Looker Studio vs. Sigma Computing

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
Sigma
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Sigma Computing headquartered in San Francisco provides a suite of data services such as code free data modeling, data search and explorating, and related BI and data visualization services.N/A
Pricing
Looker StudioSigma Computing
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 StudioSigma
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional DetailsContact us for pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Looker StudioSigma Computing
Considered Both Products
Looker Studio
Chose Looker Studio
Looker Studio is great for free, simple Google-centric dashboards, while Power BI offers strong Microsoft integration, AI, and deep data prep (Power Query/DAX) for corporate users. Tableau excels in advanced visual exploration for complex data, though often much pricier. …
Chose Looker Studio
We have evaluated Power BI, Looker Studio, and Tableau for a short period. Looker Studio is easy to deploy and helpful for creating quick reports. However, for better performance, scale, and deeper analysis, we found Power BI.
Chose Looker Studio
A huge amount of backend data that you don't have access to via social media performance tracking platforms themselves. Opens the door to a better understanding of onward journeys from digital channels, and deeper knowledge of user behaviour and audience experience.
Chose Looker Studio
Looker Studio is easy to use and provides sufficient capabilities for setting up basic reporting. It's especially good for a marketing environment. We also use other tools for complex reporting, but when it comes to value for money, Looker Studio is one of the best BI tools on …
Chose Looker Studio
Very good imo, and really cost-effective. With Salesforce, there is too much stubbornness when importing data from Microsoft suite applications, and Power BI is really expensive for a mid-sized organisation. Hence, I feel Looker Studio is actually worth the investment for …
Chose Looker Studio
The main reason why Looker Studio was selected is because it was already integrated into the google ecosystem. But it actually once you start working with it, is really easy to get into. For really complex reports you will have to focus in building a good model in the database …
Chose Looker Studio
I liked Tableau, but it is a bit pricey, also there is no option to share the report online unless you add the team members. If your research is not really big and difficult, using Looker Studio is more practical and easy. I think it is very important to estimate how big and …
Chose Looker Studio
Looker Studio is far easier to implement, stand up, and learn. The interface is simpler and user-friendly for various levels of data visualization/analysis knowledge and experience. The biggest benefit of Looker Studio, however, is its ease of connection to GA data and speed. …
Chose Looker Studio
We selected Looker Studio because we are Google Workspace users, and Looker Studio is natively integrated with it.
Chose Looker Studio
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 …
Chose Looker Studio
Easy availability and accessible with Google suits. Sharing is smooth.
Chose Looker Studio
Google Data Studio integrates data into visually appealing reports and can constantly update based on the linked data source (i.e., Google Analytics), a feature that neither of the platforms listed can do. However, sometimes Google Data Studio can't generate graphs based on my …
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
In comparison to Kibana , its much easier and being free its worth a lot. Apart from that it has flexibility of connecting to more than 300 connectors, which is not there in Kibana. Apart from that no doubt its much better that in terms of visualization of Data, analytics etc.

A…
Chose Looker Studio
Data Studio is the first step in your data visualization journey, as your data gets bigger and your need for information grows you will have to move to something more powerful,
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
We have used Google Charts as well which works just as great as Google Data Studio for our team. We love both of these tools.
Chose Looker Studio
Well this tool is free that's the primary reason of using it more often.
Microsoft Power BI doesn't have google sheet connector that's the second one.
Chose Looker Studio
Google Data Studio is a Google product and many other companies also use Google Suite (as Gmail), so it was easier to share reports to clients using it than Zoho Analytics (which needs a paid account to give access to any other user).
Chose Looker Studio
Google Analytics and Google Data studio work well with each other. They don't necessarily stack against each other, Google Data studio just makes interpreting the data more visual and concise. I recommend both and not one over the other. Both are free tools provided by Google, …
Chose Looker Studio
Google Data Studio is free, easily integrates with the Google Marketing Platform, and is simple to use. It's a better choice for most basic marketing reporting. Tableau is better for more BI and exploratory data analysis.
Chose Looker Studio
Obviously, Google Data Studio is an improvement over Google Charts, which I believe powers the chart modules used in Data Studio. I think of Data Studio as a convenient way to combine multiple Google Charts in one, easy-to-read report.

In many ways it is similar to SmartDraw's …
Chose Looker Studio
We are heavily within the Google ecosystem and therefore didn't really consider alternatives to Google Data Studio since it met our somewhat limited needs at the time of implementation. For outside presentations, we would probably lean towards something that allows us to more …
Chose Looker Studio
We originally selected Google Data Studio since it didn't have a cost but have since switched to using DashThis.
Sigma
Chose Sigma
I am not an expert in any of these, though from my brief exposure to Looker it felt like a steeper learning curve, more appropriate to companies with dedicated and skilled BI engineers, whereas Sigma (and Tableau, and Looker Studio) offer a quicker and more intuitive interface …
Chose Sigma
Ease of use, access for teams, adhoc and iterative data analyses, from non-technical users, to experience data analysis teams.
Chose Sigma
Sigma Computing exclusively uses Snowflake as its data source, which enhances data security by not caching or extracting data locally. Tableau, on the other hand, allows a broader range of internal databases and files like SQL Server, Postgres, etc., and supports extracted …
Chose Sigma
Microsoft Power BI, Qlik Analytics Platform and Microsoft Excel
Chose Sigma
maintianed is very user friendly. Its various ways of embedding helped us in various aspects. The usage of control ids of the filters as parameters helped us in optimizing very longSQL queries. The live Support team every weekday is a very great intiative that helped in quick …
Chose Sigma
I'd rate Sigma to be extremely similar to Sisense except it looks not as nice. I would say that as a tool, Sigma is more user-friendly than Tableau, Power BI, Trevor, and Metabase.

I do feel that Looker is far more powerful and looks great, but I also recognize that Looker does …
Chose Sigma
Sigma computing has better pricing than the competitors. We're always looking for what is good for the price but also gives us all we need to complete our reporting. It also brings about a lot of updates that are nice to see. The embedding helps other BI tools sometimes.
Chose Sigma
We did not have any similar reporting system like Sigma.
Chose Sigma
Sigma has a better view of tables and it is much easier to create new data sets/aggregations. Tableau is better in some visual aspects because there is more customization available, albeit more confusing than Sigma to do. Sigma is very intuitive and did not take long to learn …
Chose Sigma
Sigma Computing had better functionality and is beginner friendly. While Tableau is a more well known product, Sigma Computing has a better user interface that is easier to comprehend for those without a non-technical background. This makes it easier to showcase dashboards to …
Chose Sigma
Sigma is better than Tableau in my opinion because Sigma has the connection to live data, rather than stale csv files.
Chose Sigma
Sigma is the easiest to use from a workbook developer perspective, and from a non-technical end user perspective. Everything from administration, semantic layer setup, to creating dashboards is easier in Sigma than these other tools. Developing content in Sigma is enjoyable, …
Chose Sigma
Sigma has the capabilities of the other BI tools. I think it's pretty user friendly and easy to learn. Many of our stakeholders are used to using Excel so it's nice that it is a smooth onboarding process for them. We haven't looked into much of the visualization capabilities so …
Chose Sigma
I have found that Tableau can be used to create a greater variety of custom and complex visuals, though these visuals are far more difficult to create in a quick turnaround. While Sigma may be more limited in terms of what types of visuals can be create or how customized they …
Chose Sigma
With Looker, to be effective, a substantial amount of coding & modeling needs to happen in LookML. Being another language to learn, users have to context switch again from at a minimum either SQL or Python into LookML. The concept of being able to source control, code review, …
Chose Sigma
Less visually appealing. Feels like fewer pixels. Harder to make graphs and visuals. Really good integration with snowflake and intuitive usage for custom equations and filters.
Chose Sigma
2 biggest reasons for Sigma were easy of use for power users, and cost of having a large amount of viewers of the data.
Chose Sigma
Much more customizable than Looker Studio
Some features are way better than Cluvio. But Cluvio search bar was better.
Chose Sigma
I was not involved in the buying and decision-making process.
Chose Sigma
Not even a comparison, Sigma is a far superior BI and data visualization tool
Chose Sigma
sorta in the middle.
One thing that differs than domo or power bi, is that those softwares bring in the data into the platform, instead of how sigma runs a query against our data warehouse each time a user interacts with the dashboard (there is some small caching, so not always)
Chose Sigma
Sigma is by far the best. It is easiest to learn and easiest to use on a day to day basis. I never have to wait for dashboards to load and it's very easy to understand the variables that are going into my visualizations. Best of all I can manipulate the data within Sigma …
Chose Sigma
flexibility, works really well with snowflake, export capability, level of support, the fact that Sigma Computing is a start up and improving so quickly. Web based software
Features
Looker StudioSigma Computing
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker Studio
7.1
Ratings
13% below category average
Sigma Computing
7.5
Ratings
9% below category average
Pixel Perfect reports6.60 Ratings5.60 Ratings
Customizable dashboards7.40 Ratings9.30 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates7.20 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker Studio
7.7
Ratings
2% below category average
Sigma Computing
7.6
Ratings
5% below category average
Drill-down analysis6.90 Ratings8.10 Ratings
Formatting capabilities7.10 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages7.10 Ratings7.30 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration9.70 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Looker Studio
8.1
Ratings
1% below category average
Sigma Computing
7.6
Ratings
7% below category average
Publish to Web8.40 Ratings7.40 Ratings
Publish to PDF8.70 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Report Versioning8.10 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling7.90 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers7.60 Ratings7.90 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Looker Studio
6.6
Ratings
16% below category average
Sigma Computing
6.8
Ratings
16% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)7.20 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization7.70 Ratings5.60 Ratings
Predictive Analytics5.20 Ratings6.20 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining6.20 Ratings00 Ratings
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Looker StudioSigma Computing
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Score 9.8 out of 10
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Score 8.6 out of 10
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Score 9.8 out of 10
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Score 10.0 out of 10
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User Ratings
Looker StudioSigma Computing
Likelihood to Recommend
8.4
(0 ratings)
8.3
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.4
(0 ratings)
7.6
(0 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
6.7
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Looker StudioSigma Computing
Likelihood to Recommend
Fantastic for detailed data, especially for tracking user journeys from social media onto the website, for example. Great for use across multiple people in teams, even where only one or two people have a full understanding of the tool, as it is user-friendly once set up. Not hugely appropriate for presenting in and of itself, best as a source of raw data versus a tool to convey findings.
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Scenarios where Sigma Computing is well suited: - Data Reporting and Visualisation : It is suitable for dashboards that integrate data from multiple back-office systems - Search and Filtering Capabilities: It provides a robust platform for searching through datasets and visualisations. Scenarios where Sigma Computing is less appropriate: Handling of null values and dynamic table adjustments
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Pros
  • 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
  • Allows end users to easily dive into the data without having direct access to the table in our database management software.
  • Can easily turnaround dashboards that are detailed and visually pleasing.
  • Sigma is intuitive and as new features are rolled out it is easy to adopt and incorporate them into new and existing dashboards.
Read full review
Cons
  • There are several limitations to data manipulation - especially with different scopes.
  • Limited functionality on pivoting data, etc - ie, cannot create segments.
  • Data has to be refreshed if new dataLayer elements are added often manually.
  • A limited number of charts, graphics, etc.
  • Limited design abilities (cannot bring in custom fonts, etc).
Read full review
  • Viewer level license is quite limited. These users can't download data or even add filters on datasets. Something to keep in mind.
  • Directly querying the underlying data warehouse will lead to increased usage. Not a big deal on something like Redshift, but your Snowflake consumption will increase, potentially by a lot.
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Likelihood to Renew
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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Because we are very satisfied with the product and would most likely renew because of the services it provides. It is a tool that you bring into your organization and let it change the way you analyze your data, present your data and share you date within the Respective teams
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Usability
Looker Studio is easy to use, and it offers a sufficient variety of predefined visualizations to choose from. It's easy for us, and anyone can set up basic reporting without extensive data visualization skills. The interface layout is easy to understand, and it doesn't take long to get used to.
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It has a clean and modern interface. However, it is not completely intuitive. I think it would be better and easier to navigate with more Windows style drop down menus and/or tabls. There is a significant learning curve, but that may be due in part to the technical nature of this type of software tool.
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Reliability and Availability
No answers on this topic
Yes, as long as you don’t conduct user error sigma is always up and running and waiting for you to complete your dashboards
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Performance
No answers on this topic
It depends, it loads quickly for smaller dashboards but when loading larger amounts of data it takes more time to do so
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Support Rating
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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They are very friendly and informative. They are quick in resolving our queries and help us understand very minute things as well. They are quick in creating feature tickets based on our custom requirements, and they would also create a bug ticket if there is any discrepancy and get that checked on time.
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Implementation Rating
No answers on this topic
Was not involved in implementation
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Alternatives Considered
Looker Studio is great for free, simple Google-centric dashboards, while Power BI offers strong Microsoft integration, AI, and deep data prep (Power Query/DAX) for corporate users. Tableau excels in advanced visual exploration for complex data, though often much pricier. Fullstory is a different beast, focusing on user experience (UX) session replay for product teams, not traditional BI
Read full review
I am not an expert in any of these, though from my brief exposure to Looker it felt like a steeper learning curve, more appropriate to companies with dedicated and skilled BI engineers, whereas Sigma (and Tableau, and Looker Studio) offer a quicker and more intuitive interface for smaller companies like ours without dedicated BI resources on staff.
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Scalability
No answers on this topic
It is a cloud service offering that is able to expand based on your usage
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Return on Investment
  • It has reduced the manual reporting effort we were putting into compiling Excel spreadsheets. It saved us hours of our daily work.
  • Given its cost-effectiveness, time savings, and operational viability, we can say it has a positive ROI with minimal overhead.
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  • Monitoring health of cloud platform has allowed the company to anticipate issues before they affect customers – Sigma prompted us building a canary monitoring process that provides customer container health.
  • Customer success has used an activity report to discover customers running runaway processes that they were unaware of, creating an alert to contact the customer and prevent an embarrassing situation.
  • Customer success uses the activity report to prompt conversations regarding increases or declines in behavior that led to increasing contract limits or addressing churn concerns.
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ScreenShots