Looker vs ThoughtSpot: Best AI-Powered BI Tool for Data Search and Exploration

In today’s age of digital transformation, data drives every decision. Your organization’s ability to leverage data effectively can be the difference between leading the industry and falling behind. When it comes to Business Intelligence (BI) tools powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) for data search and exploration, two names stand out: Looker and ThoughtSpot. As a technology leader, making the right choice in BI tools can seem daunting, but fear not. Let’s go on a journey to unravel the offerings of Looker and ThoughtSpot, to help you make an informed decision that aligns with your business goals.

Understanding the Essentials: What are Looker and ThoughtSpot?

Both Looker and ThoughtSpot aim to empower organizations by transforming raw data into meaningful insights. However, they approach this mission from distinctive perspectives.

Looker: Looker is a cloud-based BI platform that capitalizes on modern data environments and employs a unique approach to querying data directly in your database. As part of Google’s Cloud portfolio, Looker’s strength lies in its data modeling layer, which allows organizations to define metrics and business logic centrally, ensuring consistency across analytics.

ThoughtSpot: ThoughtSpot, on the other hand, introduces a revolutionary way of interacting with data through its AI-driven analytics and search interface. This next-gen platform is designed to provide search-driven analytics where users simply need to enter natural language queries to derive insights from their data, making data exploration accessible to non-technical users.

User Experience: Navigating Through Data

User experience can significantly impact how effectively a tool is used within your organization. Here’s how Looker and ThoughtSpot stack up in this regard:

Looker: Looker provides a streamlined and user-friendly interface aimed at both business users and data analysts. Its LookML language offers a robust way to define data models and create custom dashboards. However, to fully leverage LookML’s capabilities, users typically need a good grasp of SQL and data modeling principles. Despite this learning curve, Looker’s centralized definition of metrics ensures that users access consistent, reliable data across the board.

ThoughtSpot: ThoughtSpot excels in user experience with its intuitive search-driven analytics. Users can type plain English questions and instantly receive visual insights without needing prior knowledge of SQL or complex syntax. This simplicity is a game-changer for business users, fostering a culture of data democratization. ThoughtSpot’s AI capabilities like SpotIQ automatically surface insights, enabling users to discover trends and anomalies they might not have thought to explore.

Integration and Data Sources: Compatibility Matters

In an era where data resides across disparate sources, the ability to integrate seamlessly is crucial.

Looker: Looker’s strength lies in its versatility to connect with a wide range of data sources. It supports both SQL and BigQuery for database connections, allowing for live querying and reducing data duplication. Whether your data is hosted on traditional databases, cloud warehouses, or data lakes, Looker ensures that you can centralize your data organically, providing a unified view for in-depth analysis.

ThoughtSpot: ThoughtSpot also steps up with robust integrations, supporting direct connections with numerous databases, including cloud data warehouses like Snowflake, AWS Redshift, and Google BigQuery. ThoughtSpot’s in-memory calculation engine speeds up query results and supports seamless data interaction across different platforms. This flexibility ensures that ThoughtSpot can blend into a variety of data ecosystems without causing disruptions.

Scalability and Performance: Keeping Up with Growth

A BI tool is only as good as its ability to scale and handle growing data needs without compromising performance.

Looker: Looker’s modern architecture is designed for scalability. By querying data directly in your database, Looker doesn’t require data extraction, thus avoiding performance bottlenecks. As your data scales, Looker’s performance remains consistent, leveraging the underlying database's power. Moreover, Looker’s scalable pricing model aligns well with enterprises of all sizes, making it a preferred choice for growing companies.

ThoughtSpot: ThoughtSpot’s architecture emphasizes speed and performance, even as data scales. Using an innovative in-memory calculation engine, ThoughtSpot ensures that users get rapid responses to their queries. By offloading computation to high-performance memory rather than relying solely on the database, ThoughtSpot maintains speed and efficiency, which is crucial for real-time data exploration.

Advanced Features: Making Data Work Smarter

Differentiating between tools often comes down to the advanced features and how they align with your strategic goals.

Looker: Looker’s advanced features include powerful data modeling capabilities with LookML, the capacity for embedding analytics into other applications, and custom applications that leverage Looker’s data visualization capabilities. It’s ideal for organizations needing bespoke data environments and customized reporting. Additionally, Looker’s API functionality enables integration with other systems, extending its versatility.

ThoughtSpot: ThoughtSpot stands out with its AI-driven analytics capabilities, particularly SpotIQ. This feature automatically analyzes billions of data combinations to uncover insights, trends, and anomalies, augmenting human analysis. ThoughtSpot’s ease of use in embedding analytics within enterprise applications further scales its applicability across various business processes. Furthermore, ThoughtSpot’s NLP (Natural Language Processing) allows even the most complex queries to be converted into comprehensible visualizations.

Security and Compliance: Protecting Your Data

In today's data-sensitive environment, security and compliance are non-negotiable.

Looker: Looker prioritizes security with end-to-end encryption, detailed access controls, and the ability to comply with various regulations, including GDPR and HIPAA. Looker also allows fine-grained control over who can access specific data, ensuring that sensitive information is only available to authorized users.

ThoughtSpot: ThoughtSpot offers a robust security framework that includes role-based access controls, data encryption, and compliance with industry standards such as SOC 2, GDPR, and HIPAA. ThoughtSpot’s security protocols are designed to ensure data integrity and user privacy across its deployments.

Final Thoughts: Which One Should You Choose?

Choosing between Looker and ThoughtSpot ultimately hinges on your organization’s specific needs and strategic direction.

Choose Looker if:

• Your team requires powerful data modeling capabilities.
• You need centralized control over data definitions and consistency.
• Your operations demand extensive backend customization and integration.

Choose ThoughtSpot if:

• You prioritize self-service analytics and empowering non-technical users.
• Rapid, search-driven data exploration aligns with your strategy.
• AI-driven insights and real-time performance are critical components for your data processes.

Both tools offer robust, scalable, and innovative solutions, ensuring your data strategies keep you ahead in the competitive digital landscape. At Deploi, we understand the intricacies of choosing the right technology, and we're here to partner with you in this transformative journey. Contact us today to leverage our expertise in deploying the best-fit BI tool that aligns with your business ambitions.