About Looker

Looker, now part of Google Cloud, uses an intuitive approach to data exploration making the spread of a curiosity-driven culture both efficient and effective. An intuitive, web-based interface enables business users to tap into the genius of your data analytics team. They can build and share reports on the fly, so other functional groups can benefit from the questions they’re asking and the knowledge they’ve created. And since the whole Looker experience delivers such satisfying results, they start looking to the data to drive their business decisions and activities.

At the heart of Looker, data discovery is a new way to create these web-based experiences. Using a flexible easy-to-learn language called LookML, your data analysts can create mini-applications that add power and efficiencies to data exploration. The LookML syntax simplifies the development of robust models for any organization while enhancing the capabilities of SQL. There’s no need to expend time and resources coding queries on an ad hoc basis or setting up complex business intelligence (BI) software platforms. This language-based approach results in faster query execution, optimizing performance along the way.

Pricing starting from:

Not provided by vendor

  • Free Version
  • Free Trial
  • Subscription

Key benefits of Looker

With Looker, it's not necessary to ETL or cube data. Because we operate 100% in-database, data is transformed at query time, so drill-paths are unlimited and infinite, leading to true data discovery.

Typical Customers

  • Freelancers
  • Small Businesses (2-50)
  • Mid-size Companies (51-500)
  • Large enterprises (500 and more)

Deployment

  • Cloud-based
  • On-premise

Markets

Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States

Supported Languages

English

Pricing starting from:

Not provided by vendor

  • Free Version
  • Free Trial
  • Subscription

Images

Looker Software - Looker Dashboard 1
Looker Software - Looker Dashboard 2
Looker Software - LookML
Looker Software - Mobile app
View 5 more
Looker video
Looker Software - Looker Dashboard 1
Looker Software - Looker Dashboard 2
Looker Software - LookML
Looker Software - Mobile app

Features

Total features of Looker: 109

  • AB Testing
  • API
  • Access Controls/Permissions
  • Activity Dashboard
  • Activity Tracking
  • Ad hoc Analysis
  • Ad hoc Query
  • Ad hoc Reporting
  • Alerts/Escalation
  • Alerts/Notifications
  • Annotations
  • Application Development Software
  • Application Management
  • Attribution Modeling
  • Audience Targeting
  • Behavioral Analytics
  • Benchmarking
  • Budgeting/Forecasting
  • Campaign Management Software
  • Charting
  • Collaboration Tools
  • Conversion Tracking
  • Cross Channel Attribution
  • Customer Journey Mapping
  • Customizable Dashboard
  • Dashboard Creation
  • Dashboard Software
  • Data Blending
  • Data Cleansing
  • Data Connectors
  • Data Dictionary Management
  • Data Discovery Software
  • Data Extraction Software
  • Data Import/Export
  • Data Synchronization
  • Data Transformation
  • Data Visualization Software
  • Drag & Drop
  • Embeddable Maps
  • Financial Reporting Software
  • For Healthcare
  • For Sales Teams/Organizations
  • For Science
  • Forecasting
  • Functions/Calculations
  • Goal Setting/Tracking
  • High Volume Processing
  • Integration into Third Party Applications
  • Interactive Reports
  • KPI Monitoring
  • Key Performance Indicators
  • Keyword Tracking
  • Marketing Reports
  • Media Analytics
  • Mixed Methods Research
  • Mobile Access
  • Mobile Reporting
  • Multi-Channel Attribution
  • Multi-Touch Attribution
  • Multi-User Collaboration
  • Multiple Data Sources
  • Multivariate Analysis
  • No-Code
  • Performance Metrics
  • Predictive Analytics Software
  • Private Dashboards
  • Profitability Analysis
  • Public Dashboards
  • Quantitative Analysis
  • ROI Tracking
  • Radial Mapping
  • Real Time Analytics
  • Real Time Data
  • Real-time Updates
  • Referral Tracking
  • Regression Analysis
  • Reminders
  • Reporting & Statistics
  • Reporting/Analytics
  • Role-Based Permissions
  • SSL Security
  • Sales Reports
  • Sales Trend Analysis
  • Scheduled/Automated Reports
  • Scorecards
  • Search/Filter
  • Self Service Data Preparation
  • Self-service Analytics
  • Sensitive Data Identification
  • Single Page View
  • Single Sign On Software
  • Site Search Tracking
  • Statistical Analysis Software
  • Strategic Planning Software
  • Streaming Analytics
  • Templates
  • Territorial Mapping
  • Text Analysis Software
  • Time Series Analysis
  • Time on Site Tracking
  • Trend Analysis
  • Trend/Problem Indicators
  • User Interaction Tracking
  • User Research Analysis
  • Visual Analytics
  • Visual Discovery
  • Visual Workflow Management
  • Website Analytics
  • Widgets

Alternatives

Pentaho

4.3
#1 Alternative to Looker
Pentaho couples data integration with business analytics in a modern platform that brings together IT & business users...

Oracle Business Intelligence

4.1
#2 Alternative to Looker
Oracle Business Intelligence (BI) is a cloud-based solution designed to help businesses collect, analyze, and visualize...

Tableau

4.5
#3 Alternative to Looker
Tableau helps people and organizations become more data-driven as the trusted leader in analytics.

Microsoft Power BI

4.6
#4 Alternative to Looker
Microsoft Power BI converts data into rich interactive visualizations, utilizing business analytics tools to share...

Reviews

Overall rating

4.6 /5
(187)
Value for Money
4.3/5
Features
4.4/5
Ease of Use
4.2/5
Customer Support Software
4.6/5

Already have Looker?

Software buyers need your help! Product reviews help the rest of us make great decisions.

Showing 5 reviews of 187
Catherine
Overall rating
  • Industry: Information Technology & Services
  • Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
  • Used Daily for 6-12 months
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

Data Models, Security, and Amazing Customer Support

Reviewed on 6/14/2019

Looker is quickly becoming our go-to for reporting and dashboarding for anything requiring more...

Looker is quickly becoming our go-to for reporting and dashboarding for anything requiring more than one data source (and some that are based on just one). Paired with a kick-ass centralized data warehouse (we use Snowflake), Looker lets us roll things out very quickly (provided our data infrastructure is in good shape). It did take a while to get going with Looker because it lays on top of the existing data infrastructure. Now that we have quite a bit of strong infrastructure in place in our centralized data warehouse, we are able to produce data products in Looker quite quickly.

Pros

Provisioning security allows us to control the user experience (and only show users things they would actually care about). This makes a dashboard or data product rollout far smoother. Additionally, the customer support (especially through the chat interface) is absolutely fantastic. Because Looker creates a custom URL for each explore you're working on, you can share with Customer Support your exact problem and work together to find a solution.

Cons

Looker Sales told us beforehand that it "writes the most performant SQL possible." I have not found this to be the case, as it often casts and does a few other things (I suspect to make it runnable no matter how you've set up your data). There are some limitations on the visualizations, etc., but Looker Customer Service has been super responsive when those come up.

Terence
Overall rating
  • Company size: 51–200 Employees
  • Used Daily for 6-12 months
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

I work as the lead BI developer and Administrator of Looker at my company.

Reviewed on 10/5/2017

Pros

For your developers, the customer service is superior. They also do a great job reaching out to your primary users. With respect to frontend users, those using it for simpler data retrieval/review, their interface is rather easy to use and logical to work through. They do a lot to make the system as simple as possible. Only your BI developers and/or data engineering team can clutter the space.

Cons

If you decide to purchase the non-customized version, the color palette Looker uses is rather bland (More noticeable to executives and heavy users-most users will be fine with it though). The company's integrations are rather limited, but supposed to improve with Looker 5 (via the Action Hub). However, it seems that most integrations will require purchasing from third parties, instead of being a Looker hosted and "controlled" solution you purchase through them. That complicates the process.

Jo
Overall rating
  • Industry: Financial Services Software
  • Company size: 5,001–10,000 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Ease of Use
  • Likelihood to recommend 2.0 /10

Looker Review

Reviewed on 12/6/2022

Displeased and frustrated.

Displeased and frustrated.

Pros

The option to pull a lot of data in an organized fashion.

Cons

This software RARELY works, it's completely glitchy. I use it, well, I attempt to use it, daily. But I continuously receive the No Date to Report message. It completely hinders my job as I need the data from the reporting. Seriously, it is glitchy every single day.

Mickey
Overall rating
  • Industry: Computer Software
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Ease of Use
  • Likelihood to recommend 9.0 /10

A cheap, easy and robust tool for data visualization and reporting.

Reviewed on 11/23/2022

Pros

Looker is currently the best data visualization tool out there for those that are on a budget. That is because Looker is free to use.

Cons

While Looker is relatively easy to use for those who have a data analytics background. I do think that Looker could be easier and more intuitive to set up. Especially setting up data sources can be tricky.

Jeniffer
Overall rating
  • Industry: Marketing & Advertising
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support Software
  • Likelihood to recommend 9.0 /10

Effective Marketing Data Analytics System.

Reviewed on 8/27/2022

Looker is a powerful marketing and project data management software with a very flexible and useful...

Looker is a powerful marketing and project data management software with a very flexible and useful real time data analytics generation.

Pros

Looker has a very professional and easy interface to access and the ability to manage multiple marketing channels through Looker functions is excellent.
This platform reporting capability is on top and incredible leads management software and very easy to integrate to other platforms.

Cons

I have nothing to underline as a problem from the Looker functionalities, and the training when new to the tool is effective.

Showing 5 reviews of 187 Read all reviews

Looker FAQs

Below are some frequently asked questions for Looker.

Looker offers the following pricing plans:

  • Starting from:
  • Pricing model: Subscription
  • Free Trial: Available

Contact Google directly for pricing information.

Looker has the following typical customers:

2–10, 11–50, 51–200, 201–500, 501–1,000, 1,001–5,000

Looker supports the following languages:

English

Looker supports the following devices:

Android (Mobile), iPhone (Mobile)

Looker integrates with the following applications:

Google Ads, Google Analytics 360, Google Workspace, HubSpot CRM, HubSpot Marketing Hub, LinkedIn for Business, Mailchimp, Marketo Engage, Meta for Business, Microsoft Excel, Optimizely, QuickBooks Online Advanced, Quickbooks Online, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Slack, Stripe, Twitter, Xero, Xplenty Data Integration Service, Zendesk Suite

Looker offers the following support options:

Email/Help Desk, FAQs/Forum, Knowledge Base Software, Chat

Related categories

See all software categories found for Looker.