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Looker

Looker

Overview

What is Looker?

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…

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Recent Reviews

Look no further!

10 out of 10
March 25, 2024
Incentivized
We use Looker as a business intelligence tools that translates our data into meaningful insights for consumption by internal and external …
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Great reporting tool

8 out of 10
March 15, 2024
Incentivized
We are using Looker Studio to create dashboards that’s can be shared with other departments. We can include information from different …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 21 features
  • Customizable dashboards (94)
    8.7
    87%
  • Report sharing and collaboration (96)
    8.5
    85%
  • Drill-down analysis (93)
    8.2
    82%
  • Formatting capabilities (94)
    7.4
    74%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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N/A
Unavailable

What is Looker?

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.

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://cloud.google.com/resources/look…

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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99 people also want pricing

Alternatives Pricing

What is SAP Crystal?

SAP Crystal is an analytics and reporting software solution for SMBs. SAP Crystal comprises Crystal Reports for pixel-perfect reporting, and SAP Crystal Server for automated distribution and self-service access to reports, dashboards and data exploration.

What is SAP Lumira Discovery?

SAP Lumira Discovery is SAP’s data visualization and discovery application. It facilitates data discovery, visualization, and analysis by assisting users with creation of dashboards, infographics, presentations, data facets, tag clouds, and more.

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Product Demos

How To Use Looker as a Business User

YouTube
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Features

BI Standard Reporting

Standard reporting means pre-built or canned reports available to users without having to create them.

8.1
Avg 8.2

Ad-hoc Reporting

Ad-Hoc Reports are reports built by the user to meet highly specific requirements.

8
Avg 8.1

Report Output and Scheduling

Ability to schedule and manager report output.

8.4
Avg 8.4

Data Discovery and Visualization

Data Discovery and Visualization is the analysis of multiple data sources in a search for patterns and outliers and the ability to represent the data visually.

6.7
Avg 8.1

Access Control and Security

Access control means being able to determine who has access to which data.

8.5
Avg 8.6

Mobile Capabilities

Support for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

5.8
Avg 8.0
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Product Details

What is Looker?

Looker is a business intelligence application with an analytics-oriented application server that sits on top of relational data stores. The Looker platform includes an end-user interface for exploring data, a reusable development paradigm for creating data discovery experiences and an extensible API set so the data can exist in other systems.

Looker vs. Looker Studio


Looker Studio is a part of Google's Looker Suite for business intelligence. Looker Studio is a self-serve BI solution where less technical users can create charts and reports, while Looker is a complete, enterprise BI platform, where technical users can build complex models that consider every aspect of the business. Looker Studio offers both free and pro versions, while Looker is not available for free. Looker and Looker Studio integrate with each other to support both types of analysis at businesses.

Looker Features

BI Platform Features

  • Supported: Administration via Web Interface
  • Supported: Live Connection to External Data
  • Supported: In-memory data model
  • Supported: Multi-Data Source Reporting (Blending)
  • Supported: Data warehouse / dictionary layer

Supported Data Sources Features

  • Supported: Oracle
  • Supported: MS SQL Server
  • Supported: IBM DB2
  • Supported: Postgres
  • Supported: MySQL
  • Supported: Cloudera Hadoop
  • Supported: Hortonworks Hadoop
  • Supported: EMC Greenplum
  • Supported: IBM Netezza
  • Supported: HP Vertica
  • Supported: ParAccel
  • Supported: SAP Hana
  • Supported: Teradata
  • Supported: Sage 500
  • Supported: SAP

BI Standard Reporting Features

  • Supported: Pixel Perfect reports
  • Supported: Customizable dashboards
  • Supported: Report Formatting Templates

Ad-hoc Reporting Features

  • Supported: Drill-down analysis
  • Supported: Formatting capabilities
  • Supported: Integration with R or other statistical packages
  • Supported: Report sharing and collaboration

Report Output and Scheduling Features

  • Supported: Publish to Web
  • Supported: Publish to PDF
  • Supported: Output Raw Supporting Data
  • Supported: Report Versioning
  • Supported: Report Delivery Scheduling

Data Discovery and Visualization Features

  • Supported: Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
  • Supported: Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
  • Supported: Support for Machine Learning models
  • Supported: Integration with R or other statistical packages

Access Control and Security Features

  • Supported: Multi-User Support (named login)
  • Supported: Role-Based Security Model
  • Supported: Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
  • Supported: Report-Level Access Control
  • Supported: Table-Level Access Control (BI-layer)
  • Supported: Field-Level Access Control (BI-layer)

Mobile Capabilities Features

  • Supported: Responsive Design for Web Access
  • Supported: Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile

Looker Screenshots

Screenshot of a Looker dashboard with a geo chart.

Looker Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsWindows, Linux, Mac
Mobile ApplicationNo
Supported CountriesUnited States, Canada, United Kingdom, Mexico, Germany, France, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Brazil
Supported LanguagesEnglish

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

Domo, MicroStrategy Analytics, and Tableau Server are common alternatives for Looker.

Reviewers rate Multi-User Support (named login) highest, with a score of 8.8.

The most common users of Looker are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(381)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-4 of 4)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Looker is being used across the entire organization to surface relevant data that helps teams make data-driven decisions on a daily basis. Looker serves as a "single source of truth" when it comes to data, and helps strategic discussions stay focused and data rich. The platform is used for tracking of new/ongoing initiatives, as well as day-to-day operational performance.
  • Joining multiple tables. They call this "symmetric aggregates." Basically, you can join tons of tables together, and only have to specify the type of join (one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one, many-to-many) for each join, and Looker takes care of the rest -- no more fan out problems!
  • Data modeling -- LookML is pretty easy to learn, and it's super powerful. Every type of calculated dimension or measure, especially dates, are handled with ease.
  • Visualization customization -- Looker is constantly releasing new versions, and the area where I'd like to see improvements is in more advanced visualizaion. Reference lines, trend lines, etc.
Looker is great for data modeling and visualization. It has a great user interface that allows all types of users to "self-serve," and explore the data, as well as share the views they create. Looker is not currently great for any type of modeling / advanced analysis.
  • GoodData,Domo,Birst,Sisense,Tableau Server
Looker's modeling capabilities (especially dealing with symmetric aggregates), as well as the platform's accessibility to both basic users and technical users, makes it a slam dunk. There is no "black box," where you end up not being able to trust the data -- you can follow the information through from source to graph, and fully understand all transformations along the way.
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.
Looker has been adopted company-wide, and Looker dashboards are displayed on screens throughout the office. It is the single source of truth, and as the company grows, so will the number of Looker users.
BI Platform
N/A
N/A
Supported Data Sources
N/A
N/A
BI Standard Reporting (3)
80%
8.0
Pixel Perfect reports
70%
7.0
Customizable dashboards
90%
9.0
Report Formatting Templates
80%
8.0
Ad-hoc Reporting (3)
83.33333333333334%
8.3
Drill-down analysis
90%
9.0
Formatting capabilities
80%
8.0
Report sharing and collaboration
80%
8.0
Report Output and Scheduling (3)
63.33333333333333%
6.3
Publish to Web
60%
6.0
Publish to PDF
60%
6.0
Report Delivery Scheduling
70%
7.0
Data Discovery and Visualization (2)
65%
6.5
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
80%
8.0
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
50%
5.0
Access Control and Security (3)
90%
9.0
Multi-User Support (named login)
90%
9.0
Role-Based Security Model
90%
9.0
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
90%
9.0
Mobile Capabilities
N/A
N/A
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
N/A
N/A
Looker is able to connect to a wide variety of data sources, and connect disparate sets of data together with ease. You are able to customize the update frequency and parameters for updates.
Views and dashboards are easily shared, and the ability of basic users to easily create new views allows for a lot of new data discovery.
Jim O'Sullivan | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Looker has been deployed to our users to help them better understand our customers' data. Before Looker our customers' had a difficult time analyzing their data. In the social service's world, decisions have been typically made based on anecdotal evidence. Now with Looker, they can quickly make decisions based on real-time data.
  • Quick to implement
  • Easy to use
  • Very customizable
  • Not robust enough table calculations
Looker is perfect for any organization that wants to quickly analyze their data.
I think Looker is easier to use than Business Objects, Domo, Pentaho and Tableau. Tableau offers better visualizations than Looker but the overall package in Looker is better.
We've invested a lot of time in Looker and it is doing what we need it to do.
30 users.
BI Platform
N/A
N/A
Supported Data Sources
N/A
N/A
BI Standard Reporting (3)
56.66666666666667%
5.7
Pixel Perfect reports
50%
5.0
Customizable dashboards
90%
9.0
Report Formatting Templates
30%
3.0
Ad-hoc Reporting (3)
80%
8.0
Drill-down analysis
90%
9.0
Formatting capabilities
50%
5.0
Report sharing and collaboration
100%
10.0
Report Output and Scheduling (4)
80%
8.0
Publish to Web
90%
9.0
Publish to PDF
90%
9.0
Report Versioning
70%
7.0
Report Delivery Scheduling
70%
7.0
Data Discovery and Visualization (3)
43.33333333333333%
4.3
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
60%
6.0
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
50%
5.0
Predictive Analytics
20%
2.0
Access Control and Security (3)
90%
9.0
Multi-User Support (named login)
90%
9.0
Role-Based Security Model
90%
9.0
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
90%
9.0
Mobile Capabilities (2)
50%
5.0
Responsive Design for Web Access
50%
5.0
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
50%
5.0
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
N/A
N/A
We only connect to Mariadb.
We love the sharing, make public and scheduling capability.
30
The are end users.
2
We have a data analyst and a system administrator.
  • Operational data
  • Predictive analytics
  • Program Performance
  • We use looker to analyze data on homeless clients and homeless projects.
August 18, 2015

My look at Looker

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Looker is being used across the entire organization. The strategic and business areas use it to get an overview of several aspects, especially, revenue related. Marketing people use it a lot because of most of our campaigns are performance based. The content area uses it to see if they are doing things right (checking users' engagement). Although IT is not working with it, Looker frees resources from this department since most of queries were created by them.
  • Easy to set up and, at the same time, allows more control from administrators that really know what the data is
  • Very straightforward for end users
  • Support is very good: they answer very quickly
  • Some specific queries still are not supported or have to be done via some tweaks
  • I don't know if it is possible but I had a problem that I had to create several explorers with the same views depending on where the from clause is used. This is very confusing for end users: sometimes they don't know which Explorer they should use.
Looker performs well if there is someone with a technical background (SQL) and that knows about the data. If nobody who knows the data model knows how to create queries (especially to configure), the team will have a bad time configuring it.
  • RJMetrics,Yellowfin
RJMetrics is targeted to a team that doesn't have someone to create SQL and works better for a specific target: e-commerce. We had a bad time adapting it to our data model and any changes on it depended on their team. That slowed down our process. Yellowfin was closer to what we wanted but was too slow and still was not so "adaptive".
Looker works very great in our company but it still very expensive.
All product related departments use Looker (strategy, operations, marketing and content), that is, at about 8 users.
BI Platform
N/A
N/A
Supported Data Sources
N/A
N/A
BI Standard Reporting (3)
86.66666666666666%
8.7
Pixel Perfect reports
90%
9.0
Customizable dashboards
90%
9.0
Report Formatting Templates
80%
8.0
Ad-hoc Reporting (3)
80%
8.0
Drill-down analysis
90%
9.0
Formatting capabilities
70%
7.0
Report sharing and collaboration
80%
8.0
Report Output and Scheduling (4)
87.5%
8.8
Publish to Web
80%
8.0
Publish to PDF
90%
9.0
Report Versioning
90%
9.0
Report Delivery Scheduling
90%
9.0
Data Discovery and Visualization (3)
26.666666666666664%
2.7
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
80%
8.0
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
N/A
N/A
Predictive Analytics
N/A
N/A
Access Control and Security (3)
90%
9.0
Multi-User Support (named login)
90%
9.0
Role-Based Security Model
90%
9.0
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
90%
9.0
Mobile Capabilities (3)
N/A
N/A
Responsive Design for Web Access
N/A
N/A
Mobile Application
N/A
N/A
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
N/A
N/A
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
N/A
N/A
Actually, we only use one data source (Redshift) and it was quite simple. I can't tell about merging data from other sources. This is done in Redshift.
I still get confused on Looker folders. Maybe because it has just changed and I am not used to it. It is still hard to see what other people have done and rework is common.
August 18, 2015

Looker is a Life Saver

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our company uses the Looker application to schedule a variety of reports for error tracking, sales reporting, and system health. We use the Looker API extensively to power our custom facing dashboard portal and liability reporting platforms. I have nothing but good things to say about the flexibility and scalability of the Looker application. Most reports are built inside of an hour and can be deployed immediately.
  • The LOOKML language is very easy to learn even for users without SQL knowledge.
  • The partitioned tables functionality allows us to easily build large reports in the background so our users do not need to wait for complex reports to run.
  • The dashboard setup allowed me to create a dashboard for senior management in one day!
  • I would like to see support added for NOSQL databases.
Looker is spectacular for relational database support.
Looker was selected because of their willingness to work with us. They built a custom demo for us and showed us our data within the application.
We are still using and we will continue to keep using this product.
Looker is used company wide and is used by several of our partners. Looker also powers our external facing dashboards to our customer base.
BI Platform
N/A
N/A
Supported Data Sources
N/A
N/A
BI Standard Reporting (3)
100%
10.0
Pixel Perfect reports
100%
10.0
Customizable dashboards
100%
10.0
Report Formatting Templates
100%
10.0
Ad-hoc Reporting (4)
75%
7.5
Drill-down analysis
100%
10.0
Formatting capabilities
100%
10.0
Integration with R or other statistical packages
N/A
N/A
Report sharing and collaboration
100%
10.0
Report Output and Scheduling (3)
73.33333333333333%
7.3
Publish to Web
70%
7.0
Report Versioning
70%
7.0
Report Delivery Scheduling
80%
8.0
Data Discovery and Visualization (3)
30%
3.0
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
90%
9.0
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
N/A
N/A
Predictive Analytics
N/A
N/A
Access Control and Security (3)
100%
10.0
Multi-User Support (named login)
100%
10.0
Role-Based Security Model
100%
10.0
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
100%
10.0
Mobile Capabilities (3)
30%
3.0
Responsive Design for Web Access
90%
9.0
Mobile Application
N/A
N/A
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
N/A
N/A
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
N/A
N/A
Looker connects seamlessly to our Postgres and MySQL instances and we are able to easily show dashboards with data from both sources.
I am able to share reports easily between members as well as schedule these reports to go to internal and external customers. I can also control which users can request drill down data from these reports at multiple security levels.
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