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Alternatives to Looker

Google Cloud's enterprise BI platform built on the LookML semantic modeling layer

Alt Score

Alt Score · 78

How this alternative ranks. How it works →

Verified coverage 90%75
Visibility 10%100

Verified coverage = sourced yes and partial answers in the category checklist. Visibility = relative app-page views on AltCatalog over 30 days, neutral below 500 category views. Payment, votes, and vendor opinions are never score inputs.

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#5 of 8 in Business intelligence

Looker ranks #5 of 8 in Business intelligence, with an Alt Score of 78. It is proprietary, sold by subscription and available on Web, iOS and Android. 12 of 12 checklist rows are verified against a public source.

Looker is Google Cloud's business intelligence platform for exploring, sharing, and visualizing company data through a governed semantic layer written in LookML. It is a fully vendor-hosted Google Cloud service sold in Standard, Enterprise, and Embed editions, distinct from the free, separate Looker Studio product.

Most compared with LightdashApache SupersetMetabase
Official site Suggest an edit Data history Work on Looker? Claim this page
Who it's for

Organizations that need governed, self-service business intelligence across teams, and application developers who want to embed analytics into their own products.

What you get

A hosted Looker instance with LookML-based data modeling, the Explore query interface, dashboards and Looks, scheduled delivery and alerts, an embedding solution and SDK, and admin controls for authentication, Git integration, and access management.

How it works

Developers define a semantic data model in LookML files stored in a Git-backed project; that model powers point-and-click Explores, dashboards, and embedded content, with Looker translating user selections into SQL run against the connected database.

Where Looker stands out

Verified capabilities most alternatives don't have.

Git version control only 3 of 7 apps
SSO (SAML/OIDC) only 4 of 8 apps

See the full checklist

Why people leave Looker

Dashed reasons are sourced facts; the rest are opinions. Vendors can dispute.

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Ranked alternatives

Ordered by Alt Score. Click any score to see the breakdown.

Sponsored Paid slot. Never affects the ranked order below. Promote here →
01

Lightdash is a business intelligence platform that reads metrics and dimensions from a connected dbt project (or standalone Lightdash YAML) so teams define logic once and reuse it across dashboards, a.

MIT (core); Source Available (enterprise ee/ module)
Alt Score

Alt Score · 93

How this alternative ranks. How it works →

Verified coverage 90%92
Visibility 10%100

Verified coverage = sourced yes and partial answers in the category checklist. Visibility = relative app-page views on AltCatalog over 30 days, neutral below 500 category views. Payment, votes, and vendor opinions are never score inputs.

Not a real alternative? Flag it
02

Apache Superset is an open-source business intelligence web application for data exploration and visualization, developed as an Apache Software Foundation project under the Apache License 2.0.

Apache License 2.0 Web
Alt Score

Alt Score · 89

How this alternative ranks. How it works →

Verified coverage 90%88
Visibility 10%100

Verified coverage = sourced yes and partial answers in the category checklist. Visibility = relative app-page views on AltCatalog over 30 days, neutral below 500 category views. Payment, votes, and vendor opinions are never score inputs.

Not a real alternative? Flag it
03

Metabase is an open-source business intelligence platform for querying databases, building dashboards, and self-service data exploration via a visual query builder or SQL editor.

AGPL Web
Alt Score

Alt Score · 89

How this alternative ranks. How it works →

Verified coverage 90%88
Visibility 10%100

Verified coverage = sourced yes and partial answers in the category checklist. Visibility = relative app-page views on AltCatalog over 30 days, neutral below 500 category views. Payment, votes, and vendor opinions are never score inputs.

Not a real alternative? Flag it
04

Power BI is Microsoft's business analytics platform for connecting to data, modeling it into semantic models, and building reports and dashboards shared through the Power BI service, Power BI Desktop,.

Proprietary WindowsWebiOSAndroid
Alt Score

Alt Score · 89

How this alternative ranks. How it works →

Verified coverage 90%88
Visibility 10%100

Verified coverage = sourced yes and partial answers in the category checklist. Visibility = relative app-page views on AltCatalog over 30 days, neutral below 500 category views. Payment, votes, and vendor opinions are never score inputs.

Not a real alternative? Flag it
05

Sigma is a business intelligence and analytics platform that runs directly on cloud data warehouses such as Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery, and Redshift, with no data extracts.

Proprietary Web
Alt Score

Alt Score · 78

How this alternative ranks. How it works →

Verified coverage 90%75
Visibility 10%100

Verified coverage = sourced yes and partial answers in the category checklist. Visibility = relative app-page views on AltCatalog over 30 days, neutral below 500 category views. Payment, votes, and vendor opinions are never score inputs.

Not a real alternative? Flag it
06

Tableau is a data visualization and business intelligence platform from Salesforce for connecting to data, building interactive dashboards with drag-and-drop tools or custom SQL, and sharing them via.

Proprietary WindowsmacOSLinuxiOS +2
Alt Score

Alt Score · 78

How this alternative ranks. How it works →

Verified coverage 90%75
Visibility 10%100

Verified coverage = sourced yes and partial answers in the category checklist. Visibility = relative app-page views on AltCatalog over 30 days, neutral below 500 category views. Payment, votes, and vendor opinions are never score inputs.

Not a real alternative? Flag it
07

Redash is an open-source tool for querying SQL, NoSQL, and API data sources, visualizing results, and building shareable dashboards with scheduled refreshes and conditional alerts.

BSD-2-Clause Web
Alt Score

Alt Score · 59

How this alternative ranks. How it works →

Verified coverage 90%54
Visibility 10%100

Verified coverage = sourced yes and partial answers in the category checklist. Visibility = relative app-page views on AltCatalog over 30 days, neutral below 500 category views. Payment, votes, and vendor opinions are never score inputs.

Not a real alternative? Flag it

Feature comparison

Rows come from the Business intelligence checklist (16 rows). Human-verified cells only. ? means the value has not been verified.

Comparing Looker Lightdash × Apache Superset × Metabase × Microsoft Power BI × Sigma ×
+ Add app
Redash Tableau
Business intelligence checklist LookerLightdashApache SupersetMetabaseMicrosoft Power BISigma
Pricing model
Starts at
License
Platforms
Self-hostable
Open source
SQL editor
No-code query builder
Scheduled report delivery
Embedded analytics
Row-level security
Data alerts
Semantic layer
Git version control
SSO (SAML/OIDC)
Free tier
verified pending unknown (?) Click any cell to view its source or propose a value
Sources & verification 16

Every fact and feature listed for Looker is verified against its own pages. Each alternative is sourced on its own page.

FAQ

Yes. Apache Superset, Microsoft Power BI and Tableau have a free tier or are fully free. Free-tier limits in the comparison table are verified and dated.

Lightdash, Apache Superset and Metabase — every license claim links its source.