Looker vs. Microsoft Power BI Embedded

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Looker
Score 8.5 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
Microsoft Power BI Embedded
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
A solution from Microsoft to provide customer-facing reports, dashboards, and analytics in applications by using and branding Power BI as one's own. Designed to reduce developer resources by automating the monitoring, management, and deployment of analytics, while getting full control of Power BI features and intelligent analytics.N/A
Pricing
LookerMicrosoft Power BI Embedded
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
LookerMicrosoft Power BI Embedded
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional DetailsMust contact sales team for pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
LookerMicrosoft Power BI Embedded
Features
LookerMicrosoft Power BI Embedded
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.4
Ratings
3% above category average
Microsoft Power BI Embedded
-
Ratings
Pixel Perfect reports7.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates8.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.4
Ratings
4% above category average
Microsoft Power BI Embedded
-
Ratings
Drill-down analysis8.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Formatting capabilities7.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages8.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration9.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.8
Ratings
6% above category average
Microsoft Power BI Embedded
-
Ratings
Publish to Web8.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Publish to PDF9.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Versioning8.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling9.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Looker
6.9
Ratings
14% below category average
Microsoft Power BI Embedded
-
Ratings
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)8.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Predictive Analytics4.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.2
Ratings
3% below category average
Microsoft Power BI Embedded
-
Ratings
Multi-User Support (named login)8.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model8.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control8.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Looker
6.2
Ratings
24% below category average
Microsoft Power BI Embedded
-
Ratings
Responsive Design for Web Access7.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Application5.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile7.30 Ratings00 Ratings
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User Ratings
LookerMicrosoft Power BI Embedded
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(0 ratings)
8.7
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.5
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
6.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
LookerMicrosoft Power BI Embedded
Likelihood to Recommend
When you need to create a centralised dashboard for multiple stakeholders that blends cross-channel reporting. As an SEO agency reporting for clients - Looker is a great solution. It's less appropriate depending on the intended users. For instance, in my experience Looker reports have been under-utilised because they're not accessed regularly, provide too much noise or often simple PDF reports are preferred
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The scenario where it shines more is in the treatment of data that is not easily correlated at first sight, it helps to find causes of unsuccess in productive environments. The only thing that is required is to have properly collected data to feed to Power BI, so it won't be useful in environments where the data is not collected with care, since the representations won't be representatives of the reality.
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Pros
  • It is very easy to start a new dashboard and configure what you want to display by just selecting/dragging from the list of available columns.
  • It is intuitive, mainly if you use other Google services like Google Sheets.
  • The look and feel is modern and nice.
  • It it very useful to have an immediate visual overview of the data in a spreadsheet.
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  • It is very easy to connect multiple data sources for a single report. You can use CSV, Excel, database integration, etc.
  • Power Bi supports Python as well, which makes it a lot easier for us as it is known by most of our team.
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Cons
  • I wish I could get more granular in the Google ad data, such as down to the campaign type, instead of having to see only all campaigns.
  • The setup can be time-consuming if you're not using the product regularly.
  • Editing the dashboard requires a few logins; I wish it was more seamless.
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  • It was a little difficult to work out how to create certain visualisations, but there is extensive online help material to support with this.
  • Had some issues with assigning pro licences but these were quickly resolved
  • Small learning curve but no more so than similar applications
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Likelihood to Renew
We are very haooy with Looker, it provides us with all the funciomalities we need for both the day to day oerformance tracking and longer periods reporting. It is easy to use for account managers, configurable and customizable for soecialists and what is most imoortant, our clinets generally really love it
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No answers on this topic
Usability
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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No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
No objections
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No answers on this topic
Performance
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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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
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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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Very satisfied, easy to implement
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
In my opinion, Looker is no Power BI. It is good, but I think Power BI is amazing. That said, in my experience, Power BI is nowhere near as easy to setup and report on Google services as Looker is. We plan to continue using Power BI for c-suite and corporate reporting, especially for internal databases, but will gladly use Looker for our marketing information for AdWords, Analytics, Search Console, and YouTube.
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Microsoft Power BI Embedded is already established as a de-facto standard as a business intelligence platform for the enterprise world. It comprises the best features to be delivered for the products being developed by providing a wide range of functionality. For instance, there are supported numerous graphic visualizations of data points such histograms, pie charts, heat maps and so on
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Return on Investment
  • Other than some people not liking the numbers, I don't see any negative impacts; we haven't experienced that.
  • The reports help us unravel the story of our users and how they are sifting through our pages.
  • Our clients enjoy seeing the numbers to understand better what stands out on their sites.
  • The reports have helped us see what campaigns are working and where we need to tweak things.
  • The reports have enabled us to have better conversations with stakeholders about how their web pages should be modified, edited, etc., to reflect the data.
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  • Microsoft Power BI has had a positive impact on our business objectives by allowing everyone to better understand the data that is being presented. Some people can process numbers and charts easily, but interactive visualizations can aid visual learners and just makes the dashboard look a lot nicer with the ability to dive deeper into the numbers (through visualizations). Thus, engagement and understanding have improved.
  • One negative impact is that there is a rather steep learning curve since Microsoft Power BI's language (DAX/M) can be quite different from traditional Excel. Because of that, either you need to hire people who are specialized in Microsoft Power BI, or you need to account for the fact that they will need to be trained (or take time to learn it). Thus, there can be direct costs from hiring new people, or indirect costs through training/employee taking time to learn the software.
  • Another positive impact of Microsoft Power BI is that it got us thinking about how we can be better as an organization in terms of laying out our raw data, organizing data, conducting research into better metrics we can track and report on, etc. Because Microsoft Power BI made the presentation/visualization (+ regular updating/maintenance) part of our dashboard easier for us, we were able to start thinking about additional metrics and additional ways we can improve our reporting.
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ScreenShots

Looker Screenshots

Screenshot of a Looker dashboard with a geo chart.