Looker Studio (Google Data Studio) is a dashboard tool that allows users to connect to several connectors, and create charts and visualizations to analyze data and explore insights. With its intuitive interface, there is no doubt that Looker Studio is so familiar to many marketers and business users around the world with its wealth of features. Though Looker Studio is a free data visualization tool, it has some limitations that make you look for other options.

We reviewed some of the best Looker Studio alternatives that you can consider to visualize data for better data-driven decisions. These are Dataflake, Tableau, Domo, Metabase, and Redash.

In this article, you will get a complete comparison among these data visualization tools and find out which one is the best fit for your business.

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Why should you look for Looker Studio Alternatives

As mentioned before, although Looker Studio's price costs zero, some restrictions might not serve your needs. Let's find out what they are!

Looker Studio is not really free

Looker Studio allows you to connect to hundreds of connectors without charging any fees. Nevertheless, it is exclusively for connectors provided by Google itself. Therefore, concerning Looker Studio Price, you need to pay if you want to use other data sources to connect with Looker Studio, for example, Semrush, Ahrefs, and Spotify.

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Lack of auto real-time data

We got some reviews from G2 that when using Looker Studio, they found difficulty in refreshing data to ensure 100% data is accurate. If they want to obtain real-time data, they need to install plugins or extensions 

Insufficient customizable elements

Looker Studio limits to 50 components per page for visualizing data. Some of the other chart types might be limited, too. Therefore, it isn’t for large businesses or agencies.

Despite having customizable functionality, Looker Studio‘s customizable possibilities seem limited for users, meanwhile, they can find other data visualization tool providing highly customizable charts and elements that help then create more stunning Dashboards 

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Top 5 Looker Studio Alternatives

Dataflake

Dataflake is a highly customizable data visualization tool that allows users to easily create enticing Dashboards. Quickly yield insights and deliver them to stakeholders. Dataflake also enables you to securely embed on apps, websites, and portals. 

Core features

Data Visual 

Create insightful and digestible Dashboards at ease. Custom charts and design elements that fit your business

Email delivery

Free up more of your working time by optimizing your recurring heavy tasks with built-in features such as report scheduling.

Embedded Analytics

Securely embed analytics charts or dashboards to any websites or applications. Empower your partners or customers with quality insights

Real-time collaboration (coming soon)

Edit your queries, communicate, and add reviews with your teammates to track the health of queries. Also, quickly see all query changes to get work done faster. All is in just one place.

Data Catalog (coming soon)

No need to manually document your data when there are any column or table changes. Data Catalog automatically detects and tells you which data of the column has changed.

Signals Monitoring (coming soon)

Select and automatically monitor your metrics. Getting alerted via multiple channels if your selected metrics exceed data thresholds that are set.

Data Quality Monitoring (coming soon)

Constantly monitor your data to ensure fewer data downtime and errors. Keep posted on Data Freshness and Data Volume. Alerting users to any data quality problem

DataflakeBOT (coming soon)

Level up business insights with automated DataflakeBOT. Let the automated BOT answer your questions right away based on the condition setting, so you don't need to jump across multiple dashboards.

Why Dataflake is Looker Studio alternative

To be fair, Dataflake and Looker Studio are free to use. However, Dataflake will cost you little after May, and Looker Studio's price is not 100% free. You need to pay more if you want to connect data sources that aren’t provided by Google.  

In terms of customization possibilities, Looker Studio lacks in customizing Dashboard, meanwhile, Dataflake allows you to highly custom Dashboard with customizable charts and styling options like working on a design tool 

Pricing

Dataflake is now in the initial stage, therefore, it is 100% free to access three core features: Data visual, Email Delivery, and Embedded Analytics. It takes effect until May. From May and ongoing, you just need to pay 10$/month to experience the remaining features. A free trial is allowed. 

Pros

• Several styling options for charts and elements
• Securely share and embed the dashboard
• Collaborative Queries, Track KPIs, data anomaly, data incident, and data quality at very competitive prices (these features will come soon in August)

Cons

Steep learning curves ( you have to need SQL to get data)

Not too many Data Sources

Not ideal for large businesses

 Tableau

Tableau is considered the favorite BI tool across departments such as IT, sales, marketing, HR, business operation, etc. It is mostly the first choice for data individuals when it comes to enticing visualization, interactive charts, business forecasts, etc. 

Features

• Access, visualize, and analyze data with an intuitive drag and drop interface 
• Accelerate live visual analytics for data exploration. Combine, clean, and build powerful calculations without writing code. 
• Data Preparation combine, shape, and clean data for analysis
• Get predictions and recommendations with machine learning (ML), Einstein Discovery, to make smarter decisions 
• Make smarter decisions with what-if scenario planning, guided model building, AI-powered predictions
• Seamlessly embed data into products and applications 
• Share and collaborate on data with the whole team across departments. Get notified via Slack on any data issues 

Pricing

Tableau is classified into the role of users: Creator, Explorer, and Viewer. 

For deploying on the Tableau cloud 

If you are a creator, it charges $70/per user/month. Explorer pays $42/per user/month. The viewer is charger $15/user/month 

For deploying on-premises or Public Cloud

The creator must pay $70/per user/month. Explorer and Viewer are cheaper at $35 and $12 per user per month respectively 

Tableau also offer 14-day free trial  

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Pros

• Rich variety of charts and interactive interface 
• Support many data connections 
• The capability of visualising complex data 

Cons

• Steep learning curves (you need to have some technical skills)
• Functional limitation 

Domo

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Domo is a business intelligence platform for large enterprises and small businesses. It helps to build interactive Dashboards through visualization, for more actionable insights 

Features

• Over 150 Chart types and 7000+ custom map choices, supporting drag-and-drop analysis to easily visualize data  
• integrate cloud systems with over 1,000 pre-built connectors.
• Automate routine work like schedule sending reports, embed analytics to websites and apps
•  Interact with the dashboard by computer, tablet, or device 
• Track data changes, ensure data quality, and enable notifications

Pricing

There are 3 options for Domo pricing

Standard: $83.00

Professional: $160.000

Enterprise: $190.000

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Pros

• Support interaction with Dashboard for mobile
• Fulfilled setup guides

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Cons

• Price seems to be high for small businesses
• Not interactive UX/UI design 

Metabase

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Metabase is a BI tool that helps you analyze data by creating Charts and Dashboards, using data from multiple Data Sources. The platform is used by over 45,000 businesses around the world 

Features

• Allow to use Visual SQL Builder (help dealing with aggregations, joins, etc) or write native SQL to visualize and create dashboards to make data-driven decisions
•  Share and embed visualization in publications, presentations, etc
•  Provide 15+ built-in visualization types to create stunning charts 

Pricing

There are 2 options you want to deploy: Cloud (Metabase as a service) and On-Prem ( Manage it yourself)

• Cloud

Starter: $85/month (include 5 users, then $5/user/month)

Pro: $500/ month (include 10 users, then $10/user/month)

Enterprise: Contact sales 

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• On- Prem

Open Source: Free

Pro: $500/month ( include 10 users, then $10/per user/month)

For Enterprise: Contact sales 

You are allowed to have a free trial before deciding purchase or not 

Pros

• Easily use, especially for beginners
• No need steep learning curve thanks to the visual SQL builder

Cons

• Limited customs for option fields 
• Some reviews said that it has poor UX/UI 

Redash

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Redash is a Business Intelligence tool that enables to connect to data sources, and query and build dashboards to share with stakeholders

Features

• Own an online SQL editor so that users can create queries and schema
• Various formats like chart, cohort, pivot table, map, Sankey, etc. Use drag-and-drop to resize any visualizations 
• Share dashboards with teammates, and stakeholders via URL or embed widgets anywhere
• Custom alerts to get notified based on thresholds they are set before 

Pricing

Redash doesn’t show pricing options on its website. Therefore, you might contact their sales to get proper quotations that meet your business needs

Pros

• Easy to connect Data Sources and query
• Simple to use

Cons

• Data visualization is not pretty and slow loading time 
• Must know SQL 

Custom Dashboard with many styling elements

Despite Looker Studio's pros and cons, so as with other BI tools, it is also a great tool for users. However, if you are an SME founder and looking for a suitable data visualization tool among these Looker Studio alternatives

But when it comes to customizable data visualization, you undoubtedly want your dashboard to be stunning and insightful so that you can effectively deliver to the right stakeholders. Moreover, when there are many BI tools out there, you just need a data visualization tool that automates and facilitates your workflow such as collaborative queries, tracking data anomalies, ensuring data quality, alerts, etc. 

Dataflake is an excellent tool for you to do so. Sign up and you can get completely free access to Dataflake and start creating your first customizable Dashboard 

• The free offer will last until May. After May, you just need to spend a snippet of the fee
• For Data Anomaly, Data Incident, and Data Quality features, you can check our roadmaps to be the first ones to experience these features