Looker vs Orbit Analytics

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Our analysts compared Looker vs Orbit Analytics based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Business Intelligence Tools, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Looker Software Tool

Product Basics

Looker is a web-based analytics solution that offers businesses the ability to explore, discover, visualize and share data insights. Enterprises can view data sources and drill down into data to better understand their business and metrics.

Using a simple proprietary modeling language, this system helps define data relationships while bypassing SQL. It facilitates data literacy and accessibility, irrespective of technical skill levels. It was acquired by Google on June 6, 2019, for $2.9 billion.
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Orbit, which stands for Operational Reporting and Business Intelligence Technology, provides self-service advanced analytics to businesses for on-demand, data-driven decision-making. It pulls data from a wide range of sources, including Microsoft Excel, and enables high-performance data analysis through visualization and reporting. Connecting to more than 200 business applications, it ensures data integrity and security compliance across platforms.

Leveraging R for statistical computing, it empowers businesses to make accurate and timely business decisions.
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Product Insights

  • Real-Time Data: Keep up to date on the most recent numbers through real-time updates to dashboards and other visualizations.
  • Local Database: Uses an organization’s proprietary database to collect data — no need to rely on parallel data pipelines or data extracts.
  • Self-Service BI: Explore data through the self-serve function and then refine the automatically generated visualizations. Create custom dashboards to reflect specific KPIs based on the business’ specific needs.
  • Virtual Schema: Create live connections to over 35 SQL databases through a code-based virtual query-time schema. Keeps data visualizations secure and up-to-date.
  • Embedded Analytics: Embeddable through SSO, it can deploy into third-party solutions like a CRM or ERP as an embedded iframe or through Javascript. Empowers other software solutions with BI capabilities including reliable data, self-service analytics, actionable insights and intuitive dashboards.
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  • Improved Business Decisions: Drive innovation, boost efficiencies and increase revenue through better-informed business decisions. Identify opportunities and spot data trends by surfacing accurate and updated information. Analyze past insights to uncover previously undiscovered data relationships and define future strategy. 
  • Data Integration: Connects out-of-the-box to more than 200 applications like Oracle E-Business Suite, MS-Excel, PeopleSoft, Microsoft Office, Taleo, Salesforce and more. Breaks down data silos to aggregate information from a multitude of disparate data sources. Pulls data from cloud-based, on-premise and hybrid databases. 
  • Advanced Analytics: Forecast business trends by using what-if analyses, scenario modeling and decision trees. Discover patterns, relationships and outliers in data to make informed decisions. Pull data from disparate sources for multidimensional predictive analysis through crosstabs and other visualization types. 
  • Ad-Hoc Reporting: Get answers to data questions faster through its intelligent query generator. Gain in-depth, real-time data insights through easy drag-and-drop, filtering and slice-and-dice actions. Add visual context to reporting insights with geospatial data relationships and plan ahead. 
  • Tell Data Stories: Create visually compelling, interactive data visualizations from proprietary information, unifying disparate data sets into one single dashboard. Display complex information through simple visuals like charts, maps and graphs and easily digestible dashboard summaries. Share visualizations with others by embedding into business applications and exporting to PDFs. 
  • Cloud BI: Reduce the cost of ownership through a flexible cloud solution that combines enterprise-class analytics with an autonomous data warehouse. Integrates with existing on-premise and cloud-based data sources to deliver real-time reporting and analytics. 
  • Data Security: Secures data through built-in row and column-level access permissions based on roles. Automatically syncs with business applications and aligns with pre-existing security rules, account profiles and team member roles. 
  • Deploy Anywhere: Deploys on-premise, in the cloud and in hybrid solutions. 
  • Mobility: View and share mobile-optimized dashboards and reports on the go. Create custom reports, or build from more than 1,000 pre-built templates to share business insights with others. Click on dashboard objects like charts and graphs to drill down into proprietary data for deeper insight. 
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  • Automated Modeling: Connects to relational databases and automatically generates models from the database schema.
  • Intuitive Visualizations: Generates visualizations in real time directly from the specified data source. Choose from an expansive library of visualization options like bar graphs, pie charts, Sankey diagrams, spider web charts, sunburst graphs, chord diagrams, heatmaps, funnels, treemaps and many more.
  • Time Zone Handling: Incorporates data seamlessly into the visualization, regardless of what time zone it is coming from.
  • LookML Data Modeling Language: Create scalable, reusable data models through the proprietary SQL-based data modeling language LookML.
  • Pre-Built Analytics Code: Use its Blocks feature as a starting point for building data analytics models with customizable code blocks. Includes optimized SQL patterns, custom visualization options, pre-built data models and more.
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  • Reporting: Create reports from more than 1,000 pre-built reporting templates or build custom ones. Aggregate data from multiple sources and combine it into pixel-perfect reports. Create document templates within Word and Excel, and then add data and publish in Excel, HTML or PDF formats for sharing. 
  • Integrate with Excel: Upload data as Excel files to perform ad-hoc data analysis through easy drag-and-drop actions. Filter specific data fields or slice and dice to view pertinent business metrics. Or, pull live data directly into Excel from one or more business applications and run multiple reports at the same time. 
  • Data Modeling: Build models through associative querying and aggregation of multi-dimensional data through Star Schema and Snowflake queries. Get data insights from OLAP cubes and third-party data sources with customizable options for deeper analysis. 
  • Metadata Management: Customize, reuse, capture and publish data dimensions, hierarchies, performance metrics, KPIs and report layout parameters. Store key metadata objects separately from application databases, enabling faster retrieval, when needed. 
  • Integration with Python and R: Create analytical models from live data by using R and Python. The R Statistics and Python libraries are embedded within its BI server. 
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Product Ranking

#4

among all
Business Intelligence Tools

#373

among all
Business Intelligence Tools

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User Sentiment Summary

Great User Sentiment 1836 reviews
Excellent User Sentiment 4 reviews
88%
of users recommend this product

Looker has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 88% when considering 1836 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

95%
of users recommend this product

Orbit Analytics has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 95% when considering 4 user reviews from 2 recognized software review sites.

5.0 (20)
n/a
4.4 (1070)
4.8 (3)
4.6 (141)
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4.4 (371)
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4.1 (234)
4.5 (1)

Awards

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Orbit Analytics stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Reporting: Looker features strong reporting features that offer a degree of granularity and scheduling that 100% of users who mention reporting evaluate as a strong benefit.
Support: Of the users who say they’ve contacted customer support, 95% say the team’s quick and informative responses are a plus.
Data Accessibility: All users who mention accessibility to data say Looker does this well, distributing insights to employees across departments and teams with ease, with 100% of users mentioning this feature believing it is a benefit.
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Free to Use: Orbit is free for everyone to use, which makes it a great option for businesses of all sizes.
Easy to Set Up: Orbit is easy to set up and use, even for users who are not familiar with web analytics. Users have praised the platform for its intuitive design and straightforward implementation process.
Comprehensive Data: Orbit provides a comprehensive view of website traffic, including page views, unique visitors, bounce rate, and more. This data can be used to track website performance and identify areas for improvement.
Customizable Reports: Orbit allows users to create custom reports to track the specific metrics that are most important to them. This flexibility is highly valued by users who need tailored insights.
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Learning Curve: About 74% of users who touch on the platform’s ease of use say that the confusing documentation, lack of training opportunities and difficulty of using programming language make Looker a tough tool to pick up as a beginner.
Setup: Of the users who mention implementation, 81% say that setting up the platform is difficult, with integrations not being as plug-and-play as competitors and assistance from IT necessary to the setup process.
Speed: Approximately 87% of users who comment on the platform’s speed say that it is slow to render certain queries and often takes a while to load.
Functionality: About 78% of users who talk about Looker’s features say that they are left wanting many functions and find the ones that it does have limited in customization or too complex to use easily.
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Sampling Issues: For high-traffic websites, Orbit Analytics may extrapolate data based on a subset, leading to potential inaccuracies in metrics like bounce rate or session duration.
Limited Real-Time Reporting: Orbit Analytics doesn't offer truly real-time data updates, making it less suitable for situations demanding immediate insights, such as monitoring the impact of a flash sale.
Complex Interface: Some users find the interface overwhelming, especially those new to web analytics or accustomed to more user-friendly tools.
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Looker is a forerunner in the business intelligence field for a reason; it generates reports that include easy sharing via link, automatic scheduling and a level of granular detail that allows for deeper analysis below the surface. It excels in its filter and drill-down features and creates unique URLs when users make changes to data, leading to enhanced sharing. However, one of its biggest strengths could also be considered one of its biggest weaknesses: its proprietary programming language, LookML which is used to construct SQL queries in the platform. While a flexible and powerful data querying language, of course, LookML isn’t the most accessible to non-technical users, which means that Looker requires an IT or data team to access its full capabilities and has a steep learning curve. Users also note that its data visualizations, while simple and easy to understand, are quite basic and lacking in customization options, particularly in comparison to competitors. Some users say that it may be more appropriate for internal reporting than presentation to shareholders and end-users because of its bare-bones visualization options. However, Looker truly shines when used by enterprises, with its scalability and data accessibility making it a stellar solution that can align departments and provide thousands of users access to data insights. Its price point reflects this, with its pricing being prohibitive to startups as about 88% of users who comment on its cost remark. Overall, Looker is a solid pick for larger businesses that have a team of power users who can maximize its functionality and set it up to deliver to employees across an entire organization.

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Is Orbit Analytics the business intelligence software that will make your insights truly out of this world? Users praise Orbit Analytics for its user-friendly interface, making it easy for even non-techy folks to grasp. They also dig its robust reporting features, which help them whip up insightful reports that actually make sense. One user raved about how Orbit Analytics helped them wrangle a massive dataset into a clear and concise report that impressed higher-ups. However, some users find its predictive analytics capabilities a bit lacking compared to competitors like Tableau or Power BI. They wish it had more advanced forecasting tools to get a better handle on future trends. Overall, Orbit Analytics seems like a good fit for businesses who need a straightforward, user-friendly platform to analyze their data and create reports. If you're looking for cutting-edge predictive analytics, you might want to explore other options.

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