Looker vs. Rational BI

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
Rational BI
Score 7.7 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
Rational BI provides analytics, data science and business intelligence in an analytical platform that connects to databases, data files and cloud drives including AWS and Azure data sources, enabling users to explore and visualize data. Users can build real-time notebook-style reports directly in a web browser with JavaScript and SQL with direct and live connections to data. Filter and query data with an SQL database embedded in the client, without network…
$0
single user
Pricing
LookerRational BI
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Free
$0
single user
Professional
$129
single user
Enterprise
Varies
single user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
LookerRational BI
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredOptional
Additional DetailsMust contact sales team for pricing.Additional cost per extra user (varies by edition)
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
LookerRational BI
Features
LookerRational BI
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.3
Ratings
2% above category average
Rational BI
8.3
Ratings
1% below category average
Pixel Perfect reports7.90 Ratings7.60 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.90 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates8.30 Ratings8.50 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.4
Ratings
4% above category average
Rational BI
8.3
Ratings
4% above category average
Drill-down analysis8.10 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Formatting capabilities7.80 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages8.70 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration9.10 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Looker
8.7
Ratings
5% above category average
Rational BI
9.0
Ratings
6% above category average
Publish to Web8.30 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Publish to PDF9.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Report Versioning8.50 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling9.10 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings9.30 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
Rational BI
8.2
Ratings
1% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)8.00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.00 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Predictive Analytics4.60 Ratings7.90 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
Rational BI
-
Ratings
Multi-User Support (named login)8.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model8.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control8.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Looker
6.1
Ratings
24% below category average
Rational BI
-
Ratings
Responsive Design for Web Access7.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Application5.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile7.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
LookerRational BI
Small Businesses
BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 9.0 out of 10
Supermetrics
Supermetrics
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Supermetrics
Supermetrics
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Kyvos Semantic Intelligence Layer
Kyvos Semantic Intelligence Layer
Score 9.9 out of 10
Dataiku
Dataiku
Score 7.6 out of 10
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User Ratings
LookerRational BI
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(0 ratings)
7.7
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.5
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(0 ratings)
8.7
(0 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
6.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(0 ratings)
7.7
(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
LookerRational BI
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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Rational BI allows managing data analysis coming from different projects in order to create useful reports and dashboards. I usually set up automatically scheduled reports. All the stakeholders can easily share a rational view with the possibility to filter between the interesting arguments. Sometimes different user profiles could be needed, optimize the view.
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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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  • Provides high performance embedded analytics
  • Seamless integration to import and export data
  • Rich features for data visualization
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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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  • Documentation for new users could be better. Sometimes it's hard for my users that are not that skilled in IS/IT to set up data connectors are understand the dynamics of data sources.
  • I have used several other BI solutions as well, and their GUI is okay, but surely there is also room for improvement here. Not all things are made entirely logically.
  • Understanding their price structure. Generally, their website looks nice, but it's not very informative when it comes to pricing, and support options. I really miss some kind of transparency and overview.
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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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Rational BI allows managing data analysis coming from different projects. The outputs are one or more reports, that can be delivered automatically to the stakeholders or other communication media inside the organization. Nice dashboards help to describe and analyze data. Sometimes different user profiles could be needed, optimize the view.
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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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I haven't had to use support to date for this product.
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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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Today there are many companies providing BI solutions, and generally, I think Microsoft Power BI is the easiest go-to solution as it is part of the Office365 software. However all software solutions have their limitations, advantages, and disadvantages, but sometimes you don't need the perfect solution. You just need a solution that delivers 80-90 percent of the full potential to reach your goal and in this scope, we were really happy with Rational BI.
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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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  • Allows folks to work on other items as reporting is done in the background.
  • Scheduling and delivery of reports with one click.
  • Single pane of management.
  • Ease of use.
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ScreenShots

Looker Screenshots

Screenshot of a Looker dashboard with a geo chart.

Rational BI Screenshots

Screenshot of Modern Business IntelligenceScreenshot of Drag-and-drop InsightsScreenshot of Accessible for everyone, power when you need itScreenshot of Beautiful analytics on every screen and deviceScreenshot of Scheduled reporting: Broadcast your findings to everyoneScreenshot of Connect all your data no matter where it lives