Looker Studio vs. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence

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.
$9
per month per user per project
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
Score 7.4 out of 10
N/A
The SAP® BusinessObjects™ Business Intelligence Platform provides users with ad hoc queries, reporting, data visualizations, and analysis tools. Its integrated, unified infrastructure aims to offer scalability from one-to-many tools and interfaces on-premise, in the cloud, or as a hybrid approach.N/A
Pricing
Looker StudioSAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
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 StudioSAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
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 StudioSAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Looker StudioSAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker Studio
7.8
53 Ratings
6% below category average
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
8.0
51 Ratings
2% below category average
Pixel Perfect reports7.237 Ratings8.546 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.852 Ratings7.547 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates7.551 Ratings8.047 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker Studio
7.2
52 Ratings
10% below category average
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
7.6
48 Ratings
5% below category average
Drill-down analysis9.544 Ratings7.047 Ratings
Formatting capabilities8.248 Ratings8.047 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages3.424 Ratings7.033 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration7.751 Ratings8.547 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Looker Studio
8.0
52 Ratings
4% below category average
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
7.7
48 Ratings
7% below category average
Publish to Web8.046 Ratings9.040 Ratings
Publish to PDF8.845 Ratings7.046 Ratings
Report Versioning8.033 Ratings6.542 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling6.636 Ratings8.547 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers8.818 Ratings7.526 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Looker Studio
7.2
51 Ratings
10% below category average
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
6.9
43 Ratings
13% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)9.651 Ratings6.541 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization9.248 Ratings6.539 Ratings
Predictive Analytics5.026 Ratings7.538 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining5.02 Ratings7.02 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Looker Studio
-
Ratings
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
9.2
48 Ratings
8% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)00 Ratings9.048 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model00 Ratings9.546 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)00 Ratings9.045 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings9.52 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings9.029 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Looker Studio
-
Ratings
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
5.9
34 Ratings
28% below category average
Responsive Design for Web Access00 Ratings6.533 Ratings
Mobile Application00 Ratings4.028 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile00 Ratings4.030 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Looker Studio
-
Ratings
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
6.8
24 Ratings
13% below category average
REST API00 Ratings6.521 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings7.019 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings7.018 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings7.022 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings7.021 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings6.520 Ratings
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Looker StudioSAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
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Score 10.0 out of 10
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User Ratings
Looker StudioSAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(54 ratings)
7.5
(73 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.3
(24 ratings)
Usability
8.5
(5 ratings)
7.5
(16 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(5 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(10 ratings)
Support Rating
6.7
(10 ratings)
8.6
(16 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(4 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(8 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Looker StudioSAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
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.
Read full review
SAP
As mentioned earlier reporting was a big headache for us and the tools we used didn't support large data sets and visualization Performing analytics with such data sets was cumbersome and later post using this SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence we were able to correlate different data sets and prepare the dashboard pretty easier which were helpful and easier to understand.
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
SAP
  • This software is easy to initially learn, and very powerful in producing reusable reports.
  • It is much faster than my company's internal manual queries. The ability to build off of a saved query and share queries to other users is a great positive.
  • My favorite part is that you can run queries in the background and it does not interfere with your current work or slow your computer down.
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
SAP
  • The installation can be very complex and time-consuming, it requires a lot of planning and foresight as to what role the software will play in the organization.
  • The software has a relatively large learning curve that takes dedicated users months to get comfortable with, the UI is a bit intimidating for new users.
  • SAP could organize their help better, it can be difficult to find dependable solutions to issues via their website and support channels.
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
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SAP
The institution has decided to move in a different direction, and will be using MSBI for reporting. I have been very happy with the Business Objects suite of tools, and will continue to use them heavily until we make the transition.
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
SAP
From a server and client side perspective. the Business Intelligence Platform provides a foundation for all aspects of content development, distribution, analysis, collaboration and self service. Ease of use from targeted content delivery through controlled accessibility. Content exporting in the format of the users choice. Scheduling for internal or external delivery. Public and private folders for secure content access when requied. Web based for viewing on the users device of choice without the need to download additional applications.
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Reliability and Availability
Google
No answers on this topic
SAP
When we implemented 3.1, we had a tough time managing the system: It took almost a year to stabilize.

With 4.0, we want to roll out to more users, and are holding back because of fears about the performance issue
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Performance
Google
No answers on this topic
SAP
Overall, the tool (Web Intelligence 4.2) is fast and solid. One issue is a dependability on JAVA for a full feature report creation/edit capabilities (as opposed to limited HTML option). Second, planned end of JAVA support by major browsers (Chrome is already not supporting JAVA applet).
Read full review
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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SAP
SAP has released various versions of SAP BO BI. starting from 3.1 and going to 4.0,4.1,4.2 and latest being 4.3. SAP provides support to these new versions. As new versions keep on coming, support for the very old software goes out of scope from SAP. it is when the different organization plans to get their BO content migrated from a lower version to a newer version. The newer version had definitely added functionality and features which ease the work of users.
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In-Person Training
Google
No answers on this topic
SAP
SAP authorized training is best, Please go ahead with it. Even lot of online training options/videos available for self learning
Read full review
Online Training
Google
No answers on this topic
SAP
I haven't used it or got feedback from the end user.

Content looks to be pretty detailed. Focused on SQL but not BW.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Google
No answers on this topic
SAP
Hire specialists and experienced staff. Mix some beginners so that everyone is not a leader but a learner too. Plan well; architect well; break down implementation in small steps and move towards larger steps. Create a centralized and authorized SAP Business Objects implementation team.
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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.
Read full review
SAP
We selected SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) based on price. It can stack up against others in terms of price and honestly, that's about it. Salesforce Commerce does a hell of a better job at handling it. However, in the space of Business Intelligence, SAP can do more, and that's why at the end we went with it
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Scalability
Google
No answers on this topic
SAP
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform supports SOA Service Oriented Architecture. You can start/restart/enable/disable all the servers. You can seamless do load balancing and clustering. It supports all leading application and web server. Supports LDAP SSO integration. People who can work on excel with training they can work on SAP Business Objects Web Intelligence, dashboard, Lumira, Information design tool product suite. Tool is very user friendly and easy to learn and implement
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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
SAP
  • By generating and distributing reports in a timely manner, we were able to save millions of dollars for the company which otherwise would not have been visible.
  • Almost realtime dashboard, saved the company a huge amount by showing the outages and kept the company from buying a tool to do just that.
  • It showed the customers who were not paying the bills and were missing in the system due to some loophole. This was visible by doing reporting on the theft usage of electricity.
Read full review
ScreenShots