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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Looker Studio

    Score8.2 out of 10
    N/ALooker 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

    Tableau Server

    Score7.5 out of 10
    N/ATableau Server allows Tableau Desktop users to publish dashboards to a central server to be shared across their organizations. The product is designed to facilitate collaboration across the organization. It can be deployed on a server in the data center, or it can be deployed on a public cloud.

    $12

    Per User Per Month

    Pricing
    Looker StudioTableau Server
    Editions & Modules
    Looker Studio Pro
    $9
    per month per user per project
    Looker Studio
    No charge
    Viewer
    $12.00
    Per User Per Month
    Explorer
    $35.00
    Per User Per Month
    Creator
    $70.00
    Per User Per Month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Looker StudioTableau Server
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Looker StudioTableau Server
    Considered Both Products
    Google
    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 …
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    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 …
    Incentivized
    Tableau
    Chose Tableau Server
    Looker and Tableau are quite similar products. I think Tableau's ability to view data visually is more comprehensive. The different breakdowns in UTM level versus first touch and last touch are shown in a visual format, making it much easier to view and interpret the results. …
    Incentivized
    Chose Tableau Server
    We selected Tableau Server over other options because of the published feature set and capabilities. It appeared to be far more advanced than its competition. However, it failed to meet expectations. Moving forward we are going to give a more serious look at Google Data Studio …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    95%
    Would buy again
    40 Answers
    75%
    Would buy again
    6 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    38 Answers
    75%
    Delivers good value for the price
    6 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    40 Answers
    88%
    Happy with the feature set
    7 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    97%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    31 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    89%
    Implementation went as expected
    33 Answers
    71%
    Implementation went as expected
    5 Answers
    Features
    Looker StudioTableau Server
    BI Standard Reporting
    Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Looker Studio and Tableau Server
    Feature
    Looker Studio
    7.0
    62 Ratings
    14% below category average
    Tableau Server
    8.4
    95 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Pixel Perfect reports6.643 Ratings9.129 Ratings
    Customizable dashboards7.361 Ratings7.094 Ratings
    Report Formatting Templates7.259 Ratings9.081 Ratings
    Ad-hoc Reporting
    Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Looker Studio and Tableau Server
    Feature
    Looker Studio
    7.7
    61 Ratings
    2% below category average
    Tableau Server
    7.8
    95 Ratings
    3% below category average
    Drill-down analysis6.851 Ratings8.095 Ratings
    Formatting capabilities7.057 Ratings8.093 Ratings
    Integration with R or other statistical packages7.129 Ratings8.059 Ratings
    Report sharing and collaboration9.759 Ratings7.089 Ratings
    Report Output and Scheduling
    Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Looker Studio and Tableau Server
    Feature
    Looker Studio
    8.1
    60 Ratings
    1% below category average
    Tableau Server
    7.2
    91 Ratings
    13% below category average
    Publish to Web8.453 Ratings8.085 Ratings
    Publish to PDF8.753 Ratings7.084 Ratings
    Report Versioning8.139 Ratings8.070 Ratings
    Report Delivery Scheduling7.942 Ratings8.077 Ratings
    Delivery to Remote Servers7.524 Ratings5.19 Ratings
    Data Discovery and Visualization
    Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Looker Studio and Tableau Server
    Feature
    Looker Studio
    6.6
    60 Ratings
    16% below category average
    Tableau Server
    8.3
    90 Ratings
    4% above category average
    Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)7.160 Ratings9.086 Ratings
    Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization7.757 Ratings8.085 Ratings
    Predictive Analytics5.330 Ratings8.064 Ratings
    Pattern Recognition and Data Mining6.36 Ratings8.01 Ratings
    Access Control and Security
    Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Looker Studio and Tableau Server
    Feature
    Looker Studio
    -
    Ratings
    Tableau Server
    10.0
    95 Ratings
    16% above category average
    Multi-User Support (named login)00 Ratings10.093 Ratings
    Role-Based Security Model00 Ratings10.090 Ratings
    Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)00 Ratings10.092 Ratings
    Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
    Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings10.062 Ratings
    Mobile Capabilities
    Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Looker Studio and Tableau Server
    Feature
    Looker Studio
    -
    Ratings
    Tableau Server
    8.1
    79 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Responsive Design for Web Access00 Ratings10.077 Ratings
    Mobile Application00 Ratings7.061 Ratings
    Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile00 Ratings7.068 Ratings
    Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
    Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Looker Studio and Tableau Server
    Feature
    Looker Studio
    -
    Ratings
    Tableau Server
    6.4
    46 Ratings
    19% below category average
    REST API00 Ratings8.040 Ratings
    Javascript API00 Ratings8.037 Ratings
    iFrames00 Ratings6.040 Ratings
    Java API00 Ratings5.57 Ratings
    Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings6.19 Ratings
    Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings4.67 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Looker StudioTableau Server
    Small Businesses
    Chartio (discontinued)
    Score7.5 out of 10
    Cyfe
    Score4 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Jet Reports
    Score9.5 out of 10
    Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
    Score8.1 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Kibana
    Score8.4 out of 10
    Jaspersoft Community Edition
    Score7 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Looker StudioTableau Server
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.3
    (63 ratings)
    8.0
    (111 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (20 ratings)
    Usability
    8.4
    (14 ratings)
    8.0
    (17 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (9 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.1
    (8 ratings)
    Support Rating
    6.7
    (10 ratings)
    3.0
    (18 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (4 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (9 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (13 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Data Sharing and Collaboration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.1
    (79 ratings)
    Data Sources
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.6
    (82 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Looker StudioTableau Server
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Google
    Visualizing cross-channel campaign performance can blend data from a few different sources to compare performance metrics like spend, clicks, and conversions side-by-side in a single view, which helps in quick budget reallocation decisions. When dealing with massive volumes of data (millions of rows) or highly complex queries, Looker Studio dashboards can become slow, laggy, or even crash. Performance issues are a frequent complaint when working with large datasets, making it unsuitable for enterprise-level companies
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Tableau
    Whole funnel and specific channel performance from upper to lower funnel metrics. The ability to view full channel performance for some time, such as weekly, monthly, or quarterly, has truly been monumental in how my team optimizes specific channels and campaigns. Daily performance tracking is a bit overwhelming, with load times and having to refresh specific live views over time. It can be challenging to do so at times, as extensive dashboards take much longer to load.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Google
    • Breath of data - the number of ways to interrogate the data is endless, and the options to view metrics alongside each other make for comprehensive datasets.
    • Data visualisation and customisation - the options for presenting data and separating out across pages allow for clean visuals and segmented information.
    • Easy shareability/usability - a quick and simple tool to introduce colleagues to, and easy to grant access for them to be able to view the data, without having to understand the setup itself.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Tableau
    • It's good at doing what it is designed for: accessing visualizations without having to download and open a workbook in Tableau Desktop. The latter would be a very inefficient method for sharing our metrics, so I am glad that we have Tableau Server to serve this function.
    • Publishing to Tableau Server is quick and easy. Just a few clicks from Tableau Desktop and a few seconds of publishing through an average speed network, and the new visualizations are live!
    • Seeing details on who has viewed the visualization and when. This is something particularly useful to me for trying to drive adoption of some new pages, so I really appreciate the granularity provided in Tableau Server
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Google
    • It needs better handling of complex logic. We often need workarounds to perform complex custom calculations, and it can be really unpleasant at times.
    • Felt it got slow with a larger data set, and in one minor report, we had to set up time filters so that calculations during spikes could be traced more quickly.
    • Compare to competition they need to improve with notification things.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Tableau
    • Tableau Server has had some issue handling some of our larger data sets. Our extract refreshes fail intermittently with no obvious error that we can fix
    • Tableau Server has been hard to work with before they launched their new Rest API, which is also a little tricky to work with
    Incentivized
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Tableau
    It simply is used all the time by more and more people. Migrating to something else would involve lots of work and lots of training. The renewal fee being fair, it simply isn't worth migrating to a different tool for now.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Google
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Tableau
    Tableau Server takes training and experience in order to unlock the application's full potential. This is best handled by a qualified data scientist or data analytics manager. Tableau user interface layout, nomenclature, and command structure take time and training to become proficient with. Integration and connectivity require proper IT developer support.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Google
    No answers on this topic
    Tableau
    Our instance of Tableau Server was hosted on premises (I believe all instances are) so if there were any outages it was normally due to scheduled maintenance on our end. If the Tableau server ever went down, a quick restart solved most issues
    Read full review
    Performance
    Google
    No answers on this topic
    Tableau
    While there are definitely cases where a user can do things that will make a particular worksheet or dashboard run slowly, overall the performance is extremely fast. The user experience of exploratory analysis particularly shines, there's nothing out there with the polish of Tableau.
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Tableau
    We have consistently had highly satisfactory results every time we've reached out for help. Our contractor, used for Tableau server maintenance and dashboard development is very technically skilled. When he hits a roadblock on how to do something with Tableau, the support staff have provided timely and useful guidance. He frequently compares it to Cognos and says that while Cognos has capabilities Tableau doesn't, the bottom line value for us is a no-brainer
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Google
    No answers on this topic
    Tableau
    In our case, they hired a private third party consultant to train our dept. It was extremely boring and felt like it dragged on. Everything I learned was self taught so I was not really paying attention. But I do think that you can easily spend a week on the tool and go over every nook and cranny. We only had the consultant in for a day or two.
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Google
    No answers on this topic
    Tableau
    The Tableau website is full of videos that you can follow at your own pace. As a very small company with a Tableau install, access to these free resources was incredibly useful to allowing me to implement Tableau to its potential in a reasonable and proportionate manner.
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Google
    No answers on this topic
    Tableau
    Implementation was over the phone with the vendor, and did not go particularly well. Again, think this was our fault as our integration and IT oversight was poor, and we made errors. Would they have happened had a vendor been onsite? Not sure, probably not, but we probably wouldn't have paid for that either
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Google
    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. Furthermore, since it is an online program/tool, it requires less CPU/battery/storage on the user's device.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Tableau
    Today, if my shop is largely Microsoft-centric, I would be hard pressed to choose a product other than Power BI. Tableau was the visualization leader for years, but Microsoft has caught up with them in many areas, and surpassed them in some. Its ability to source, transform, and model data is superior to Tableau. Tableau still has the lead in some visualizations, but Power BI's rise is evidenced by its ever-increasing position in the leadership section of the Gartner Magic Quadrant.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Tableau
    • Tableau does take dedicated FTE to create and analyze the data. It's too complex (and powerful) a product not to have someone dedicated to developing with it.
    • There are some significant setup for the server product.
    • Once sever setup is complete, it's largely "fire and forget" until an update is necessary. The server update process is cumbersome.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Tableau Server Screenshots

    Screenshot of Tableau Server interface and administration view 1.Screenshot of Tableau Server interface and administration view 2.Screenshot of Tableau Server permissions view.Screenshot of Tableau Services Manager (TSM) view 1.Screenshot of Tableau Services Manager (TSM) view 2.