Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Looker VS StreamSets

Compare Looker VS StreamSets and see what are their differences

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Looker logo Looker

Looker makes it easy for analysts to create and curate custom data experiencesโ€”so everyone in the business can explore the data that matters to them, in the context that makes it truly meaningful.

StreamSets logo StreamSets

StreamSets provides Continuous Ingest technology for the next generation of big data applications.
  • 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.

  • StreamSets Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-13

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.

StreamSets features and specs

  • User-Friendly Interface
    StreamSets provides an intuitive and visually appealing interface for designing and managing data pipelines, making it accessible even for users without extensive coding experience.
  • Real-Time Data Processing
    The platform excels at real-time data ingestion, transformation, and delivery, enabling timely insights and immediate actions on streaming data.
  • Comprehensive Connectors
    StreamSets supports a wide range of data sources and destinations out of the box, including cloud services, databases, and big data platforms, ensuring versatility in data integration tasks.
  • Data Drift Management
    It offers robust features for detecting and managing data drift, helping maintain data quality and consistency over time as source schemas evolve.
  • Scalability
    StreamSets is designed to scale effortlessly with increasing data volumes and can handle large-scale data pipelines efficiently.

Possible disadvantages of StreamSets

  • Cost
    The pricing model can be expensive, particularly for small to mid-sized enterprises, making it less accessible for organizations with limited budgets.
  • Learning Curve
    Although the interface is user-friendly, mastering the platform's advanced features and configurations may require a significant learning curve.
  • Resource Intensive
    Running StreamSets can be resource-intensive, requiring substantial computational and memory resources, which may lead to higher operational costs.
  • Limited Custom Scripting
    While StreamSets offers many in-built functionalities, it provides limited scope for custom scripting compared to other data pipeline tools, which may restrict flexibility for complex custom tasks.
  • Dependency on Internet Connectivity
    For cloud-based deployments, the performance and reliability of StreamSets can be heavily dependent on internet connectivity, which could be a concern for organizations with unstable connections.

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 StreamSets

Overall verdict

  • Yes, StreamSets is considered to be a good option for organizations seeking a comprehensive data integration and pipeline management solution. Its ability to support complex data workflows and provide detailed insights into data processing makes it a valuable tool for data engineers and IT operations teams.

Why this product is good

  • StreamSets is regarded positively due to its user-friendly interface and robust data integration features. It supports a wide range of data sources, providing flexibility for diverse data workflows. The platform is designed to handle both batch and streaming data, which is essential for organizations looking to manage real-time data processing and automation effectively. Additionally, StreamSets offers strong data observability features, which help in monitoring and optimizing data pipelines.

Recommended for

  • Organizations that require both batch and real-time data processing
  • Data engineers seeking a versatile and intuitive pipeline management tool
  • Companies looking to improve data observability and pipeline monitoring
  • Businesses with diverse data sources that need seamless integration

Looker videos

Looker Review

More videos:

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

StreamSets videos

What is StreamSets Transformer?

More videos:

  • Review - Making Apache Kafka Dead Easy With StreamSets | DZone.com Webinar
  • Review - Power Your Delta Lake with Streaming Transactional Changes - Rupal Shah (StreamSets)

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Looker and StreamSets)
Data Dashboard
100 100%
0% 0
Continuous Integration And Delivery
Business Intelligence
100 100%
0% 0
DevOps Tools
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 StreamSets

Looker Reviews

Top 10 BI Tools in 2026 (with Pricing, AI Features & Enterprise Fit)
Looker like business intelligence platforms include tools that offer governed data models, embedded analytics, real-time dashboards, and scalable cloud performance. These platforms are ideal for organizations that need consistent metrics, strong data governance, and customizable analytics similar to what Looker provides.
Source: supaboard.ai
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, weโ€™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.

StreamSets Reviews

We have no reviews of StreamSets yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Looker should be more popular than StreamSets. It has been mentiond 14 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.

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: over 3 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 3 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 / over 4 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 4 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 4 years ago
View more

StreamSets mentions (2)

  • Best way to automate JSON to CSV/Relational Tables at scale? Anyone have used Flexter?
    If you would like to take a look at https://streamsets.com/ the Data Collector product can handle this for you as well as dynamically generate the target tables. It has a number of functions to handle your JSON no matter the complexity. However, given the dynamic nature it may benefit to touch base so please feel free to chat or message me. Source: about 4 years ago
  • Data engineering in reality
    StreamSets offers a free tier and free option for training. You can build, run, and manage your pipelines in one place. Source: over 4 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Looker and StreamSets, 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.

Puppet Enterprise - Get started with Puppet Enterprise, or upgrade or expand.

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

Terraform - Tool for building, changing, and versioning infrastructure safely and efficiently.

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

Packer - Packer is an open-source software for creating identical machine images from a single source configuration.