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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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Learn from top reviewers

Top Notch Looker

Rating: 9 out of 10
March 20, 2025
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
We use Looker to locate accounts, access data history for players and various things. These include wallet history, redemption history, a player history search, a details page...
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Verified user
Analyst
Looker2 years of experience

Fully recommend Looker

Rating: 9 out of 10
February 27, 2025
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
Looker is a core part of our organization’s data strategy, enabling dashboards and reporting for all aspects of our business. We leverage Looker to transform raw data into act...
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Verified user
Manager
Looker4 years of experience

Looker is an under-appreciated tool that can do wonders for your business

Rating: 8 out of 10
February 7, 2025
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
Looker is our go-to tool for reporting on all the users' data in our platforms. We use it to get instantaneous information about specific aspects in each platform, and we also...
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Mahmoud Diab
Consultant - Customer Service
Technical and Customer Support Specialist
Advocacy Maven
Looker4 years of experience

Looker Software Review.

Rating: 9 out of 10
February 6, 2025
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
It's a good tool to have your dashboard and visualize your data, total active clients, and the total achieved this quarter and year. Also, you can visualize your prospects by ...
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Verified user
Account Manager

Looker is a great product for data analysis, combining data sets across multiple platforms

Rating: 10 out of 10
November 6, 2024
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
We are linking the system to multiple platforms where the data is pulled and put into tables using different metrics across different departments. We also utilize the system t...
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Verified user
Manager
Looker1 year of experience
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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

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Pricing

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Looker

Looker

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?

  • Setup fee required
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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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
Avg 8.2

Ad-hoc Reporting

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

8.1
Avg 8.0

Report Output and Scheduling

Ability to schedule and manager report output.

8.5
Avg 8.3

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 7.9

Access Control and Security

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

8.3
Avg 8.5

Mobile Capabilities

Support for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

5.8
Avg 7.9
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Product Details

What is Looker?

Looker, Google Cloud’s business intelligence platform, enables users to chat with data. Organizations are given self-service and governed BI to build custom applications with trusted metrics, or to bring Looker modeling to their existing environment.


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 Video

The future of Looker is powered by generative AI—Google's vision for what's next in business intelligence

Looker Competitors

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 Report Delivery Scheduling highest, with a score of 8.9.

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

View all alternatives
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Reviews From Top Reviewers

View all reviews
(1-5 of 118)

Looker is great for syncing your stats from multiple data sources

Rating: 8 out of 10
Incentivized
September 23, 2024
LG
Laura Glover
Information Designer
The Pixel Zoo (Online Media, 1-10 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
Looker
1 year of experience
View profile
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use Looker in our small business to create visual graphs and reports on our clients stats. We use Looker for the reporting on their website Search Engine optimization and Website traffic. It helps our business with automating all the reports and sending them out to the client on a schedule.
Pros
  • Graphs and Tables for stats
  • Integration of stats from multiple sources like Console, Analytics, Youtube
  • Syncing with data from Google Sheets
  • Schedule emails to be sent
  • Live Data
Cons
  • The syncing of the data can be better
  • Refreshing the data without having to read the data source
  • Could use some Good starting templates
Likelihood to Recommend
It's suited for small medium business when you want to pull in data from multiple sources into one document. It's good for using as a report for SEO and website Analytics, and even Youtube analytics.

The Best BI User Experience

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized
March 14, 2016
GM
Gleb Mezhanskiy
Product Manager, Analytics
Autodesk (Computer Software, 5001-10,000 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
Looker
1 year of experience
View profile
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Looker helps us democratize data around 10+ product lines and 4 functions.

We have Looker connected to multiple product databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL) and to a data warehouse (Redshift).

Currently have over 50 internal active users of Looker.
Pros
  • I believe that among BI tools, Looker provides the best balance between flexibility and configurability for the data team, ease of deployment and support for dev ops and great user experience for the end users – consumers of data.
  • The data modeling layer, LookML proved to be extremely helpful for the Data team to define data models and abstract end users – data consumers – away from the complexity of underlying data sets.
  • Documentation is clear, comprehensive and easy to find.
  • Live chart support within the Looker interface is very helpful.
  • Powerful permission management system allows to provide access to multiple data sets to a big number of users without the risk of compromising security.
  • Very easy to deploy: is shipped as a standalone server Java application. Or even better: can be hosted by Looker company.
Cons
  • Add the ability to perform joins across physically distributed databases
Likelihood to Recommend
Very well suited for modeling and exposing data of any data source with a SQL interface including but not limited to Hive and Spark.

Greatly reduces the burden on engineers by allowing business users to perform analysis, build visualizations and put together dashboards themselves.

Currently cannot handle other data interfaces, such as Splunk.

Looker is a great product for data analysis, combining data sets across multiple platforms

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized
November 06, 2024
Verified User
Manager in Finance and Accounting
Transportation/Trucking/Railroad Company, 201-500 employees
Vetted Review
Verified User
Looker
1 year of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We are linking the system to multiple platforms where the data is pulled and put into tables using different metrics across different departments. We also utilize the system to build custom reports for example the Shop compare usage per work orders against inventory reports to validate the data. We then use the system to verify that all invoices are synced over from one system into our main accounting system. Then compare the Looker data with what appears on our books to validate all the data has synced over for a specific time period. We are beginning to use the system to forecast and predict however more data points are needed so I feel comfortable about the forecast.
Pros
  • creating tables pulling informing from platforms
  • centralizing the data from different softwares
  • comparing data from different systems using department metrics
Cons
  • forecasting having adjustments or personal knowledge inputs to the data to help reflect seasonality
  • ease of use, specifically building reports and updating reports
  • linking the systems and verifying where the data is pulling from, where the data is being pulled from to create the tables are being being built from
Likelihood to Recommend
Utilizing different systems across multiple departments, locations where everyone uses different metrics to measure their performance. While the overall company uses all the metrics to help drive the business forward. Looker is great at combining multiple data sets, adding metrics from different systems and comparing the data. It is great to use to validate and verify the data into a main system to make sure all the data is accurately reflected and everyone is looking at the same financial picture.

Data and Reporting Made Easy

Rating: 8 out of 10
Incentivized
October 03, 2019
DH
Dustin Hovey
Sr. SEM Manager, Twilio SendGrid
Twilio Inc. (Marketing and Advertising, 1001-5000 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
Looker
5 years of experience
View profile
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Looker is used by many departments in our organization as a hub for business intelligence data. We are all able to access data dashboards in a smooth and slick UI for various uses, including sales, marketing, and research. It's a great way for stakeholders across the organization to view customized, high and low-level metrics. We can use data from Looker for detailed analysis and reports that are shared across units such as BizOps and Marketing.
Pros
  • It's user-friendly enough to democratize data for the entire organization; it's functional enough to be used by all users regardless of their experience with BI tools.
  • Ability to quickly connect to data sources without heavy back-end data engineering requirements.
  • Filters, visualization and data elements keep all of the information front and center and logically ordered for a power user.
Cons
  • It can be difficult to customize the visualizations.
  • Security groups and content restrictions can be confusing to set up and maintain.
  • The tool can slow down for large and complex queries.
Likelihood to Recommend
Looker is a great tool when it has a lot of data to ingest and a lot of sources to link to. Since Looker works best at scale it is likely best for the organizations that operate at scale (medium to large business), specifically, organizations that a juggling multiple marketing/sales channels.

An amazing data visualization tool

Rating: 8 out of 10
Incentivized
April 30, 2021
DT
David Turner
Director of Social Media
Gaytravel (Marketing & Advertising, 51-200 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
Looker
1 year of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use Looker to be able to visually analyze our data. It is being used by most of our organization, but especially our Operations team. I believe this is a support important tool because just having the data only tells half of the story if you cannot visualize it and be able to notice trends and reasons for discrepancies in data.
Pros
  • user friendly
  • searching
  • visualization
Cons
  • limited charting
  • interface
  • not as widely used
Likelihood to Recommend
I definitely would recommend Looker, it is an awesome tool. Though I do like it more, the only reason I would not recommend it is because it is not the most widely used tool for this type of software and there are not as many resources out there online for it.
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