Looker vs. SAS Visual Analytics

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
SAS Visual Analytics
Score 7.6 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
SAS Visual Analytics provides a complete platform for analytics visualization, enabling users to identify patterns and relationships in data that weren't initially evident. Interactive, self-service BI and reporting capabilities are combined with out-of-the-box advanced analytics so everyone can discover insights from any size and type of data, including text.N/A
Pricing
LookerSAS Visual Analytics
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
SAS Visual Analytics for SAS Cloud
$0
Annual By Users: 5, 10, 20
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
LookerSAS Visual Analytics
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional DetailsMust contact sales team for pricing.SAS Visual Statistics and SAS Office Analytics are also available as add-ons.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
LookerSAS Visual Analytics
Features
LookerSAS Visual Analytics
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.4
Ratings
3% above category average
SAS Visual Analytics
8.3
Ratings
2% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports8.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Customizable dashboards9.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates8.30 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.5
Ratings
5% above category average
SAS Visual Analytics
8.8
Ratings
9% above category average
Drill-down analysis8.10 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Formatting capabilities7.80 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages8.80 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration9.20 Ratings10.00 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
SAS Visual Analytics
9.2
Ratings
10% above category average
Publish to Web8.30 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Publish to PDF9.10 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Report Versioning8.60 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling9.10 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Looker
7.0
Ratings
13% below category average
SAS Visual Analytics
9.7
Ratings
20% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)8.10 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.10 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Predictive Analytics4.60 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.3
Ratings
2% below category average
SAS Visual Analytics
8.3
Ratings
2% below category average
Multi-User Support (named login)8.70 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model8.20 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.10 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Looker
6.2
Ratings
23% below category average
SAS Visual Analytics
8.7
Ratings
10% above category average
Responsive Design for Web Access7.50 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Mobile Application5.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile7.40 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Looker
-
Ratings
SAS Visual Analytics
9.2
Ratings
17% above category average
REST API00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
LookerSAS Visual Analytics
Small Businesses
BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 9.1 out of 10
BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Kyvos Semantic Intelligence Layer
Kyvos Semantic Intelligence Layer
Score 9.9 out of 10
Kyvos Semantic Intelligence Layer
Kyvos Semantic Intelligence Layer
Score 9.9 out of 10
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User Ratings
LookerSAS Visual Analytics
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.5
(0 ratings)
9.3
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(0 ratings)
6.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
6.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(0 ratings)
8.0
(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
LookerSAS Visual Analytics
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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SAS Business Intelligence is more suited to organizations which are already using SAS as the primary software for their analytics needs. Learning curve is relatively shorter for teams already skilled in BASE SAS. For organizations already working with open source software like Julia and Python, it doesn't make much sense to use SAS BI.
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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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  • SAS BI makes it very easy to create interactive dashboards even for someone who is not from an IT background. For some specific requirements, basic knowledge of SQL is good enough.
  • A lot of functions have been predefined which makes it very convenient to create dashboards and reports. One doesn't need to be from an IT or a programming background to understand and create dashboards.
  • It supports other programming languages like R and also has a seamless API integration with various data management platforms.
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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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  • Business Objects should provide a more consistent mobile/desktop interface so operation between the two is seamless
  • Business Objects needs to make it easier to query across disparate data sets such as Oracle to SQL to Mongo DB
  • Our installation of Business Objects does not natively allow the export of XLSX documents, only XLS
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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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There is no other product that can match SAS. There are some products that can compare to ETL but lack the analytics that SAS has. Others can perform a limited set of analytical procedures but lack the data processing that comes with SAS. Using thin client allows users to access data whenever they have an internet connection.
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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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SAS BI is good for creating reports and dashboards and then sharing it with the users. It also has ability to manage access to the reports and dashboards but somehow with most of the world moving to open source languages R, Python and Julia, SAS BI feels to be archaic in terms of feature set and integrations it allow[s]. Also, comparing it with other Business Intelligence tools like Tableau and Microsoft BI, the functionality of SAS BI is very limited and doesn't justify the pricing.
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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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When you call tech support, you are immediately routed to a person who can answer your question. Often they can answer on the spot. However, if they cannot, you are given a track number and then followed up with. There have been times when I have had multiple track numbers open and they will actually TRACK YOU DOWN to ensure that your problem has been resolved. Issues do not fall into black holes with SAS. They are also willing to do a WebEx with you to diagnose the problem by seeing your environment, which is always helpful.
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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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I have chosen SAS Visual Analytics because one of my colleagues suggests using the software for the same for our work. As earlier, we use to take a lot of time in analyzing the data but after using the SAS Visual Analytics software our work has improved and time has decreased. It's very helpful for us.
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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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  • SAS Visual Analytics licensing cost should be reduced to enable users to use it in mass scale.
  • More statistical and mathematical equations and theories should be converted into SAS functions for reusing.
  • Because of enriched ETL and reporting capabilities SAS Visual Analytics is most preferred by business users.
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ScreenShots

Looker Screenshots

Screenshot of a Looker dashboard with a geo chart.

SAS Visual Analytics Screenshots

Screenshot of Explore your data using analytics and interactive data visualizations.