Software Alternatives & Reviews

Apache Spark VS Looker

Compare Apache Spark VS Looker and see what are their differences

Apache Spark logo Apache Spark

Apache Spark is an engine for big data processing, with built-in modules for streaming, SQL, machine learning and graph processing.

Looker logo Looker

Looker makes it easy for analysts to create and curate custom data experiences—so everyone in the business can explore the data that matters to them, in the context that makes it truly meaningful.
  • Apache Spark Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-12-31
  • Looker Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-11

Looker is a business intelligence platform with an analytics-oriented application server that sits on top of relational data stores. The Looker platform includes an end-user interface for exploring data, a reusable development paradigm for creating data discovery experiences, and an extensible API set so the data can exist in other systems. Looker enables anyone to search and explore data, build dashboards and reports, and share everything easily and quickly.

Apache Spark videos

Weekly Apache Spark live Code Review -- look at StringIndexer multi-col (Scala) & Python testing

More videos:

  • Review - What's New in Apache Spark 3.0.0
  • Review - Apache Spark for Data Engineering and Analysis - Overview

Looker videos

Looker Review

More videos:

  • Tutorial - How To Use Looker as a Business User
  • Review - Looker Review - Off The Shelf Reviews

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Apache Spark and Looker)
Databases
100 100%
0% 0
Data Dashboard
5 5%
95% 95
Big Data
100 100%
0% 0
Business Intelligence
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Apache Spark and Looker

Apache Spark Reviews

15 data science tools to consider using in 2021
Apache Spark is an open source data processing and analytics engine that can handle large amounts of data -- upward of several petabytes, according to proponents. Spark's ability to rapidly process data has fueled significant growth in the use of the platform since it was created in 2009, helping to make the Spark project one of the largest open source communities among big...
Top 15 Kafka Alternatives Popular In 2021
Apache Spark is a well-known, general-purpose, open-source analytics engine for large-scale, core data processing. It is known for its high-performance quality for data processing – batch and streaming with the help of its DAG scheduler, query optimizer, and engine. Data streams are processed in real-time and hence it is quite fast and efficient. Its machine learning...
5 Best-Performing Tools that Build Real-Time Data Pipeline
Apache Spark is an open-source and flexible in-memory framework which serves as an alternative to map-reduce for handling batch, real-time analytics and data processing workloads. It provides native bindings for the Java, Scala, Python, and R programming languages, and supports SQL, streaming data, machine learning and graph processing. From its beginning in the AMPLab at...

Looker Reviews

Embedded analytics in B2B SaaS: A comparison
Similar to Holistics also Metabase is a BI tool at its core. It however feels nothing like Looker and has a unique feel to it. It felt quite intuitive how its set-up but there’s still quite a steep learning curve, even for a well-seasoned data professional. Also Metabase offers an iFrame implementation for embedding. An added advantage of Metabase is that they are...
Source: medium.com
Best 8 Redash Alternatives in 2023 [In Depth Guide]
Like Looker, Ploty doesn’t list its pricing on the official website. You’ll have to complete their web form and speak with a team member to receive a custom price quote. When completing the form, you’ll have to mention whether you’re a professional or a student.
Source: www.datapad.io
8 Alternatives to Apache Superset That’ll Empower Start-ups and Small Businesses with BI
Tableau, Trevor.io and Metabase can work as Looker alternatives. We also wrote an article on customer-Hosted Looker alternatives.
Source: trevor.io
Top 10 Data Analysis Tools in 2022
Looker Looker provides embedded analytics for users; speeding up the creation of data-driven applications. Looker Enterprise can cost up to $5,000 per month. Looker is a cloud-based data analysis platform that can provide medium to large-sized companies with all they need for data analysis. However, Looker is limited to working with SQL databases.
Best Google Data Studio Alternatives (Self-Service BI)
Looker is a modern analytics and BI platform that enables users to integrate, explore, and visualize data. Looker is primarily deployed in the cloud. Core to its approach is its data modeling language, LookML, in which data analysts write code to define business metrics and manipulate data. The platform supports a wide range of data sources and visualizations and can be...

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Apache Spark should be more popular than Looker. It has been mentiond 56 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Apache Spark mentions (56)

  • Groovy 🎷 Cheat Sheet - 01 Say "Hello" from Groovy
    Recently I had to revisit the "JVM languages universe" again. Yes, language(s), plural! Java isn't the only language that uses the JVM. I previously used Scala, which is a JVM language, to use Apache Spark for Data Engineering workloads, but this is for another post 😉. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • 🦿🛴Smarcity garbage reporting automation w/ ollama
    Consume data into third party software (then let Open Search or Apache Spark or Apache Pinot) for analysis/datascience, GIS systems (so you can put reports on a map) or any ticket management system. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Go concurrency simplified. Part 4: Post office as a data pipeline
    Also, this knowledge applies to learning more about data engineering, as this field of software engineering relies heavily on the event-driven approach via tools like Spark, Flink, Kafka, etc. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Five Apache projects you probably didn't know about
    Apache SeaTunnel is a data integration platform that offers the three pillars of data pipelines: sources, transforms, and sinks. It offers an abstract API over three possible engines: the Zeta engine from SeaTunnel or a wrapper around Apache Spark or Apache Flink. Be careful, as each engine comes with its own set of features. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Spark – A micro framework for creating web applications in Kotlin and Java
    A JVM based framework named "Spark", when https://spark.apache.org exists? - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
View more

Looker mentions (14)

  • edit home page to add folder section
    Then in the "foldername" you can have 5 folders, each one for each of the groups. This means that when group1 enters looker.com, his default page will be the "foldername", which contains group1folder (he cannot see the rest of the folders if you have set the permissions correctly for each folder). Source: about 1 year ago
  • Stars, tables, and activities: How do we model the real world?
    Even if you want to make Wide Tables, combining fact and dimensions is often the easiest way to create them, so why not make them available? Looker, for example, is well suited to dimensional models because it takes care of the joins that can make Kimball warehouses hard to navigate for business users. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • dbt for Data Quality Testing & Alerting at FINN
    We take daily snapshots of test results, aggregate them, and send Looker dashboards to the appropriate teams. - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
  • I'm a dev ID 10 T please help me
    Dashboard: I like to use Datastudio because it's easy (just like using google sheets), but you can also try out Looker. Source: over 2 years ago
  • The Data Stack Journey: Lessons from Architecting Stacks at Heroku and Mattermost
    For Growth and larger, I would recommend Looker. The only reason I wouldn't recommend it for the smaller company stages is that the cost is much higher than alternatives such as Metabase. With Looker, you define your data model in LookML, which Looker then uses to provide a drag-and-drop interface for end-users that enables them to build their own visualizations without needing to write SQL. This lets your... - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Apache Spark and Looker, you can also consider the following products

Apache Flink - Flink is a streaming dataflow engine that provides data distribution, communication, and fault tolerance for distributed computations.

Tableau - Tableau can help anyone see and understand their data. Connect to almost any database, drag and drop to create visualizations, and share with a click.

Apache Airflow - Airflow is a platform to programmaticaly author, schedule and monitor data pipelines.

Sisense - The BI & Dashboard Software to handle multiple, large data sets.

Hadoop - Open-source software for reliable, scalable, distributed computing

Microsoft Power BI - BI visualization and reporting for desktop, web or mobile