Looker vs. ThoughtSpot

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Looker
Score 8.2 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
ThoughtSpot
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
ThoughtSpot is an AI-Powered Analytics company, that aims to create a more fact-driven world with an easy to use analytics platform. ThoughtSpot enables users to leverage natural language search powered by large language models to ask and answer data questions. Users within an organization can limitlessly engage with live data in any popular cloud data platform to create and interact with granular, hyper…
$95
per month
Pricing
LookerThoughtSpot
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
ThoughtSpot Analytics Team
$95
per month flat subscription
ThoughtSpot Analytics Pro
starts at $30,000
per year consumption-based pricing, pay for what you use
ThoughtSpot Analytics Enterprise
contact for pricing
per year consumption-based pricing, pay for what you use
ThoughtSpot Everywhere Pro
contact for pricing
per year consumption-based pricing, pay for what you use
ThoughtSpot Everywhere Enterprise
contact for pricing
per year consumption-based pricing, pay for what you use
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
LookerThoughtSpot
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredOptional
Additional DetailsMust contact sales team for pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
LookerThoughtSpot
Considered Both Products
Looker
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
There are some specific use cases where other tools are not useful in our organization. Some software solutions are shared with other organizations inside the company and Looker is the only tool where we can collaborate good enough.
ThoughtSpot
Chose ThoughtSpot
ThoughtSpot was much easier from an end-user perspective. Looker and Tableau allowed for more customization and detailed dashboards.
Chose ThoughtSpot
Compared to most reporting and analytics tools of a similar nature, ThoughtSpot seems to work particularly well with financial and sales related data. In terms of ease of use, ThoughtSpot ranks above average. On the other hand, there are dozens of basic features (esp. …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
LookerThoughtSpot
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.1
93 Ratings
1% below category average
ThoughtSpot
6.8
77 Ratings
19% below category average
Pixel Perfect reports7.678 Ratings6.021 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.792 Ratings6.777 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates7.978 Ratings7.725 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.1
94 Ratings
0% below category average
ThoughtSpot
6.9
78 Ratings
16% below category average
Drill-down analysis8.291 Ratings7.778 Ratings
Formatting capabilities7.492 Ratings5.877 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages8.037 Ratings6.345 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration8.694 Ratings7.976 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.6
90 Ratings
3% above category average
ThoughtSpot
7.7
73 Ratings
8% below category average
Publish to Web8.574 Ratings7.647 Ratings
Publish to PDF8.780 Ratings8.168 Ratings
Report Versioning8.260 Ratings7.918 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling8.980 Ratings8.656 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings6.629 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Looker
6.8
91 Ratings
17% below category average
ThoughtSpot
7.2
74 Ratings
12% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)8.189 Ratings8.073 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization7.678 Ratings7.569 Ratings
Predictive Analytics4.66 Ratings6.657 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings6.86 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.5
90 Ratings
1% below category average
ThoughtSpot
8.4
73 Ratings
2% below category average
Multi-User Support (named login)8.985 Ratings8.371 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model8.378 Ratings8.364 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.685 Ratings8.468 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control8.426 Ratings8.56 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings8.360 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Looker
5.8
66 Ratings
31% below category average
ThoughtSpot
7.7
45 Ratings
3% below category average
Responsive Design for Web Access6.763 Ratings7.943 Ratings
Mobile Application5.01 Ratings7.427 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile6.558 Ratings6.939 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Looker
-
Ratings
ThoughtSpot
7.0
43 Ratings
12% below category average
REST API00 Ratings7.134 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings6.828 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings7.026 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings7.013 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings7.127 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings7.115 Ratings
Best Alternatives
LookerThoughtSpot
Small Businesses
BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 8.9 out of 10
BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
Reveal
Score 9.9 out of 10
Reveal
Reveal
Score 9.9 out of 10
Enterprises
Jaspersoft Community Edition
Jaspersoft Community Edition
Score 9.7 out of 10
Jaspersoft Community Edition
Jaspersoft Community Edition
Score 9.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
LookerThoughtSpot
Likelihood to Recommend
8.3
(94 ratings)
8.2
(78 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(4 ratings)
9.7
(6 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(12 ratings)
8.5
(73 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.7
(3 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
7.7
(3 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(14 ratings)
8.0
(4 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
4.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(2 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
7.7
(3 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
LookerThoughtSpot
Likelihood to Recommend
Google
Quick dashboards from Google Sheets - Easier to do the graphs than in Google Sheets - Operational dashboards to be used in the day-to-day work - It is good both for retrospective data and to do a pulse check of the current status - Better for not giant amounts of data and not multiple data sources. - If you need a lot of graphs to be displayed on the same page, it can be a bit glitchy during configuration (then the use works fine).
Read full review
ThoughtSpot
Well suited for my clients for a Macro view of business insights, credit risk, ESG insights, etc. However, I think ThoughtSpot needs to make exploring underlying data easier, adding a feature where you can click on charts and filters will help users and especially business users to easily understand the granularities as well.
Read full review
Pros
Google
  • Filtering - you can filter across different dimensions and metrics to get a more specific "cut" of data
  • Refreshing - data automatically ingests into Looker which allows reports to be updated and backfilled in real time
  • Conditional Reporting - you can leverage Looker's reporting features to flag when a given metric or KPI falls below or above a specified threshold. For example, if you had a daily sales benchmark in a SAAS organization, you could use Looker to flag whenever daily sales falls above or below the benchmark
Read full review
ThoughtSpot
  • Beautiful visualizations. The visuals are distinct, clean, and easy to discern from one another.
  • Intelligent querying functionality. When looking to manipulate the data, the search function makes it easy to manipulate the features in the data, along with aggregating them in the way you'd like.
  • Embedding! It has been a smooth process thus far for our product & technical teams to work with ThoughtSpot and bring it into our product.
Read full review
Cons
Google
  • Looker is less graphical or pictorial which makes it less attractive
  • Consumes a lot of memory when there are multiple rows and columns, impacts performance too
  • At times when we download huge chunks of raw data from Looker dashbords, the time taken to prepare the file is enormous - The user fails to understand if Looker has frozen or if the data is getting prepared in the background for downloading. In turn, user ends up triggering multiple downloads
Read full review
ThoughtSpot
  • Ability to build a single dashboard tile containing the main value, a sparkline, and a percent change over time
  • Easy way to build a user experience that allows for selecting different metrics to trend from a drop-down on a multi-axis graph
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Google
We've been very happy with Looker so far, and all teams in the organization are starting to see its value, and use it on a frequent basis. It has quickly become our accessible "source of truth" for all data/metrics.
Read full review
ThoughtSpot
I give it just waiting because passport is brilliant and it has helped our organisation In advancing to the next stage in the age of AI. It has allowed or non-tech people to better service and clients in a cost-effective way. George port has allowed us to create new products for us and for our clients increasing our revenue streams and reducing clients churn
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
ThoughtSpot
The tool is easy to use if you know what you are doing and looking for. I know as they work towards improvements and simple language it will become even easier, but as of now they are doing a great job but there is room for improvement.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Google
No answers on this topic
ThoughtSpot
it's available unless there is a server or system update etc. sometimes the timing of this is bad (for example during a month end close)
Read full review
Performance
Google
No answers on this topic
ThoughtSpot
It does what it is supposed to. Would be nice to have a bit more insights
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.
Read full review
ThoughtSpot
I give it this meeting because the team is not only help able to help us in the current solutions but also amazing and taking feedback and feeding it back to their development team which includes more products and features into ThoughtSpot
Read full review
In-Person Training
Google
No answers on this topic
ThoughtSpot
inhouse in-person training. Took a bit to long to get the basics.
Read full review
Online Training
Google
No answers on this topic
ThoughtSpot
poor instructions
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Google
No answers on this topic
ThoughtSpot
Understand use case and model and design accordingly
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Google
Looker is an off-the-shelf, free tool for Google business users. Other than the internal cost of time to build, we had no costs to set up what we needed to do. Knowledge sharing internally and using templates greatly reduced this cost, making the overall cost very low.
Read full review
ThoughtSpot
We also explored Tableau Ask Data. Tableau is our standard for BI in our organization. We want to use the smallest amount of tools in our company to have the best adaption. ThoughSpot will fill a few gaps that we have with our current set up and will also enhance out offering for our employees in the transition of being more data driven within in near future
Read full review
Scalability
Google
No answers on this topic
ThoughtSpot
Because it is very reliable, inside the situation, we need strong internet connection to access a lot of data but easily never had any downtime except during the upgrades
Read full review
Return on Investment
Google
  • Allowing others to self-serve their own analytics and connect it to Looker simply and easily has helped unblock the central data team so they can instead focus on validated dashboards whilst stakeholders manage their day-to-day analysis themselves. Countless engineering hours have been freed up by not having to manage every user permission for each BI tool; we have a BYOBI approach; Bring Your Own BI
  • Creation and management of a semantic layer (LookML =Looker Modeling Language ) allows peoples sandboxes and production databases to become clutter free. Minor adjustments, conditional fields, and even some modelling can all be done in LookML which doesn't need oversight or governance from the central data team.
  • LookML, specifying drilldown fields and their sub-queries, as well as generally creating dynamic parameters with Liquid are all great features, but can have a steep learning curve. it may take some time to understand how to create this middle layer correctly, or even pose a risk of inheriting complex code from another source which can be unmaintainable if it becomes too big. Some level of governance is recommended if Looker is used by a large number of editors.
Read full review
ThoughtSpot
  • Positive ROI immediately seen for first POC.
  • Saved an immense amount of time for a sole analyst on a team by enabling the end-users to ask their own questions instead of always turning to her, allowing her to focus on other priorities.
  • Immediate answer to question on second POC that led to personnel changes.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Looker Screenshots

Screenshot of a Looker dashboard with a geo chart.

ThoughtSpot Screenshots

Screenshot of ThoughtSpot home screenScreenshot of A Liveboard for drill downScreenshot of Live query, to connect to cloud data platformsScreenshot of Search to analyze and visualize dataScreenshot of A look at queries runScreenshot of Consuming insights on iOS app