Looker vs Qlik Sense
Looker
cloud.google.com
Qlik Sense
qlik.comSide by side
| Figure | Looker | Qlik Sense |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | $300/mo |
| Free plan | — | — |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | Yes |
| Android | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 3 | 8 |
| Spec score · Business Intelligence Tools | 8.5 (#20) | 9.1 (#4) |
| Spec score · Bi Platforms | 8.2 (#10) | 8.6 (#5) |
| Spec score · Business Intelligence & Analytics - Midmarket Software | 8.2 (#9) | 8.7 (#4) |
| Spec score · Self Service Analytics | 8.1 (#9) | 8.6 (#5) |
| Spec score · Business Intelligence & Analytics - Enterprise Software | 8.2 (#11) | 8.6 (#6) |
| Spec score · Business Analytics | 8.2 (#10) | 8.7 (#5) |
| Spec score · Dashboards | 8.1 (#13) | 8.6 (#8) |
| Spec score · Data Analytics Software | 8.2 (#18) | 8.5 (#12) |
| Deployment | hybrid | hybrid |
| Embedded analytics | Looker APIs, SDKs, and iframe embedding let developers build analytics and conversational experiences into applications. | Yes |
| Free plan | No | No |
| Natural-language queries | Yes | Yes |
| Refresh frequency | hourly | hourly |
| Row-level security | Yes | Yes |
| Scheduled reports | Yes | Yes |
| Support | Developer user licensing includes access to Support, while standard and viewer user licensing does not. | The Starter plan includes Qlik Community Support, while Standard includes 24x7 severity-one support. |
| Trial | Google advertises a free 14-day Looker trial. | The full-version Qlik Cloud Analytics trial lasts 30 days, requires no credit card, and allows users to include their own data. |
Plans
Qlik Sense
- Starter$300 a month
- Standard$825 a month
- Premium$2,750 a month
- EnterprisePriced on request
- Starter$300 a month
- Standard$825 a month
- Premium$2,750 a month
- EnterprisePriced on request
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.
Qlik Sense
Qlik Sense is an analytics product Qlik describes as the foundation for Qlik Cloud Analytics. The cloud offering provides interactive dashboards and visualizations for exploring data, alongside automated insights, forecasting and trend detection. Qlik Answers lets users ask questions about their data and find connections. Teams can automate and share reports, and connect third-party apps; Qlik says its Connector Factory provides access to hundreds of applications and data sources. Listed capabilities include hourly refresh, row-level security, scheduled reports, embedded analytics and natural-language queries. Deployment is hybrid, with custom plans available for customers hosting on their own IT infrastructure. Qlik Cloud Analytics region options include North America, Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan and Singapore. Qlik Sense Desktop is available for Windows 10 and Windows 11, with 4 GB minimum memory and 5 GB installation space listed. Starter costs $300 a month, billed annually for 10 users. Standard costs $825 a month, billed annually; Premium costs $2,750 a month, billed annually. Enterprise pricing is available by quote.