Google Data Studio (Looker Studio) vs Microsoft Power BI

Google Data Studio (Looker Studio)

The connector gallery is the strongest part: 1,470 connectors claimed with native PostgreSQL, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Redshift, Snowflake and BigQuery with custom queries, plus partner connectors for Shopify, Stripe, Salesforce and the ad platforms we spend on, and a developer platform for custom connectors. Blending data from different sources is documented. We found no public information on refresh intervals, incremental refresh or how to reach a database behind our firewall, so the operational half of connectivity stays unconfirmed.

Microsoft Power BI

The captured pages show connections made through Power Query with per-connector documentation stating whether live queries (DirectQuery) are supported, gateway operations in the REST API, and distribution of reports behind the company firewall — so a PostgreSQL warehouse and an on-premises path are addressed in principle, and caching behaviour of multiple queries is even explained. I did not find the connector list itself, a refresh interval, or anything on combining several sources in one model.

Google Data Studio (Looker Studio)

A drag-and-drop editor with pixel-perfect or snap-to-grid canvas, reports with filters and multiple pages, customizable visualizations, a mobile app and alerts that fire when a chart meets criteria are all documented. We found no public information on the breadth of the chart library, pivot tables, drill-down, cross-filtering, templates or German number and date formats on the captured pages.

Microsoft Power BI

Documented are a drag-and-drop freeform canvas with modern visualisations, interactive plus paginated reports, consumption on web and mobile, and scaling to thousands of users. The pages do not describe chart types, pivot tables, maps, dashboard filters, drill-down, theming, German number and date formats or accessibility, so I cannot judge the breadth a dashboard read daily by every department needs.

Google Data Studio (Looker Studio)

Gemini lets Pro users ask questions of their data and create calculated fields from natural-language prompts, BigQuery custom queries give analysts SQL in that one connector, and blending joins sources — but we found no public information on a visual query builder for colleagues, a shared metric layer, definitions in version control, or the query behind an AI answer, which is exactly the consistency problem I live with. The only semantic-model path shown is the Looker connector, which presupposes Looker.

Microsoft Power BI

Authoring happens on a drag-and-drop canvas in Power BI Desktop, and the REST API exposes datasets and dataflows as managed objects, which hints at a dataset layer. But the captured pages say nothing about a SQL editor, a visual query builder for colleagues, metrics defined once in a model, version control, or natural-language questions that show the query they ran — exactly the things that would stop every department computing revenue differently.

Google Data Studio (Looker Studio)

Sharing with individuals, groups or the world, embedding in any web page or intranet, scheduled delivery with up to 200 schedules per report including Google Chat, chart-level alerts, and personal links that let recipients explore their own copy are all documented. We found no public information on email delivery with PDF attachments, export to Excel, Slack or Teams delivery, or signed embedding with row-level filtering per viewer.

Microsoft Power BI

Reports can be shared with users for web and mobile consumption, and embedding is a first-class API concern: an embed capability, embedding tokens, a.NET SDK and dedicated Power BI Embedded capacities managed through Azure are documented. Scheduled email or chat delivery, threshold alerts and export to PDF or Excel are not described on the captured pages.

Google Data Studio (Looker Studio)

Team workspaces with Manager, Content Manager and Contributor roles, project-level IAM, organisation-owned assets, customer-managed encryption keys and data residency are documented for Pro, and an API can search and manage assets — but it only surfaces metadata such as title and owner, not filters or dimensions, and requires Google Workspace or Cloud Identity. We found no public information on row-level security, audit logs, single sign-on, development and production environments, or a reusable export format for dashboards; the documented exit is a Google-account content export, so leaving would still mean rebuilding reports.

Microsoft Power BI

Folders with access management, an extensive documented REST API covering administrator operations, apps, pipelines and users, Azure AD or Microsoft Identity Platform authentication with service principals, and a dedicated on-premises edition (Power BI Report Server) running behind our own firewall are all evidenced — that edition matters to my exit path. Row-level security, single sign-on per plan, audit logs and export of dashboards and definitions in a reusable format are not described, so the way out cannot be verified from these pages alone.

Google Data Studio (Looker Studio)

The contracting entity for users in the European Economic Area is Google Ireland Limited in Dublin, with a published Cloud Data Processing Addendum and a subprocessor list, and AI-training processing for European services is controlled from Dublin; Pro adds data residency and customer-managed storage. But the privacy policy states servers are operated worldwide, users in the United Kingdom fall under Google LLC in Mountain View, and we found no public information on security certifications or per-subprocessor locations.

Microsoft Power BI

Microsoft commits under the EU Data Boundary to store and process customer data for Power Platform in EU datacentres, naming countries including Germany, and a Data Protection Addendum is published for download. Against that, the provider of record is Microsoft Corporation in the USA, Microsoft Deutschland GmbH expressly disclaims being the provider, the pages acknowledge continued transfers outside the boundary in limited circumstances and processing of API request and response data in datacentres outside the tenant's home region, and no subprocessor list, extract and cache locations or security certifications appear on the captured pages.

Google Data Studio (Looker Studio)

Both tiers are public — the base product at no charge for creators and report viewers, Pro at "$9 per user per project per month" with a 30-day trial of unlimited users that can be cancelled free — and upgrading is self-service. However, the Pro price "varies depending on the length of the customer's subscription" with no published scale, technical support requires a separately purchased Google Cloud support plan, and we found no public information on VAT treatment, Pro viewer licensing or the cost of partner connectors such as Supermetrics, so an annual total for our setup is not computable.

Microsoft Power BI

The German product page offers a free trial download and shows only a "Preise anzeigen" link, with no prices stated on the page itself. I found no public information on seat or viewer pricing, which features sit in higher tiers, capacity or embedding costs, so an annual figure cannot be computed from the captured pages.