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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Looker

    Score8.1 out of 10
    N/ALooker is a BI application with an analytics-oriented application server that sits on top of relational data stores. It includes an end-user interface for exploring data, a reusable development paradigm for data discovery, and an API for supporting data in other systems.N/A

    Pentaho

    Score6 out of 10
    N/APentaho is a suite of open source business intelligence and analytics products, now offered and supported by Hitachi Data Systems since the June 2015 acquisition.N/A
    Pricing
    LookerPentaho
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    LookerPentaho
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
    Additional DetailsMust contact sales team for pricing.—
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    LookerPentaho
    Considered Both Products
    Google
    Chose Looker
    Looker was easier to use, better integration with non-standard datastores, such as Prestodb, and Snowflake, and BigTable. Ease of manageability. Creation of reports faster and easier compared to QlikView. Tableau has better heat maps, however, Looker has better drill down in …
    Incentivized
    Chose Looker
    Looker was, hands down, better than any other products we looked at. It was far easier to get started and keep moving because of Looker's internal programming language and data definition language, LookML. We were up and going in just a few days and were creating advanced …
    Incentivized
    Chose Looker
    I think Looker is easier to use than Business Objects, Domo, Pentaho and Tableau. Tableau offers better visualizations than Looker but the overall package in Looker is better.
    Incentivized
    Hitachi Vantara
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    98%
    Would buy again
    85 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    5 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    99%
    Delivers good value for the price
    75 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    5 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    87 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    5 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    98%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    55 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    97%
    Implementation went as expected
    69 Answers
    80%
    Implementation went as expected
    4 Answers
    Features
    LookerPentaho
    BI Standard Reporting
    Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Looker and Pentaho
    Feature
    Looker
    7.4
    134 Ratings
    10% below category average
    Pentaho
    9.0
    20 Ratings
    10% above category average
    Pixel Perfect reports6.5110 Ratings8.618 Ratings
    Customizable dashboards8.2133 Ratings9.918 Ratings
    Report Formatting Templates7.5115 Ratings8.718 Ratings
    Ad-hoc Reporting
    Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Looker and Pentaho
    Feature
    Looker
    6.8
    132 Ratings
    16% below category average
    Pentaho
    8.7
    19 Ratings
    8% above category average
    Drill-down analysis6.3128 Ratings7.618 Ratings
    Formatting capabilities6.6130 Ratings8.319 Ratings
    Integration with R or other statistical packages5.655 Ratings9.312 Ratings
    Report sharing and collaboration8.8131 Ratings9.717 Ratings
    Report Output and Scheduling
    Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Looker and Pentaho
    Feature
    Looker
    7.9
    128 Ratings
    4% below category average
    Pentaho
    9.7
    20 Ratings
    17% above category average
    Publish to Web7.7105 Ratings9.618 Ratings
    Publish to PDF7.8113 Ratings9.819 Ratings
    Report Versioning7.984 Ratings9.713 Ratings
    Report Delivery Scheduling8.2110 Ratings9.917 Ratings
    Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings9.310 Ratings
    Data Discovery and Visualization
    Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Looker and Pentaho
    Feature
    Looker
    6.6
    128 Ratings
    19% below category average
    Pentaho
    8.1
    17 Ratings
    1% above category average
    Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)7.7124 Ratings7.916 Ratings
    Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization7.5110 Ratings8.216 Ratings
    Predictive Analytics4.66 Ratings8.314 Ratings
    Access Control and Security
    Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Looker and Pentaho
    Feature
    Looker
    7.3
    128 Ratings
    15% below category average
    Pentaho
    9.1
    20 Ratings
    7% above category average
    Multi-User Support (named login)7.5120 Ratings9.320 Ratings
    Role-Based Security Model7.2105 Ratings9.619 Ratings
    Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)7.2122 Ratings9.918 Ratings
    Report-Level Access Control7.360 Ratings00 Ratings
    Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings7.610 Ratings
    Mobile Capabilities
    Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Looker and Pentaho
    Feature
    Looker
    5.2
    95 Ratings
    39% below category average
    Pentaho
    8.3
    11 Ratings
    7% above category average
    Responsive Design for Web Access4.991 Ratings9.710 Ratings
    Mobile Application5.01 Ratings6.97 Ratings
    Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile5.885 Ratings8.711 Ratings
    Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
    Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Looker and Pentaho
    Feature
    Looker
    -
    Ratings
    Pentaho
    8.6
    10 Ratings
    10% above category average
    REST API00 Ratings8.310 Ratings
    Javascript API00 Ratings9.09 Ratings
    iFrames00 Ratings7.39 Ratings
    Java API00 Ratings8.79 Ratings
    Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings8.910 Ratings
    Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings9.610 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    LookerPentaho
    Small Businesses
    Cyfe
    Score4 out of 10
    Cyfe
    Score4 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
    Score8.1 out of 10
    Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
    Score8.1 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Jaspersoft Community Edition
    Score7 out of 10
    Jaspersoft Community Edition
    Score7 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    LookerPentaho
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (134 ratings)
    9.1
    (31 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.2
    (8 ratings)
    8.8
    (11 ratings)
    Usability
    8.8
    (12 ratings)
    9.3
    (6 ratings)
    Availability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    6.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.8
    (14 ratings)
    9.3
    (7 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.5
    (2 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    Configurability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Data Sharing and Collaboration
    8.5
    (51 ratings)
    8.4
    (16 ratings)
    Data Sources
    7.3
    (51 ratings)
    8.6
    (16 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Professional Services
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    LookerPentaho
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Google
    When data drives potential for new orders, Looker earns its place in our tech stack. If, on the other hand, we are hoping for pipeline generation, Looker is useful if you are willing to repeatedly go check customer utilizations .... it is not appropriate if you are hoping to automate data analysis for this purpose.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Hitachi Vantara
    Pentaho is very well suited to perform data extraction & data mining from various cloud storage & transform that data using various available data models. However, the software struggles when it comes to visualizing the extracted data in an appealing manner & can be difficult for end-users to get an understanding of data tables created using those models.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Google
    • Show visited pages - sessions, pageviews - which programs are viewed the most.
    • Displays session source/medium views to see where users are coming from.
    • It shows the video titles, URLs, and event counts so we can monitor the performance of our videos.
    • It gives a graphic face to the numbers, such as using bar charts, pie graphs, and other charts to show user trends or which channels are driving engagement.
    • Our clients like to see the top pages visited for a month.
    • I like the drop-and-drag approach, and building charts is a little easier than it was before.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Hitachi Vantara
    • Integrate and synchronize with big data easily
    • Import data from any sources and different databases
    • Managing data in on-premise, hybrid and cloud environments.
    • Compatibility and flexibility of the platform with any type of scenario and any business or industry
    • Various tools in the software suite to transformation of data
    • Simple interface appearance and creative UI graphics
    Read full review
    Cons
    Google
    • Documentation is scarce, and very difficult to find when you need it.
    • Pricing is unclear, particularly as you look to scale your reports across the business.
    • Data from other sources is not represented in the system as well as first party Google services.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Hitachi Vantara
    • I think the relative obscurity of the tool is a downside, not as many developers, consultants or peers you can tap into.
    • Lack of a solid user community held us back, looking at Power BI and Qlik, they have huge user communities that help each other out. Would have liked that here.
    • Smaller company means smaller sales force, and the lack of a local presence made it hard to only interact online with the account rep. Other companies have someone local who often stops by with pre-sales developers to just pitch in free of charge when they have time.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Google
    I give it this rating because it deems as effective, I am able to complete majority of my tasks using this app. It is very helpful when analyzing the data provided and shown in the app and it's just overall a great app for Operational use, despite the small hiccups it has (live data).
    Incentivized
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    Hitachi Vantara
    I will use Pentaho until I find a better tool with a better, easier to use report designer client. For now, Pentaho has been the most powerful reporting tool for our clients because of its ability to connect to Odoo, integrate in Odoo (reports are accessible in Odoo) and the flexibility in report design and parameter integration
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    Google
    Looker is relatively easy to use, even as it is set up. The customers for the front-end only have issues with the initial setup for looker ml creations. Other "looks" are relatively easy to set up, depending on the ETL and the data which is coming into Looker on a regular basis.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Hitachi Vantara
    The Pentaho tools are designed so you can start playing around on your own. Of course, you will need guidance at some point, but the training teams are good at guiding new users, and the online documentation is usually pretty up-to-date.
    Some of the tools, such as the Pentaho Data Integration tool and the Pentaho Server, are pretty self-explanatory. The other tools maybe are not so quickly and obvious to use, but again, with some documentation and some customer support, you can find your way around them.
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    Google
    No objections
    Incentivized
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    Hitachi Vantara
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Google
    Somehow resources heavy, both on server and client. I recommned at least 50Mbs data rate and high performance desktop comouter to be abke to run comolex tasks and configure larger amount of data. On the other hand, the client does not need to worry when viewing, the performance is usually ok
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Hitachi Vantara
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Google
    Never had to work with support for issues. Any questions we had, they would respond promptly and clearly. The one-time setup was easy, by reading documentation. If the feature is not supported, they will add a feature request. In this case, LDAP support was requested over OKTA. They are looking into it.
    Incentivized
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    Hitachi Vantara
    They were responsive to our questions when we raised issues. They gave us workarounds when required. They were quite knowledgeable when it came to issue analysis and providing fixes. They were forthright in informing us if a bug was not due for release soon.
    Incentivized
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    Online Training
    Google
    No answers on this topic
    Hitachi Vantara
    Course Taken: DI1000 Pentaho Data Integration Fundamentals Setup A week before your class started, the instructor will start sending out class material and lab setup instructions. This is helpful so that you understand how the environment is laid out and can start reviewing the content. Ultimately it saved about a 1/2 day trying to setup with 10 other people online which was great! The Course The 3-day course was laid out like many other technical classes with 15-30 minutes instruction and 15-60 minutes of lab exercises. The instructor was very knowledgeable with the functionality from version to version and answered questions as we went along. I was amazed at some of the functionality that was available that I was not using at the time and quickly implemented changes to many existing transformations and jobs. The novice users seemed to catch on quickly and more experienced users explained how some of the functionality was used in their home environments. Towards the end there was enough time so that we were able to ask very directed questions about our own environments. Overall, I really found the class to be informative and deliver enough information to be dangerous. My skills improved and I was able to design better and efficient transformations for the HIE. Course Description: https://training.pentaho.com/instructor-led-training/pentaho-data-integration-fundamentals-di1000
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    Implementation Rating
    Google
    Very satisfied, easy to implement
    Incentivized
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    Hitachi Vantara
    Get the right people in before starting implementation. Start small and build as you go approach is time consuming and involves lot of rework. Evangalize within the organization the capabilities and limitations equally so that correct delivery expectations are set. Set expectations with the Customer that the tool cannot replace proprietary software in terms of stability/usability and that timelines could change given the new ness of the product.
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Google
    Looker Studio, you can easily report on data from various sources without programming. Looker Studio is available at no charge for creators and report viewers. Enterprise customers who upgrade to Looker Studio Pro will receive support and expanded administrative features, including team content management. So it's good.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Hitachi Vantara
    Since the Pentaho platform offers a range of broad functionality across data preparation and advanced analytics, it also can be easily integrated to support many data sources and machine-learning frameworks. Based on that fact, we selected Pentaho to be used in our internal department. It also supports many of our BI use cases as required by company management or the business user. Last but not least, the Pentaho license is cheaper than their competitor.
    Incentivized
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    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    Google
    Perfect price to performance
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Hitachi Vantara
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Google
    • Looker has a poignant impact on our business's ROI objectives. As an advertising exchange we have specific goals for daily requests and fill, and having premade Looks to monitor this is an integral piece of our operational capability
    • To facilitate an efficient monthly billing cycle in our organization, Looker is essential to track estimated revenue and impression delivery by publisher. Without the Looks we have set up, we would spend considerably more time and effort segmenting revenue by vertical.
    • Looker's unique value proposition is making analytical tools more digestible to people without conventional analytical experience. Other competing tools like Tableau require considerably more training and context to successfully use, and the ability to easily plot different visualizations is one of its greatest selling points.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Hitachi Vantara
    • Pentaho has improved our overall business process.
    • Pentaho has helped the Managers and Directors to analyze the numbers going up and down from time to time.
    • We have a started a big project using Pentaho that is going to include all the business processes in the organization.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Looker Screenshots

    Screenshot of a Looker dashboard with a geo chart.