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Looker vs Qlik Sense comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Looker
Ranking in Embedded BI
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Qlik Sense
Ranking in Embedded BI
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Embedded BI category, the mindshare of Looker is 9.3%, down from 12.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qlik Sense is 11.3%, down from 13.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Embedded BI
 

Featured Reviews

Kishore Jhunjhunwala - PeerSpot reviewer
A cloud solution for operational reporting but is expensive
Some basic feature that is available in other reporting tools is missing. Looker has the ability to show more than 5,000 rows for operational reporting. Some reporting tools allow users to scroll down to see more than 5,000 rows, but in Looker, you have to download the entire dataset. Looker should consider adding a scroll-down option to allow users to view large datasets on screen without downloading them. Looker has some options for granting users access as viewers. However, viewers cannot download the entire dataset. Only superusers can download the whole dataset on the Explore screen. This is a big limitation, as you cannot give any user viewer access. You can give access to superuser access, which is a cost to the company.
Vishal_Goyal - PeerSpot reviewer
In-memory data storage boosts performance
The advantages compared to other BI tools show architectural differences. The main feature is that it keeps all the data in memory. It doesn't retrieve the data from data sources when I need it on the dashboard; instead, it quickly provides the desired data, making it very fast compared to other BI tools. The ROI is very high using Qlik Sense. It offers many benefits of BI. It is flexible from a developer's point of view, allowing me to accomplish many tasks compared to other BI tools. From an end-user perspective, it's convenient and performance-oriented, providing something meaningful from all the organization's data.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The stability of Looker has been good since I have been using it. However, it depends on what components are being used."
"We can centralize all our data models."
"Looker allows you to generate the most optimal SQL queries in a DC through UI actions. We had signed a contract with Google Cloud to use BigQuery. That was the primary reason we adopted Looker. It works better with BigQuery than any other BI platform. We also like how this tool was developed. It was designed with an eye toward microservices architecture."
"From a developer's perspective, the way the functionality's being handled is great."
"I would rate the stability a ten out of ten. I didn't face any issues with stability."
"The product is easy to use."
"It is a pretty stable solution because it is a cloud-based product."
"With Looker, I have experienced benefits in terms of usability and shareability."
"The flexibility of a non-IT developed solution allows for fast to market solutions."
"The most valuable feature is flexibility."
"The drag and drop UI has been the most useful to me."
"The extensibility of the Platform with either internally created extensions or the use of third-party provided items really opens the platform up."
"Qlik Sense has a modern look and feel and a very intuitive UI, so non-technical users find it very user friendly."
"The most valuable features are that Qlik has a very strong ATL available and the capacity to handle large volumes of data."
"The integration with R & Python for predictive modeling, and possibly machine learning in the future, is very valuable."
"Qlik was the first company to implement an in-memory associative analytics engine. This basically means that all data is loaded into memory, but it also means that instead of joining data together, the data is associated together. From the front end, from the UI point of view, data can be joined or included or excluded on the fly. It can be drilled down and drilled through and users can slice and dice it and that type of thing can be done from anywhere in the data to any other place in the data. It doesn't have to be predefined. It doesn't have to have hierarchies or anything like that."
 

Cons

"The product does not have documented material."
"It needs to be more user-friendly."
"The visualization capability of the product is limited."
"Integrations with other BI tools could be better."
"Stability needs improvement."
"The integration with different databases must be improved."
"Looker doesn't connect to Excel, which is a huge disappointment because a lot of data is presented in Excel. Also, it can't consume data directly from REST APIs, which is necessary. Looker needs to expand its horizons when it comes to data sources. The inability to connect to different data sources is hampering our use cases. Currently, it only has an ODBC connection that connects to a database. It needs to connect to other data sources, such as Excel, APIs, and different platforms."
"The main area of concern in Looker is probably related to blending the data from the different sources, including the data present internally in the company and on the cloud."
"Needs more bookmarking and a data load screen."
"I would like to have the ability to better customize the visuals including changing fonts, sizing, colors, axes, and titles."
"Qlik has a fast learning curve due to great online training resources (Qlik continuous classroom), but those are lacking the advance features like building extensions and using the API."
"Even though a huge set of learning material is available, anyone starting his/her journey on learning the software doesn't even know where to start it. The so-called Continous Classroom service is not cheap, but there are many free tutorials, they are not sorted or enlisted adequately though."
"What needs improvement in Qlik Sense is the support. It could be faster. My organization had already talked to Qlik management and has escalated multiple times, so management is looking into the support."
"Ad-hoc reporting capabilities would be ideal."
"Technical support requires improvement. I would rate it around three out of ten. Basically, I think they lack in the support system."
"I wish the product had the ability for slightly more customization. The out-of-the box charts and visualizations are fantastic, but I want to be able to tweak it without having to add outside extensions and widgets."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is cheap."
"Looker is expensive and could be made better by reducing it."
"It's not cheap, but it's not expensive for big companies."
"I do not have to make any payments to use the solution."
"The price of Looker usually depends on the solution's provider, but it is usually cheaper than the other products in the market. Looker is offered at different prices for different companies."
"Licensing can start to get expensive, but compared to other tools in this space it is about average."
"You need to pay 5,000 Norwegian kroner per user. Microsoft Power BI is slightly more expensive than Qlik Sense."
"Qlik Sense and its pricing model can follow any scalability."
"Qlik Sense is pretty good in terms of price."
"You will spend more time on educating your staff than licensing the product."
"Start small with tokens. You can always buy more."
"The new licensing model is much better."
"For on-premise enterprise users, a number of additional features come at a premium cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
21%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
51%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Looker?
With Looker, I have experienced benefits in terms of usability and shareability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Looker?
I do not have to make any payments to use the solution. In the beginning, Looker may work fine for its users. If advanced users who have experience with BI tools use Looker, then they may find it t...
What needs improvement with Looker?
The visualization capability of the product is limited. From an improvement perspective, the product should have more visualization capability. I can't clean data in Looker, and if I try to do it, ...
Seeking lightweight open source BI software
It depends on the Data architecture and the complexity of your requirement. Some great tools in the market are Qlik Sense, Power BI, OBIEE, Tableau, etc. I have recently started using Cognos Enter...
Seeking lightweight open source BI software
There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I would recommend as follows: 1) If you have legacies of SAP, Oracle - look for SAP...
What do you like most about Qlik Sense?
The most valuable features of Qlik Sense are its speed and seamless development of web technologies.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
QlikSense
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Yahoo!, Etsy, Kohler, Hipcamp, Hubspot, Kickstarter, Venmo, Dollar Shave Club, 600+ customer
Abbvie, Airbus, Barclays, BT Openreach, BMW, Daimler AG, HSBC, IKEA, Nationwide Building Society, Royal Mail Group, Sanofi, Siemens, Wendy'', Vodafone, Volvo
Find out what your peers are saying about Looker vs. Qlik Sense and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
853,960 professionals have used our research since 2012.
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