Looker vs Sisense

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.

Sisense is an AI analytics platform for modeling, visualizing, and embedding analytics in applications. It supports web, API, and self-hosted use, with hybrid deployment and real-time data refresh. Teams can connect through live, ElastiCube, or hybrid approaches; listed data sources include Snowflake, Amazon Redshift, Google BigQuery, and Azure Synapse. Analytics can be embedded with iframes, SDKs, or APIs, including Compose SDK. Its AI features include natural-language queries, narratives, forecasts, and trend analysis. Governed semantics, semantic enrichment, and access controls help align analytics and AI with consistent business definitions. Sisense also says MCP can let tools such as ChatGPT and Claude access governed data models and return structured insights. Row-level security and scheduled reports are available. The Self-Serve plan is intended for startups and growing teams and includes data connections, natural-language queries, auto-narratives, an assistant, and embedding. Enterprise adds SaaS, dedicated cloud, or on-premises deployment, column-level security, SSO, a 99.99% Premium SLA, and the full Sisense Intelligence AI suite. Sisense offers a full-featured 7-day trial; there is no free plan, and pricing is available on request.