Looker vs. ThoughtSpot

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
ThoughtSpot
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
ThoughtSpot is an Agentic Analytics Platform for enterprises where users ask data questions using natural language and get answers with AI. Code-first for data teams and code-free for business users, ThoughtSpot can handle large, complex cloud data at scale.
$1,500
per year (5 users)
Pricing
LookerThoughtSpot
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Thoughtspot Analytics - Pro
$50
per month (billed annually) per user (25-1000 users)
Thoughtspot Analytics - Enterprise
Custom
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
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.
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 …
ThoughtSpot
Chose ThoughtSpot
ThoughtSpot was much easier from an end-user perspective. Looker and Tableau allowed for more customization and detailed dashboards.
Chose ThoughtSpot
It is more flexible and PowerBI, easier work online, and share information with many users. Also the dashboards and beautiful, and the user experience is better. Performance used to be faster.

We use Looker for different use cases but, when it comes to reporting and sharing …
Chose ThoughtSpot
Great ease of use for business users and self-service capabilites
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. …
Features
LookerThoughtSpot
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
7.5
132 Ratings
9% below category average
ThoughtSpot
7.3
89 Ratings
12% below category average
Pixel Perfect reports6.7108 Ratings6.021 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.3131 Ratings8.289 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates7.5113 Ratings7.725 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
7.1
130 Ratings
12% below category average
ThoughtSpot
7.5
91 Ratings
7% below category average
Drill-down analysis6.9126 Ratings8.490 Ratings
Formatting capabilities6.8128 Ratings7.290 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages5.954 Ratings5.749 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration8.7129 Ratings8.688 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
ThoughtSpot
8.3
84 Ratings
1% above category average
Publish to Web7.6104 Ratings8.255 Ratings
Publish to PDF8.3112 Ratings8.678 Ratings
Report Versioning7.782 Ratings7.918 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling8.5108 Ratings8.564 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings8.135 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
ThoughtSpot
7.4
86 Ratings
8% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)7.6122 Ratings7.585 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization7.3108 Ratings7.679 Ratings
Predictive Analytics4.66 Ratings7.565 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings6.913 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
ThoughtSpot
8.1
86 Ratings
5% below category average
Multi-User Support (named login)7.9118 Ratings8.282 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model7.2103 Ratings7.974 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)7.3120 Ratings7.778 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control7.458 Ratings7.916 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings8.572 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Looker
5.5
94 Ratings
35% below category average
ThoughtSpot
7.6
53 Ratings
3% below category average
Responsive Design for Web Access5.890 Ratings7.351 Ratings
Mobile Application5.01 Ratings7.234 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile6.184 Ratings7.146 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Looker
-
Ratings
ThoughtSpot
7.1
51 Ratings
9% below category average
REST API00 Ratings6.942 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings6.535 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings8.134 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings7.013 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings7.335 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings7.115 Ratings
Best Alternatives
LookerThoughtSpot
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Score 8.8 out of 10
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Score 8.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
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Score 10.0 out of 10
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Score 10.0 out of 10
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Score 9.5 out of 10
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User Ratings
LookerThoughtSpot
Likelihood to Recommend
8.3
(132 ratings)
8.6
(91 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.3
(8 ratings)
10.0
(6 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(12 ratings)
8.3
(85 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(3 ratings)
Performance
6.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(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
10.0
(1 ratings)
7.0
(2 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)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(3 ratings)
Professional Services
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
LookerThoughtSpot
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
ThoughtSpot
It is well suited when the same data is consumed by many different people with different analytics and visualization requirements because, if you have the data available in ThoughtSpot, every user can prepare different views. Also, it is a good reporting tool, you can get rid of slides if you have a good dashboard prepared, gaining flexibility and agility.
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
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
  • 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
ThoughtSpot
  • It would be great if ThoughtSpot can add the feature to filter by clicking on visualizations. i.e if I click on a particular data point in the chart if the full dashboard can filter just for that particular data point.
  • Color coding the heatmap with different colors like green to orange to red.
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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
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 rating is because of the ease of use of the interface as it has a no code interface that makes it easy to setup data pipelines without extensive programming. Cloud native integration: It integrates seamlessly with cloud based data warehouses. Automated data loading, Scalability, Cost Effective, Transformations, Data Governance and security.
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Reliability and Availability
Google
No objections
Read full review
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
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
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.
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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
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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
Very satisfied, easy to implement
Read full review
ThoughtSpot
Understand use case and model and design accordingly
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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
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
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Google
Perfect price to performance
Read full review
ThoughtSpot
No answers on this topic
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
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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
ThoughtSpot
  • Time to market ROI is massive vs hiring the full-time dedicated team to build and maintain a frontend multi-tenant SaaS data viz product.
  • It will be interesting to see over time how the advanced features play out in terms of usability and end value, such as Natural Search, which we are very excited about, and the machine learning tools.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Looker Screenshots

Screenshot of a Looker dashboard with a geo chart.

ThoughtSpot Screenshots

Screenshot of the ThoughtSpot home screenScreenshot of SpotIQ, which offers AI-driven insightsScreenshot of the Spotter AI agent that surfaces insights through natural language queriesScreenshot of AI Assist producing SQL in real timeScreenshot of SpotIQ, which offers AI-driven insightsScreenshot of the integration with dbt models and metrics