When shopping for an analytics tool, it can be difficult to dissect the pros and cons without diving into a lengthy trial or POC. Here is a high level comparison between two popular enterprise data platforms, Looker and Knowi.
Looker
Looker is a data visualization tool acquired by Google in 2019. Looker can connect to BigQuery, Redshift, and 60+ other SQL databases. Aside from dashboards and visualizations, Looker has a plethora of capabilities packed in including embedding, actions, and data modeling.
Looker Highlights
- Looker has the ability to create and send dashboards, alerts/reports, embed, create custom visualizations, and more.
- Looker offers version control with Git integration
- Comprehensive sharing and data exploration capabilities
- Looker has an application marketplace with tools that support your everyday Looker tasks
Looker Pricing
Looker pricing and pricing structure are not listed on their website. In order to access their pricing plans, you must speak to a representative and request a quote. A quick internet search on ‘Looker Pricing’ will yield anecdotal quotes if you are interested, but many of these anecdotes do not go into detail on their exact plan details.
Looker Functionality
Looker features include, but are not limited to:
- Application Marketplace
- Dashboards / Visualizations
- Embedding
- Looker Developer Portal
- Machine Learning
- On-premise or Cloud deployment
- Version control with Git integration
- And more
Looker Ease of Use
Looker allows dashboards to be embedded into other applications for easy sharing with your team. Looker requires learning LookML, a Looker-specific query language. If your team isn’t familiar with LookML, there is a bit of a learning curve. Looker also requires ETL (the case for most data viz tools), so something to keep in mind is that you will need a team to manage that transfer and flow of data. Lastly, Looker does not connect to NoSQL databases (as of January 05, 2023).
Knowi
Knowi is a unique all-in-one data analytics platform that reduces the number of tools you need to get from data to insights. Knowi has competitive pricing, a comprehensive list of capabilities, and was designed to be as intuitive as possible. It can connect into both SQL and NoSQL databases as well as external applications such as HubSpot, Quickbooks, and Salesforce at no additional cost.
Knowi Highlights
- Knowi is business user-friendly- you don’t need to know SQL or any other querying language to get your questions answered.
- You don’t need to manually re-run your queries or get a data engineer involved for updated dashboards– your dashboards can be updated automatically in real-time or on a schedule.
- There’s no need to transport or transform your data — Knowi can natively connect directly to your datasource.
- Knowi has the ability to create and send dashboards, alerts/reports, embed, integrate within Slack / Microsoft Teams, and more.
Knowi Pricing
Knowi has pricing options for enterprise-level companies, non-profits, and startups. The pricing is based on your plan (Elevate, Hub, Embed), the number of users, as well as any additional features or functionalities you’d like to add that aren’t already included in your plan of choice. You won’t receive any surprise charges– Knowi has an annual subscription model.
Knowi Functionality
Knowi is packed with features including, but not limited to:
- Custom Visualizations
- Dashboards / Widgets
- Dedicated support team and Knowi community
- Embedding
- External Authentication Using SAML
- Native Datasource Connectivity and Query Language
- Natural Language Processing
- Machine Learning
- Reports / Alerts
- Row-level security
- Slack and Microsoft Teams Integration
- URL / Secure URL dashboard sharing
- And more
Knowi Ease of Use
Knowi was carefully designed to be as intuitive as possible. Each contract comes with onboarding as well as support to get both data roles as well as business user roles oriented to the platform. Knowi simplifies the querying process with the ability to use your data source’s native querying language, drag-and-drop query builder, and/or an in-house SQL-like syntax called Cloud9QL. Business users can ask questions against curated datasets in plain English, right within a dashboard as well as within Slack / Microsoft Teams.
Conclusion
Knowi can work alongside other visualization tools and is quick and easy to set up. It is suitable for you if you are looking for a robust visualization/embed tool or an alternative to the one you are already using. Looker may be suitable for you if you have a team already familiar with Looker, LookML, and have the budget required for the additional tools needed for it to operate.
Takeaways:
- Both enterprise companies and startups would be a good fit for Knowi, while Looker is primarily suited for enterprise customers with a large budget and data team. [NOTE: Looker Studio (free tool rebranded from Google Data Studio) and Looker Studio Pro (paid version) may be good options to explore for startups.]
- Both Knowi and Looker have the option of an on-premise deployment as well as a cloud-hosted environment that is managed for you.
- Looker requires ELT and additional tools in order to transform your raw data into a usable format while Knowi does not.
Depending on your specific use case and current infrastructure, these may be pros or cons for you. You can read more about Knowi here, request a demo, or start a free Knowi trial to test it out for yourself. Here are links to read more about Looker and request a Looker demo.
If you want to compare Looker and Knowi with other data visualization alternatives, see a collaborative comparison of BI tools here.
