Lightdash vs Looker
Lightdash
lightdash.com
Looker
cloud.google.comSide by side
| Figure | Lightdash | Looker |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | — |
| Free plan | — | — |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | — | Yes |
| Android | — | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 3 | 3 |
| Spec score · Business Intelligence & Analytics - Midmarket Software | 7.2 (#18) | 8.2 (#9) |
| Spec score · Self Service Analytics | 7.1 (#19) | 8.1 (#9) |
| Spec score · Bi Platforms | 7.1 (#23) | 8.2 (#10) |
| Spec score · Data Analytics Software | 7.1 (#27) | 8.2 (#18) |
| Spec score · Dashboards | 7.1 (#24) | 8.1 (#13) |
| Spec score · Business Analytics | 7.2 (#21) | 8.2 (#10) |
| Spec score · Business Intelligence & Analytics - Enterprise Software | 7.2 (#24) | 8.2 (#11) |
| Spec score · Business Intelligence Tools | 7.0 (#79) | 8.5 (#20) |
| Deployment | hybrid | hybrid |
| Embedded analytics | Yes | Looker APIs, SDKs, and iframe embedding let developers build analytics and conversational experiences into applications. |
| Free plan | Yes | No |
| Natural-language queries | Yes | Yes |
| Refresh frequency | real-time | hourly |
| Row-level security | Yes | Yes |
| Scheduled reports | Yes | Yes |
Plans
Lightdash
- Open SourcePrice not published
- Cloud Pro$3,000 a month
- EnterprisePrice not published
In their own words
Looker
Looker helps organizations explore, share, and visualize company data for business decisions. Its LookML semantic models define dimensions, aggregates, calculations, and relationships, then use those definitions to generate SQL queries. Gemini-powered natural-language analytics lets users ask questions, while Dashboard Agents provide summaries and explorations grounded in governed metrics. Looker connects to BigQuery, Spanner, Cloud SQL for MySQL, Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL, and other Google services. The Looker Marketplace offers applications, prebuilt LookML models, visualizations, and actions for delivering data to third-party services. Listed capabilities include hourly refresh, row-level security, scheduled reports, and embedded analytics. Deployment is hybrid, with web, Android, iOS, API, and self-hosted options. Mobile apps let users view Looks and dashboards. Google documents TLS 1.2 or later for data in transit and AES-256 encryption for locally stored sensitive application data. A free 14-day trial is advertised, but there is no free plan. Standard, Enterprise, and Embed each list one production instance, 10 Standard Users, and two Developer Users; their API call allowances differ. Pricing is on request.