Looker vs. Amazon Redshift

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Looker
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Looker 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
Amazon Redshift
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Amazon Redshift is a hosted data warehouse solution, from Amazon Web Services.
$0.24
per GB per month
Pricing
LookerAmazon Redshift
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Redshift Managed Storage
$0.24
per GB per month
Current Generation
$0.25 - $13.04
per hour
Previous Generation
$0.25 - $4.08
per hour
Redshift Spectrum
$5.00
per terabyte of data scanned
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
LookerAmazon Redshift
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
LookerAmazon Redshift
Considered Both Products
Looker
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 …
Chose Looker
  • Birst: very opaque for teams accustomed to DevOps (i.e., programmable infrastructure)
  • Tableau: no cloud strategy. Does not scale horizontally
  • GoodData: flexible, but cumbersome. Requires Java
Amazon Redshift
Chose Amazon Redshift
Redshift leapfrogged Hive back when Hive was trying to figure out how to implement indexes, providing a more stable, standardized (postgres), easy to use (any postgres client), easier to administer, and scalable solution for querying server logs and raw usage data.

Now, Snowflak…
Chose Amazon Redshift
It's fast processing compared to other products and it's best for structured data analytics & data warehousing purpose.
The unique columnar data storage architecture compared to other products makes it the great choice for analytics projects.
Chose Amazon Redshift
Amazon redshift is useful for our data sets due to its low cost and ease of use for the analysts, however, we were considering using BigQuery instead if we had chosen to pursue the Google Analytics 360 product.
Features
LookerAmazon Redshift
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
7.6
133 Ratings
7% below category average
Amazon Redshift
-
Ratings
Pixel Perfect reports6.7109 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.4132 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates7.6114 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
7.1
131 Ratings
12% below category average
Amazon Redshift
-
Ratings
Drill-down analysis6.7127 Ratings00 Ratings
Formatting capabilities6.8129 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages6.155 Ratings00 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration8.8130 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.1
127 Ratings
2% below category average
Amazon Redshift
-
Ratings
Publish to Web7.8105 Ratings00 Ratings
Publish to PDF8.1112 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Versioning7.983 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling8.5109 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Looker
6.6
127 Ratings
19% below category average
Amazon Redshift
-
Ratings
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)7.7123 Ratings00 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization7.5109 Ratings00 Ratings
Predictive Analytics4.66 Ratings00 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Looker
7.5
127 Ratings
12% below category average
Amazon Redshift
-
Ratings
Multi-User Support (named login)7.8119 Ratings00 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model7.3104 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)7.3121 Ratings00 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control7.459 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Looker
5.4
94 Ratings
36% below category average
Amazon Redshift
-
Ratings
Responsive Design for Web Access5.590 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Application5.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile6.084 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
LookerAmazon Redshift
Small Businesses
Yellowfin
Yellowfin
Score 8.7 out of 10
Google BigQuery
Google BigQuery
Score 8.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Snowflake
Snowflake
Score 8.7 out of 10
Enterprises
Kyvos Semantic Layer
Kyvos Semantic Layer
Score 9.5 out of 10
Snowflake
Snowflake
Score 8.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
LookerAmazon Redshift
Likelihood to Recommend
8.3
(132 ratings)
9.0
(38 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.3
(8 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(12 ratings)
9.0
(10 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
6.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(14 ratings)
9.0
(7 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
10.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 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
LookerAmazon Redshift
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.
Read full review
Amazon AWS
If the number of connections is expected to be low, but the amounts of data are large or projected to grow it is a good solutions especially if there is previous exposure to PostgreSQL. Speaking of Postgres, Redshift is based on several versions old releases of PostgreSQL so the developers would not be able to take advantage of some of the newer SQL language features. The queries need some fine-tuning still, indexing is not provided, but playing with sorting keys becomes necessary. Lastly, there is no notion of the Primary Key in Redshift so the business must be prepared to explain why duplication occurred (must be vigilant for)
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.
Read full review
Amazon AWS
  • [Amazon] Redshift has Distribution Keys. If you correctly define them on your tables, it improves Query performance. For instance, we can define Mapping/Meta-data tables with Distribution-All Key, so that it gets replicated across all the nodes, for fast joins and fast query results.
  • [Amazon] Redshift has Sort Keys. If you correctly define them on your tables along with above Distribution Keys, it further improves your Query performance. It also has Composite Sort Keys and Interleaved Sort Keys, to support various use cases
  • [Amazon] Redshift is forked out of PostgreSQL DB, and then AWS added "MPP" (Massively Parallel Processing) and "Column Oriented" concepts to it, to make it a powerful data store.
  • [Amazon] Redshift has "Analyze" operation that could be performed on tables, which will update the stats of the table in leader node. This is sort of a ledger about which data is stored in which node and which partition with in a node. Up to date stats improves Query performance.
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.
Read full review
Amazon AWS
  • We've experienced some problems with hanging queries on Redshift Spectrum/external tables. We've had to roll back to and old version of Redshift while we wait for AWS to provide a patch.
  • Redshift's dialect is most similar to that of PostgreSQL 8. It lacks many modern features and data types.
  • Constraints are not enforced. We must rely on other means to verify the integrity of transformed tables.
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).
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Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
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.
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Amazon AWS
Just very happy with the product, it fits our needs perfectly. Amazon pioneered the cloud and we have had a positive experience using RedShift. Really cool to be able to see your data housed and to be able to query and perform administrative tasks with ease.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Google
No objections
Read full review
Amazon AWS
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
Read full review
Amazon AWS
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.
Read full review
Amazon AWS
The support was great and helped us in a timely fashion. We did use a lot of online forums as well, but the official documentation was an ongoing one, and it did take more time for us to look through it. We would have probably chosen a competitor product had it not been for the great support
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Implementation Rating
Google
Very satisfied, easy to implement
Read full review
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
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.
Read full review
Amazon AWS
Than Vertica: Redshift is cheaper and AWS integrated (which was a plus because the whole company was on AWS).
Than BigQuery: Redshift has a standard SQL interface, though recently I heard good things about BigQuery and would try it out again.
Than Hive: Hive is great if you are in the PB+ range, but latencies tend to be much slower than Redshift and it is not suited for ad-hoc applications.
Read full review
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Google
Perfect price to performance
Read full review
Amazon AWS
Redshift is relatively cheaper tool but since the pricing is dynamic, there is always a risk of exceeding the cost. Since most of our team is using it as self serve and there is no continuous tracking by a dedicated team, it really needs time & effort on analyst's side to know how much it is going to cost.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Amazon AWS
  • Our company is moving to the AWS infrastructure, and in this context moving the warehouse environments to Redshift sounds logical regardless of the cost.
  • Development organizations have to operate in the Dev/Ops mode where they build and support their apps at the same time.
  • Hard to estimate the overall ROI of moving to Redshift from my position. However, running Redshift seems to be inexpensive compared to all the licensing and hardware costs we had on our RDBMS platform before Redshift.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Looker Screenshots

Screenshot of a Looker dashboard with a geo chart.