Looker Studio vs. MS SharePoint / SQL

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Looker Studio
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Looker Studio is a data visualization platform that transforms data into meaningful presentations and dashboards with customized reporting tools.
$9
per month per user per project
MS SharePoint / SQL
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
MS SharePoint / SQL refers to Microsoft Sharepoint, a web-based collaborative platform, being used in tandem with Microsoft SQL Server to provide business intelligence analytics and reporting. They can provide BI content such as data connections, reports, scorecards, dashboards, and more.N/A
Pricing
Looker StudioMS SharePoint / SQL
Editions & Modules
Looker Studio Pro
$9
per month per user per project
Looker Studio
No charge
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Looker StudioMS SharePoint / SQL
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Looker StudioMS SharePoint / SQL
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Looker StudioMS SharePoint / SQL
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker Studio
7.8
53 Ratings
7% below category average
MS SharePoint / SQL
8.3
57 Ratings
2% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports7.337 Ratings9.538 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.952 Ratings7.654 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates7.251 Ratings8.047 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker Studio
7.1
52 Ratings
12% below category average
MS SharePoint / SQL
9.4
52 Ratings
16% above category average
Drill-down analysis9.544 Ratings9.541 Ratings
Formatting capabilities8.248 Ratings10.052 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages3.224 Ratings8.030 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration7.551 Ratings10.049 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Looker Studio
8.0
52 Ratings
5% below category average
MS SharePoint / SQL
9.1
57 Ratings
9% above category average
Publish to Web8.146 Ratings8.551 Ratings
Publish to PDF8.745 Ratings9.448 Ratings
Report Versioning8.033 Ratings8.047 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling6.436 Ratings9.738 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers8.818 Ratings10.031 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Looker Studio
7.2
51 Ratings
12% below category average
MS SharePoint / SQL
8.9
35 Ratings
11% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)9.651 Ratings8.033 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization9.248 Ratings10.031 Ratings
Predictive Analytics5.026 Ratings10.029 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining5.02 Ratings7.52 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Looker Studio
-
Ratings
MS SharePoint / SQL
9.0
68 Ratings
6% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)00 Ratings9.359 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model00 Ratings9.063 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)00 Ratings9.567 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings9.03 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings8.553 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Looker Studio
-
Ratings
MS SharePoint / SQL
9.4
58 Ratings
18% above category average
Responsive Design for Web Access00 Ratings10.056 Ratings
Mobile Application00 Ratings9.735 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile00 Ratings8.038 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Looker Studio
-
Ratings
MS SharePoint / SQL
9.4
37 Ratings
18% above category average
REST API00 Ratings9.528 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings10.027 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings9.027 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings9.025 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings9.032 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings10.023 Ratings
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User Ratings
Looker StudioMS SharePoint / SQL
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(54 ratings)
8.8
(76 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.8
(7 ratings)
Usability
8.5
(5 ratings)
9.5
(11 ratings)
Support Rating
6.7
(10 ratings)
8.8
(7 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
Looker StudioMS SharePoint / SQL
Likelihood to Recommend
Google
Looker Studio is well-suited for those wanting to analyze web/site data and performance quickly. It is simple enough to learn/use for quick report-building or drilling into data. Looker Studio is easier to use/understand than the GA4 console and thus has a better UI/UX. It is an efficient tool for fast, simple data needs—especially for team members with limited analytical capabilities and knowledge.
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Microsoft
As I mentioned in my previous answers, MS SharePoint is very useful as a shared drive for the organization and is very easy to manage. It also helps us import data from SharePoint directly into PowerBI for creating reports. According to my understanding, only share link features should be improved.
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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
  • Flexible - able to make any changes we would like vs traditional service desk system.
  • ROI - We were already using SharePoint for internal intranet, so we are simply getting more use out of licensing we had already committed to.
  • Easy to use for end users.
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
  • It is hard to setup and nightmare
  • It requires a of infrastructure, thus it could be costly because of requirement and licensing required for everything to run smoothly
  • If it is not setup and organized properly from the beginning it could be maintenance nightmare
  • It is hard to have "test" environment to do patches or similar
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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
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Microsoft
This was a long-term buy-in from a corporate perspective, to remain in the SharePoint space. Migration is certainly possible, which is good for planning and having options further out. At this point, the only planned migration is to eventually move the architecture up to SharePoint/SQL 2013. At that point, we will be able to leverage some greater efficiencies, some enhanced content design and management features, and some more current social features. It is well worth a full consideration in any shop looking at a new implementation of or migration to SharePoint (although you will probably be considering 2013 versions or beyond in those discussions), but the platform should be a strong competitor to any alternatives. Realizing the capability of a fully-branded and customized website was not part of the original choice for the architecture at Lincoln, but seeing it implemented and functioning now with this capacity far beyond original expectations has certainly cemented plans to continue using it.
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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
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Microsoft
As stated in numerous slides before, asking the same question, SharePoint is the ideal software when working in a fast-paced, team-oriented environment. It is very easy to share large files (PDFs, documents, blueprints) and collaborate with team members inside and outside of our base office.
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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've only had to call in to support on one occasion but they were able to work though our issue and find a solution that did fully resolve the issue in a timely manner. I can't always say the same about support from other companies so it was a refreshing change to have support that did help.
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Implementation Rating
Google
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Not implemented in best practice way, there are many customizations
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Alternatives Considered
Google
The free version of Looker Studio is still better than the leading enterprise-embedded BI tools, despite its weaknesses. The leading embedded BI platforms have terrible visualizations that can be spotted a mile away. They are also primarily locked to a grid, making it very hard to fully customize. The price point is also a major deterrent, since users end up paying for lots of features they might never use. Looker Studio has weaknesses on the blending and modeling side, but we've been able to get by via connection to GBQ and transformation done in dbt.
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Microsoft
At the time of the two large projects, SharePoint was the enterprise solution so we were required to use that. We have since lobbied the enterprise teams to review and consider Atlassian Confluence and were successful. Confluence is cheaper than Sharepoint which is why we wanted to bring that in. The enterprise has now made Confluence an enterprise solution as an alternative to SharePoint. After using both I think SharePoint has many more add-ins than Confluence. It has much more customization ability than Confluence. SharePoint is not good for mobile readiness. Confluence is so there is a difference that might lead you to Confluence over SharePoint. I would also say that SharePoint is very document-centric and that Confluence has better KM than SharePoint does. even with the use of SQL Server. We were told that we could not use Google Drive even though it had features we liked.
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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.
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Microsoft
  • ROI for ms SharePoint/SQL considering that is the best database engine with excellent features that help you to have all information in your hand.
  • Something negative could be license format.
  • These are the best relational databases in the market with powerful features that complement your system.
Read full review
ScreenShots