Looker vs. Microsoft Visual Studio

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
Visual Studio
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Visual Studio (now in the 2022 edition) is a 64-bit IDE that makes it easier to work with bigger projects and complex workloads, boasting a fluid and responsive experience for users. The IDE features IntelliCode, its automatic code completion tools that understand code context and that can complete up to a whole line at once to drive accurate and confident coding.
$45
per month
Pricing
LookerMicrosoft Visual Studio
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Professional
$45.00
per month
Enterprise
$250.00
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
LookerVisual Studio
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional DetailsMust contact sales team for pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
LookerMicrosoft Visual Studio
Considered Both Products
Looker
Chose Looker
The biggest advantage that Looker Studio has is that it's really easy to use and to distribute to other use. You can have a really complex report set up in a couple of minutes with an extract data source that enables Looker to update really fast.
Visual Studio

No answer on this topic

Features
LookerMicrosoft Visual Studio
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
7.5
133 Ratings
9% below category average
Microsoft Visual Studio
-
Ratings
Pixel Perfect reports6.6109 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.3132 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates7.6114 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
7.0
131 Ratings
14% below category average
Microsoft Visual Studio
-
Ratings
Drill-down analysis6.6127 Ratings00 Ratings
Formatting capabilities6.8129 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages5.955 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
8.0
127 Ratings
3% below category average
Microsoft Visual Studio
-
Ratings
Publish to Web7.7105 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
Microsoft Visual Studio
-
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
7.4
127 Ratings
14% below category average
Microsoft Visual Studio
-
Ratings
Multi-User Support (named login)7.7119 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
5.3
94 Ratings
38% below category average
Microsoft Visual Studio
-
Ratings
Responsive Design for Web Access5.490 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Application5.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile6.084 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
LookerMicrosoft Visual Studio
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Yellowfin
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Score 8.6 out of 10
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
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Score 10.0 out of 10
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
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Kyvos Semantic Layer
Score 9.5 out of 10
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Score 9.2 out of 10
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User Ratings
LookerMicrosoft Visual Studio
Likelihood to Recommend
8.2
(132 ratings)
9.0
(105 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.2
(8 ratings)
10.0
(3 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(12 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
6.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(14 ratings)
8.8
(15 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)
-
(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
LookerMicrosoft Visual Studio
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.
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Microsoft
When working with base C# code for desktop and web projects, then Microsoft Visual Studio is ideal as it provides the libraries and interfaces needed to quickly create, test and deploy solutions. It is when slightly more complex scenarios are required that issues can arise. The built-in integration for things like PowerBI Paginated Reports and dashboards is far from ideal.
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
Microsoft
  • I like how the tabs and panels are organized; everything is gathered together so you can find what you're looking for quickly.
  • If you can't find something, there's a thorough search engine that searches all of Visual Studio's features.
  • The Team Foundation Server feature is fantastic since it allows us to easily deploy and roll back changes on the server.
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
Microsoft
  • Would be great if there was a better way to save and restore open tabs.
  • The built-in test runner can be improved, for example, by adding the ability to save a set of commonly run tests, etc.
  • Better integration for Microsoft SQL server would be great.
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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Microsoft
VS is the best and is required for building Microsoft applications. The quality and usefulness of the product far out-weight the licensing costs associated with it.
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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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Microsoft
I love the overall usability of Microsoft Visual Studio. I’ve been using this IDE for more than 20 years, and I’ve seen it evolve by leaps and bounds. Today, with AI and code-suggestion/completion features, developers no longer need to remember countless libraries, methods, or language syntax, or invest a huge amount of programming effort to complete a project. It truly offers everything a developer needs to program, debug, test, and deploy in a single IDE.
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Reliability and Availability
Google
No objections
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Microsoft
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
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Microsoft
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.
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Microsoft
There are many resources available supporting Visual Studio IDE. Microsoft whitepapers, forum posts, and online Visual Studio documentation. There are countless demonstration videos available, as well. If users are having issues, they can call Microsoft Support, but depending on the company's agreement with Microsoft, the number of included support calls will vary from organization to organization. I've found that Microsoft support calls can be hit or miss depending on who you get, but they can usually get you with the right support person for your issue.
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In-Person Training
Google
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
IT is very complicated to understand all the functions that the environment has if you are not familiar with this type of development environments. It is important to select a good in-person training to achieve to understand all the possibilities and the capacity of the application. In this case, you will be able to develop a lot type of different applications.
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Online Training
Google
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
If you are not accustomed to develop in this type of development environments it would be complicated to follow all the parts of the course because if the course does not include a great tour with all the concepts to develop you will not have the option to understand all the functions.
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Implementation Rating
Google
Very satisfied, easy to implement
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Microsoft
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
Microsoft
I personally feel Visual Studio IDE has [a] better interface and [is more] user friendly than other IDEs. It has better code maintainability and intellisense. Its inbuilt team foundation server help coders to check on their code then and go. Better nugget package management, quality testing and gives features to extract TRX file as result of testing which includes all the summary of each test case.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Google
Perfect price to performance
Read full review
Microsoft
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
Microsoft
  • Using the integration between Visual Studio and our source control service, the cost of re-work and losing code is drastically reduced.
  • Paid versions of Visual Studio enable developers to be so much more productive than hacked-together open source solutions that it's hard to imagine developing in Windows without it.
  • When combined with support subscriptions and the vast array of free online help options available, Visual Studio saves our developers time by keeping them coding and testing, not wasting their time trying to guess their way out of problems or spend endless hours online hoping to find answers.
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ScreenShots

Looker Screenshots

Screenshot of a Looker dashboard with a geo chart.