system, I have only needed to contact their support team once. I think the team was helpful, but it did take some time for us to resolve the issues/ request that they had. I guess the good news is that the system is pretty stable, and I personally have rarely needed to contact their technical support team.
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Alternatives Considered
Google
Google Data Studio provides a great feature set considering its price point, especially when compared to commercial options from Microsoft and Tableau. While it may not be as versatile when it comes to working with and developing complex datasets, there is enough charm in its simple, easy-to-use UI to allow not-so-complex analytics to be conducted without having to hire a data analyst.
Read full review
Microsoft
[Microsoft] Power BI is practical and effective, like a hammer for a nail, it is easy to use and produces very quickly the results that in most cases are urgently required by clients (nice reports to share on the web). To start using [Microsoft] Power BI you need a business email address, with that you create an account in Power BI Service and in less than 1 hour you will have installed Power BI Desktop, a report will have been created and it will have been published on the web .
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Return on Investment
Google
  • Free, so the only investment is time
  • Because it doesn't have native support of non-Google sources, it can cost more money than Tableau
  • The time spent formatting the templates or building connectors can have a negative impact on ROI
  • As a agency, charging for the reporting service is profitable after the first month or two after building the dashboard.
Read full review
Microsoft
  • It helps us track and achieve company goals.
  • It shows us [our] performance in areas we could not previously track and allows us to see and work on how to improve their performance.
  • Quick easy access for executives to use in helping teams and addressing issues.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Microsoft Power BI Screenshots

Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Turns insights into impact for business usersScreenshot of Power BI integrates easily with Microsoft 365Screenshot of Microsoft Power BI - AI-Powered CapabilitiesScreenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Copilot can be used to create reportsScreenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Data HubScreenshot of Microsoft Power BI - Scales as organizational needs grow