What Looker is: Looker is a data-discovery platform that helps companies make better business decisions through real-time access to data. No matter the size, data can be analyzed within Looker’s 100% in-database and browser-based platform. Looker analytics integrate with any SQL database or data warehouses, such as Amazon Athena, Green plum and Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse.
What Tableau is: Tableau offers robust BI tools that enhance data visualization and discovery for all types of organizations and business users. With simple drag-and-drop features, users easily analyze key data, share critical insights across the enterprise, and create innovative visualizations and reports. In addition, Tableau offers the option to embed dashboards into existing business applications such as Jive, SharePoint, and Salesforce.
Key Comparison by performance Looker vs Tableau
Below are the lists of points, describe the key Differences Between Looker vs Tableau
- Data collection, storage, and access
Both the Looker and Tableau tools do not offer data collection and storage but we can connect to the data sources like SQL from either of the tools and access data. In-ground tableau provides support for a large number of data sources compared to looker.
- Data modeling
Data modeling is the process of taking raw data as input cleaned, combined, converted and made ready for data analysis. data modeling can be carried out in ad hoc or publish all these data models in a platform.When it comes to data modeling Looker’s LookML data modeling layer is its core strength with a wider margin.
- Data visualisation
Looker provides data visualization features, channeling numbers into charts and graphs. These are displayed in various real-time dashboards that users can check at a glance. And Looker’s integration with products from companies like Google and Amazon Web Services makes it even more powerful. Numerous vendor tools and applications parse and store data in particular ways, but Looker is seen as a leader in the process of taking in raw data and refining it.
- Self Service BI
Looker offers all of your business users self-service capabilities. Whenever user need to see it and analyze it, he can see and analyze it. Additionally, you can provide external self-service access to your dashboards and other data, visualized or not.The self-service business intelligence component that Tableau brings to the table is also pretty powerful. All of your users, no matter what their background, can act as a data scientist. A drag-and-drop interface makes analyzing your data simple when using the Tableau system. And the self-service capabilities don’t provide surface analysis. The analytics allow your users to get down into the nitty-gritty details of their data if they so choose, so they can find the insights that they’re trying to find.
- Deployment
Deployment isn’t the biggest determinant of a BI vendor’s value, but it does matter for businesses thinking of adopting one. Tableau offers several different products, of which there are various deployments. Tableau Desktop and Tableau Server are both on-premise, using your business’ servers. Tableau Online, as the name suggests, is a web-based platform operating in the cloud. Looker, on the other hand, has an exclusively cloud-based deployment.
Comparison Between Looker vs Tableau
Looker vs Tableau Comparisons by business
| Comparisonby Business | Tableau | Looker |
| Cost | 35$ | By Quote |
| Price scheme | Onetime payment / Online subscription | Quote based |
| Languages | English | English / Dutch |
| Customer types | Large Enterprises / Medium enterprises | Small Business/Large Enterprises / Medium Enterprises |
Looker vs Tableau Comparison by features
Below is the Comparison Between Looker vs Tableau
| Tableau | Looker |
| Toggle view and drag and drop | Browser-based Interface and customizable dashboards |
| Embedded and Shared dashboards | Easy to build dashboards that work on any device |
| Uses tableau Reader for data viewing | Uses Fully customizable and exportable reports ,charts and graphs |
| Translate queries to visualizations | Extensible modeling language (LookLM) defines the dimensions and measures |
| Import all ranges and sizes of data | Live connection to any SQL database on any infrastructure |
| String insights into a guided story | Modern IDE for agile development and embellishment |
| Metadata management, Automatic updates and security permissions in any level | Powerful tools for real-time data exploration and collaboration |
Conclusion – Looker vs Tableau
In summary, the platform you select is going to be highly dependent on your future vision, your data strategy, and your business users’ needs. Before any tool selections, defining that future state with a data strategy is very important. In consideration, Looker is different and but provides a full semantic model for governance and a single source of the truth, as well as power sharing and exploration capabilities. Tableau blows the competition out of the water when it comes to visualization and ease of use. At the end of the day, however, Tableau is only a visualization tool — not an analytics platform.So if your business prefers or is required to use on-premise software, you’ll need to go with Tableau. Otherwise, you can take a look at both Looker and Tableau solutions.
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