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
Tableau Server
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Tableau 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
LookerTableau Server
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Viewer
$12.00
Per User Per Month
Explorer
$35.00
Per User Per Month
Creator
$70.00
Per User Per Month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
LookerTableau Server
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional DetailsMust contact sales team for pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
LookerTableau Server
Considered Both Products
Looker
Chose Looker
Better in terms of data configuration with slight harder learning curve, available help material is not that much and we usually have to connect with Looker Help with chat for our data and analysis questions. While Looker offers a wide range of visualization options, there were …
Chose Looker
It takes forever sometimes to have data ready in Tableau dashboard, and also it takes effort to maintain each dashboards. We do not have so many efforts to maintain all. Also, we need to be able to see data faster and therefore take actions and work faster. With Looker we might …
Chose Looker
Looker was not as flexible as Tableau, but it provides more customization through code and it provides a consistent data model which can be nice.
Chose Looker
Looker is easier to use, faster helps save time at work, Robust data connections with R Studio are very important because we use this application in the company and other applications do not allow it, it has a scalable machine learning with integration of Google TensorFlow, …
Tableau Server
Chose Tableau Server
The choice to use Tableau Server is really made for you if you already have adopted Tableau Desktop. If you're focused on an on-premise solution, Tableau is probably the way that you'll have to go. Looker and Mode are cloud-based (so is Tableau Online) and offer a true …
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. …
Features
LookerTableau Server
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
7.8
128 Ratings
4% below category average
Tableau Server
8.4
95 Ratings
3% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports7.0104 Ratings9.129 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.6127 Ratings7.094 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates7.8109 Ratings9.081 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
7.5
126 Ratings
7% below category average
Tableau Server
7.8
95 Ratings
3% below category average
Drill-down analysis7.4122 Ratings8.095 Ratings
Formatting capabilities7.2124 Ratings8.093 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages6.651 Ratings8.059 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration8.9125 Ratings7.089 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.2
122 Ratings
1% below category average
Tableau Server
7.2
91 Ratings
14% below category average
Publish to Web7.9100 Ratings8.085 Ratings
Publish to PDF8.4109 Ratings7.084 Ratings
Report Versioning7.579 Ratings8.070 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling9.1104 Ratings8.077 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings5.19 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Looker
6.6
122 Ratings
19% below category average
Tableau Server
8.3
90 Ratings
4% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)7.7118 Ratings9.086 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization7.5104 Ratings8.085 Ratings
Predictive Analytics4.66 Ratings8.064 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Looker
7.7
122 Ratings
10% below category average
Tableau Server
10.0
95 Ratings
16% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)8.3114 Ratings10.093 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model7.699 Ratings10.090 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)7.5116 Ratings10.092 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control7.654 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings10.062 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Looker
5.5
91 Ratings
34% below category average
Tableau Server
8.1
79 Ratings
4% above category average
Responsive Design for Web Access6.087 Ratings10.077 Ratings
Mobile Application5.01 Ratings7.061 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile6.281 Ratings7.068 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Looker
-
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
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LookerTableau Server
Small Businesses
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Score 8.8 out of 10
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Score 8.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
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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
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Score 9.5 out of 10
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User Ratings
LookerTableau Server
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(128 ratings)
8.0
(111 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.3
(8 ratings)
10.0
(20 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(12 ratings)
8.0
(17 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(9 ratings)
Performance
6.0
(1 ratings)
8.1
(8 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(14 ratings)
3.0
(18 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(4 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(9 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(13 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(1 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 Server
Likelihood to Recommend
Google
Looker is ideal if you are heavily invested in Google Services, particularly marketing related services, and you with to quickly create reporting dashboards for that data. It gets more difficult when you try to tie in data from other services, and I would not use this were I already using BI package - it is not anywhere near as well supported or as widely known as some of its major competitors, but what it does do, it does do well.
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.
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
  • 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
Read full review
Cons
Google
  • I wish I could get more granular in the Google ad data, such as down to the campaign type, instead of having to see only all campaigns.
  • The setup can be time-consuming if you're not using the product regularly.
  • Editing the dashboard requires a few logins; I wish it was more seamless.
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
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
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.
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
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.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Google
No objections
Read full review
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
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
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
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.
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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
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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.
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Implementation Rating
Google
Very satisfied, easy to implement
Read full review
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
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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.
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.
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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
  • 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.
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ScreenShots

Looker Screenshots

Screenshot of a Looker dashboard with a geo chart.

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.