Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Looker
Score 8.3 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
Tableau Cloud
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Tableau Cloud (formerly Tableau Online) is a self-service analytics platform that is fully hosted in the cloud. Tableau Cloud enables users to publish dashboards and invite colleagues to explore hidden opportunities with interactive visualizations and accurate data, from any browser or mobile device.
$15
per month per user
Pricing
LookerTableau Cloud
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Tableau Viewer
$15
per month billed annually per user
Enterprise Viewer
$35
per month billed annually per user
Tableau Explorer
$42
per month billed annually per user
Enterprise Explorer
$70
per month billed annually per user
Tableau Creator
$75
per month billed annually per user
Enterprise Creator
$115
per month billed annually per user
Tableau+
Contact Sales
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
LookerTableau Cloud
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
LookerTableau Cloud
Considered Both Products
Looker
Chose Looker
The learning curve for Tableau Cloud was too steep for our team. After watching a couple of YouTube videos, anyone can begin connecting data sources and creating reports with Looker. Looker is also free with Google Workspace, making the decision between Looker and Tableau a …
Chose Looker
Looker was the most customizable option for our business and cost wise made the most sense. They do have a free tier option that some of the other weren't offering to us at the time. Looker has a great- mobile app solution while Tableau is a desktop-based platform. Tableau also …
Chose Looker
Tableau provides additional visual functionality and is great for more in-depth visuals or further data exploration, but it is costly and an extremely robust solution for simple data reporting. Looker can't be beat when it comes to integrating with other G-Suite tools. All in …
Chose Looker
If you company is using Google suite products, Looker is a no-brainer. Tableau is probably the most flexibly but as a result it has the least governance capabilities. Power BI is kind of old-school in terms of how it feels to use it. I think in general, Looker brings a lot of …
Chose Looker
Looker Studio is not as robust as Tableau or Microsoft BI. So it does not provide quite as much insight or depth and it has more limitations overall then the other major reporting products. However, it is also free and connects perfectly with other Google products. Plus, all of …
Chose Looker
I don't remember much about Tableau, but it was chaotic and poorly set up for our company.
Chose Looker
Looker is a great fit for our company because we have collaborative analytics workflows and complicated data ecosystems and because of its strengths in data modeling, integration, and collaboration.
Brand name and peer recommendations also helps us to select Looker against …
Chose Looker
I choose Looker when I need quick charts. It is easier to start and configure, browser-based, and easy to connect with Google Sheets. This gives it a good competitive advantage when comparing pricing—other similar tools have expensive licenses. In a corporate Google …
Chose Looker
We use both Looker and Tableau. It depends on the specific team. However, there is a clear correlation that we use Tableau more often when there are more data sources, including financial data.
Chose Looker
Looker is considerably easier to learn than any of the other tools listed above. For example, Tableau does offer a robust selection of visualizations, however setting them up and plotting the data correctly is considerably harder than in Looker. Another major advantage of …
Chose Looker
Tableau is also a great BI tool, but it felt a lot less flexible to me in terms of customization of data. As a visual platform, Tabluea is incredible; it can produce unbelievably rich visualizations and dashboards. It's also easier to get set up on Tableau too, but ultimately …
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 …
Chose Looker
Looker is cheaper, by far. Easier to manage. In the end, Looker was a better choice for us, even with its maintenance warts and the headaches with the APIs. Tableau licensing is difficult to manage, at the very least, whereas Looker is not. User management is much easier to …
Chose Looker
Looker is a lot easier to connect with our data pipelines and for users to create their own scalable Explores. Before, analysts would have to create separate Tableau dashboards for each ask, but now with Lookers Explores, some teams are able to self serve and create their own …
Chose Looker
Looker empowers users to create their own views/dashboards from its web application. The last time I used Tableau (in 2015), only certain license holders could create content from the desktop application. Everyone else was a view only user. On that theme, we found Looker to be …
Chose Looker
Looker stacks up very well against the other tools we have evaluated and used. All the tools have their own pros and cons. Looker had a better edge in terms of visualizations when we chose to use it. After several updates, other tools began to have newer features. Looker still …
Tableau Cloud
Chose Tableau Cloud
I like Looker's interface a little more and it updates quicker.
Chose Tableau Cloud
Looker ended up as the winning product due to its easy to use and flexibility. It's easy for nontechnical stakeholders to learn how to create their Explores. But Tableau gives us more flexibility in creating highly customized visualizations so analysts still rely on it.
Chose Tableau Cloud
It seems more robust then the other platforms. There is a lot you can do from merging many different data sets together by joining them at like points, to creating visualizations of the data, or by showcasing some important data to any number of people within your organization. …
Chose Tableau Cloud
I would say that Tableau Online has the most sophisticated capabilities, but not the most straightforward UI or path to learn and operate within it quickly. It felt more technical than the other products I used and did not look as good, but I also found that it could answer a …
Chose Tableau Cloud
Tableau Online is much faster to get data sets integrated and being used, accordingly. From almost day one, we were able to integrate our data warehouse and pull data directly into Tableau Online. This made us aware of some of the data details that we had been missing and were …
Chose Tableau Cloud
Tableau does a great job compared to all of these mentioned tools. Other tools also have a great shape-up of dashboards but obviously all have their advantages and disadvantages. The reason Tableau has an edge over all the other tools is because of its excellent visual design …
Features
LookerTableau Cloud
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
7.5
132 Ratings
9% below category average
Tableau Cloud
7.7
75 Ratings
6% below category average
Pixel Perfect reports6.7108 Ratings7.857 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.3131 Ratings8.875 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates7.5113 Ratings6.564 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
7.0
130 Ratings
14% below category average
Tableau Cloud
7.7
75 Ratings
4% below category average
Drill-down analysis6.8126 Ratings8.575 Ratings
Formatting capabilities6.8128 Ratings7.271 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages5.854 Ratings6.548 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration8.8129 Ratings8.573 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.0
126 Ratings
3% below category average
Tableau Cloud
7.6
73 Ratings
8% below category average
Publish to Web7.6104 Ratings8.469 Ratings
Publish to PDF8.3112 Ratings7.667 Ratings
Report Versioning7.782 Ratings7.656 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling8.4108 Ratings8.260 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings6.339 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Looker
6.5
126 Ratings
21% below category average
Tableau Cloud
7.8
71 Ratings
3% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)7.6122 Ratings8.168 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization7.3108 Ratings8.367 Ratings
Predictive Analytics4.66 Ratings7.858 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings7.26 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Looker
7.4
126 Ratings
14% below category average
Tableau Cloud
8.2
70 Ratings
4% below category average
Multi-User Support (named login)7.8118 Ratings8.064 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model7.2103 Ratings7.657 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)7.2120 Ratings8.460 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control7.358 Ratings8.48 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings8.555 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Looker
5.5
94 Ratings
34% below category average
Tableau Cloud
7.6
60 Ratings
2% below category average
Responsive Design for Web Access5.790 Ratings7.558 Ratings
Mobile Application5.01 Ratings7.745 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile6.184 Ratings7.952 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Looker
-
Ratings
Tableau Cloud
7.0
42 Ratings
10% below category average
REST API00 Ratings7.837 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings7.335 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings7.034 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings6.030 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings6.736 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings7.333 Ratings
Best Alternatives
LookerTableau Cloud
Small Businesses
Yellowfin
Yellowfin
Score 8.7 out of 10
Yellowfin
Yellowfin
Score 8.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Kyvos Semantic Layer
Kyvos Semantic Layer
Score 9.5 out of 10
Kyvos Semantic Layer
Kyvos Semantic Layer
Score 9.5 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
LookerTableau Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
8.3
(132 ratings)
9.2
(76 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.3
(8 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(12 ratings)
8.6
(29 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
6.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(14 ratings)
8.0
(21 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 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
LookerTableau Cloud
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
Tableau
If you're using Tableau as the primary BI tool, then Tableau Cloud is well suited to publish and share the results with a wide(r) audience. It is well suited for various degrees of self-service proficiency, from pure consumers of analytical work to more advanced users who can use web editing for smaller or larger adjustments, and even for desktop power users who will publish their work to Tableau Cloud. It has many good ways to organize the content and make it easily accessible via search, favorites, folders, collections ("playlists for your data"), or history ("recents"). It might not be ideally suited if there are many on-prem sources to be used (even though there are options to connect them) or if you have very special requirements regarding custom server setup, which is limited in a shared cloud environment like Tableau Cloud.
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
Tableau
  • Tableau Online is completely cloud based and that's why the reports and dashboards are accessible even on the go. One doesn't always need to access the office laptop to access the reports.
  • The visualizations are interactive and one can quickly change the level at which they want to view the information. For example, one person might be more interested in looking at the country level performances rather than client level. This is intuitive and one doesn't need to create multiple reports for the same.
  • The feature to ask questions in plain vanilla English language is great and helpful. For quick adhoc fact checks one can simply type what they are looking for and the Natural Language Programming algorithms under the hood parse the query, interpret it and then fetch the results accordingly in a visual form.
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
Tableau
  • Can be a steep learning curve for new users
  • Modeling and building algorithms aren't always intuitive and take some testing/retesting to ensure it's working as it should
  • Inability to integrate easily with our HRIS platform. Reports are pulled from HRIS at various intervals and uploaded into Tableau
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).
Read full review
Tableau
The tool's capacity to handle complex data sources.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Tableau
Based on comments from our clients, I awarded it this grade. Non-technical customers frequently compliment us on the ease with which they can utilize Tableau Online. Usability is rarely a source of contention amongst our customers. Few complaints have come from me as a user of our internal products.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Google
No objections
Read full review
Tableau
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
Tableau
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
Tableau
I have not had any issues that require customer support from Tableau at this time, which speaks well to Tableau. I have taken an online course with Tableau and it was very professional and well done, so based on that I would assume a similar level of quality for their customer service.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Google
Very satisfied, easy to implement
Read full review
Tableau
I wasn't part of the implementation team
Read full review
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
Tableau
In determining whether to go with Tableau Online versus Alteryx, two important factors stood out in determining our go-to solution. First, while Alteryx is an impressive tool for data cleansing, it did not stack up in terms of data visualization capabilities. Tableau, on the other hand, provided us everything we needed in terms of visualizing our data and analytics. The second factor is cost. Well neither solution would be considered cheap, Tableau was the more cost effective solution for our needs.
Read full review
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Google
Perfect price to performance
Read full review
Tableau
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.
Read full review
Tableau
  • When we release new products, we are now able to quickly see data and toggle between current periods and previous to see performance
  • Generating new reports requires less IT time to build
  • Data can be shared across many different device types
  • We now have integration where our customers can extract data from our software more easily-this was a big ask from our customers
Read full review
ScreenShots

Looker Screenshots

Screenshot of a Looker dashboard with a geo chart.