Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Looker VS Google Charts

Compare Looker VS Google Charts and see what are their differences

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.

Google Charts logo Google Charts

Interactive charts for browsers and mobile devices.
  • 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.

  • Google Charts Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-10

Looker features and specs

  • Powerful Data Modeling
    Looker uses LookML, a proprietary modeling language, making it possible to transform raw data into meaningful metrics and dimensions, providing deep insights without needing SQL expertise.
  • Ease of Use
    Its intuitive user interface enables non-technical users to create visualizations and reports with relative ease, reducing the workload on data teams.
  • Customization
    Looker offers extensive customization options for data exploration and visualization, allowing dashboards and reports to be tailored to specific user needs.
  • Embedded Analytics
    Provides robust capabilities for embedding analytics into applications or portals, broadening the scope of data-driven decision-making throughout the organization.
  • Real-time Data
    Supports real-time data analytics by querying live data, which ensures up-to-date insights and helps in making timely decisions.
  • Integrations
    Looker integrates seamlessly with a wide range of databases and cloud data warehouses, including Google BigQuery, Amazon Redshift, and Snowflake.

Possible disadvantages of Looker

  • Learning Curve
    LookML, while powerful, can be complex for beginners who are not already familiar with data modeling or SQL, resulting in a steep learning curve.
  • Cost
    Looker can be expensive, especially for small businesses, as pricing is typically based on the number of users and the data volume processed.
  • Performance
    Query performance can sometimes be slow, especially with complex data models and large data sets, which may impact the user experience.
  • Customization Constraints
    While Looker offers great customization, certain advanced customizations may require significant expertise and time, posing a potential barrier.
  • Limited Offline Capabilities
    Looker is primarily designed for online use, so it lacks robust offline capabilities, which can be a limitation for users who need access to data in situations without internet connectivity.

Google Charts features and specs

  • Easy Integration
    Google Charts can be easily integrated with web applications by adding a simple script tag and using JavaScript for customization.
  • Wide Variety of Chart Types
    Google Charts supports a wide range of chart types including line charts, bar charts, pie charts, and more, allowing for comprehensive data visualization.
  • Dynamic Data Handling
    The library allows for dynamic data handling and real-time updates, enabling interactive and responsive charts.
  • Cross-Browser Compatibility
    Google Charts is compatible with most modern browsers, ensuring a consistent experience across different platforms.
  • Customizable
    Offers extensive customization options such as modifying colors, labels, and tooltips, which allows developers to tailor visualizations to their specific needs.
  • Free to Use
    Google Charts is free to use, making it an appealing choice for developers looking for cost-effective data visualization solutions.
  • Comprehensive Documentation
    Provides extensive documentation and tutorials, which helps developers to quickly get started and resolve issues efficiently.

Possible disadvantages of Google Charts

  • Dependency on Google
    Requires an internet connection to fetch the Google Charts library, and performance can be affected if there are connectivity issues.
  • Limited Customization Compared to Alternatives
    Though customizable, it has fewer options and flexibility compared to other libraries like D3.js, which might be a limitation for advanced users.
  • Load Time
    The initial loading time of Google Charts can be slower compared to lightweight charting libraries due to the need to retrieve data from Google's servers.
  • Security Concerns
    As it relies on loading scripts from Google's servers, there might be security concerns in highly sensitive applications.
  • Not Open Source
    Google Charts is not open source, which might be a barrier for developers who prefer open-source solutions for greater control and transparency.
  • Limited Offline Support
    Static charts cannot be easily generated without an internet connection, limiting its use in offline applications.

Analysis of Looker

Overall verdict

  • Looker is generally considered a robust solution for organizations looking to enhance their data-driven decision-making capabilities. Its flexibility, extensibility, and ease of use make it a strong contender in the BI space, though it may require some learning and setup effort to fully utilize its features.

Why this product is good

  • Looker is a data analytics platform that provides powerful tools for data exploration, visualization, and business intelligence. It offers a user-friendly interface and is known for its ability to connect to a wide variety of data sources. Looker's LookML, a modeling language, allows users to define data relationships and calculations, making it easier to create custom reports and dashboards. Additionally, it integrates well with other tools and supports collaboration with data teams.

Recommended for

  • Companies seeking scalable and flexible business intelligence solutions.
  • Organizations that need to integrate multiple data sources.
  • Teams looking for a collaborative platform with custom reporting capabilities.
  • Users who prefer a code-based approach to data modeling and analysis.

Analysis of Google Charts

Overall verdict

  • Google Charts is a highly recommended option for anyone seeking a robust, versatile, and free charting library. It combines ease of use with advanced capabilities, making it suitable for both beginners and experienced developers.

Why this product is good

  • Google Charts is a powerful and flexible tool for creating a variety of charts and graphs easily. It is well-suited for both simple and complex data visualizations, offering a wide selection of chart types. Moreover, it integrates smoothly with web applications and is highly customizable, allowing users to adjust the look and functionality to fit specific needs. The documentation provided by Google is extensive and helps users to quickly set up and utilize the tool effectively.

Recommended for

  • Web developers looking to add charts to their websites
  • Data analysts needing to visualize complex datasets
  • Business users seeking to create interactive dashboards
  • Educators and students who require data visualization for projects and presentations

Looker videos

Looker Review

More videos:

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

Google Charts videos

Data Visualization for the Web Using Google Charts

More videos:

  • Review - Incorporating Google Charts in a FileMaker Solution | FileMaker Training
  • Review - Google Charts for Native Android Apps

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Looker and Google Charts)
Data Dashboard
80 80%
20% 20
Business Intelligence
93 93%
7% 7
Data Visualization
68 68%
32% 32
Charting Libraries
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 Looker and Google Charts

Looker Reviews

Explore 7 Tableau Alternatives for Data Visualization and Analysis
Looker Studio, formerly Google Data Studio, is a user-friendly business intelligence tool that transforms raw data into interactive, customizable dashboards and reports. It integrates seamlessly with Google's ecosystem and supports various data sources, including Google Analytics and BigQuery. Looker Studio offers robust visualization capabilities and real-time collaborative...
Source: www.draxlr.com
Explore 6 Metabase Alternatives for Data Visualization and Analysis
To find the best Metabase alternative for your business, start by listing your specific requirements, such as customer support, data integrations, visualization options, user access controls, and budget. Compare these needs with the features of other BI tools like Draxlr, Tableau, Power BI, Looker, or Holistics. Once you've identified a few suitable options, take advantage...
Source: www.draxlr.com
5 best Looker alternatives
In this blog, we’ll dive into the best 5 Looker alternatives currently dominating the market. Whether you're seeking a Looker alternative with enhanced features, better pricing, or a more tailored fit for your analytics needs, this guide will help you discover BI tool that could be a perfect match for your business.
Source: www.draxlr.com
10 Best Alternatives to Looker in 2024
Exploring alternatives to Looker isn't just about finding a different tool; it's about uncovering solutions that better address your specific business challenges and operational workflows. Here, we highlight five areas where Looker's limitations might lead you to consider other options.
6 Best Looker alternatives
So who are Looker’s competitors? Our top 5 Looker alternatives provide data visualisation and exploration for business intelligence but also offer lower price points, less of a learning curve, and more accessibility for your non-tech team.
Source: trevor.io

Google Charts Reviews

15 JavaScript Libraries for Creating Beautiful Charts
Google Charts also comes with various customization options that help in changing the look of the graph. Charts are rendered using HTML5/SVG to provide cross-browser compatibility and cross-platform portability to iPhones, iPads, and Android. It also includes VML for supporting older IE versions.
Top 10 JavaScript Charting Libraries for Every Data Visualization Need
Google Charts is an excellent choice for projects that do not require complicated customization and prefer simplicity and stability.
Source: hackernoon.com
A Complete Overview of the Best Data Visualization Tools
Google Charts is a powerful, free data visualization tool that is specifically for creating interactive charts for embedding online. It works with dynamic data and the outputs are based purely on HTML5 and SVG, so they work in browsers without the use of additional plugins. Data sources include Google Spreadsheets, Google Fusion Tables, Salesforce, and other SQL databases.
Source: www.toptal.com
The Best Data Visualization Tools - Top 30 BI Software
Google Charts runs on SVG and HTML5, aiming for Android, iOS and total cross-browser compatibility, including older versions of Internet Explorer. All of the charts you can create are interactive and you may be able zoom in on some of them. The site offers a fairly comprehensive gallery where you can find a variety of types of visualizations and interactions that you can use.
Source: improvado.io

Social recommendations and mentions

Looker might be a bit more popular than Google Charts. We know about 14 links to it since March 2021 and only 10 links to Google Charts. 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.

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 2 years 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 2 years 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 3 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 3 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 3 years ago
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Google Charts mentions (10)

  • The top 11 React chart libraries for data visualization
    This library leverages the robustness of Google’s chart tools combined with a React-friendly experience. It is ideal for developers familiar with Google’s visualization ecosystem. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Using Images in a chart?
    I tried adding the images as labels and it didn't work. If this is possible at all, it would probably require Google Charts. Source: about 2 years ago
  • What are some good graph visualization libraries?
    Google's is a bit simpler to work with but more basic in terms of features https://developers.google.com/chart. Source: over 2 years ago
  • 5 Best Free JS Chart Libraries
    Google charts Https://developers.google.com/chart. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Suggestions for super simple QR code generator
    I did find a nice solution for Access forms where you can use a web browser control and developers.google.com/chart to render a QR code in that control based on the contents of other controls (textboxes, comboboxes, etc.,.). This would be perfect if it didn't a) rely on an active WAN connection and b) rely on that specific URL being active indefinitely. Source: almost 3 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Looker and Google Charts, you can also consider the following products

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.

D3.js - D3.js is a JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data. D3 helps you bring data to life using HTML, SVG, and CSS.

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

Highcharts - A charting library written in pure JavaScript, offering an easy way of adding interactive charts to your web site or web application

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

Chart.js - Easy, object oriented client side graphs for designers and developers.