Google Data Studio (Looker Studio) vs Microsoft Power BI

Google Data Studio (Looker Studio)

The connector gallery claims over 1470 connectors with native connectors for PostgreSQL, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Amazon Redshift, BigQuery with custom queries and Snowflake, plus partner connectors for Salesforce, HubSpot, Shopify and Stripe; data blending and extracts are documented and a developer platform allows building more. For my month-end close, however, I find no DATEV or SAP among the connectors listed, and we found no public information on refresh intervals, incremental refresh or a documented way to reach a database behind our firewall. That breadth without refresh mechanics or on-premise access keeps it short of the strongest showing I could give.

Microsoft Power BI

Power Query is documented as the connection layer, each data-source article states whether DirectQuery live queries are supported, and the API catalogue lists gateways, dataflows and imports — so live versus imported data and a path to on-premises sources exist on paper. But the captured pages name not a single connector — nothing on DATEV, my ERP or even Excel — and refresh appears only as "nach Bedarf", with no schedule or interval stated.

Google Data Studio (Looker Studio)

Interactive reports with filters, multiple pages, a drag-and-drop editor offering a pixel-perfect or snap-to-grid canvas and a mobile app are documented — the pixel-perfect canvas is what I would need for the advisory board printout. We found no public information on the chart library itself: pivot tables, maps, drill-down, templates, German number and date formats and accessibility are not described on the captured pages. So I score what is shown: interactive, filterable, mobile, but without evidence of the depth a controller relies on.

Microsoft Power BI

A drag-and-drop freeform canvas with modern visualizations, interactive plus paginated reports, and consumption on web and mobile scaling to thousands of users are all stated — the paginated reports are exactly what I need for the advisory board pack. We found no public information on the captured pages about chart types, filters, drill-down, KPI tiles or German number and date formats, so the depth of interactivity cannot be judged from this evidence.

Google Data Studio (Looker Studio)

Gemini in the Pro edition lets users ask questions about their data and create calculated fields from natural-language prompts, and there is a native connector to Looker semantic models — a route to defining a metric once, but through another product. We found no public information on a governed metric layer inside Data Studio itself, on definitions under version control, or on whether the AI answers show the query they ran. One contribution-margin definition on every page is what I need, and the evidence does not yet reach that.

Microsoft Power BI

Authoring by drag-and-drop in Power BI Desktop, Power Query as the preparation path, and datasets and dataflows in the API catalogue give business users a place to model. We found no public information on the captured pages about a shared metric layer, calculated fields, a SQL editor or version-controlled definitions, so my requirement of one contribution-margin definition on every page is not addressed.

Google Data Studio (Looker Studio)

Sharing with individuals, teams or the world, embedding in any web page or intranet, personal report links, alerts when a chart meets specified criteria, and up to 200 delivery schedules per report with delivery to Google Chat are all documented. We found no public information on scheduled email delivery as PDF or image, on Slack or Microsoft Teams, or on export to PDF, PowerPoint or Excel. That leaves me in the middle: colleagues can get the numbers, but the print path for the advisory board stays unclear.

Microsoft Power BI

Sharing reports with users for web and mobile is stated, and embedding is properly documented: the REST API provides embedding endpoints and embed tokens, a.NET SDK is referenced, and Power BI Embedded capacities are managed through Azure Resource Manager APIs. Scheduled e-mail delivery, threshold alerts, comments and per-viewer filtering in embedded use did not appear on the captured pages.

Google Data Studio (Looker Studio)

Team workspaces with Manager, Content Manager and Contributor roles, project-level IAM permissions, organization-owned content, customer-managed encryption keys and an asset-management API for Google Workspace organizations are documented. We found no public information on row-level security, single sign-on, SCIM provisioning, audit logs or development and production environments, and the API documentation itself states that filters, sections and dimensions within a report cannot be retrieved — a hard limit if we ever wanted to move our reports out. Account-level export of content through the Google data export softens the exit question slightly.

Microsoft Power BI

Folders with access management on a report server we can run on our own premises behind the firewall, plus a documented administration REST API covering administrator operations, gateways, pipelines and service principals, cover most of what my auditors ask about. We found no public information on the captured pages about row-level security, audit logs, user single sign-on or exporting dashboards and definitions on exit.

Google Data Studio (Looker Studio)

For users in the European Economic Area the data controller is Google Ireland Limited in Dublin, a Cloud Data Processing Addendum is published, and a Google Cloud subprocessor list is maintained. Against that, the privacy policy states that servers are operated worldwide, the same policy names Google LLC in Mountain View as controller for UK users, and we found no public information on security certifications or on where the Gemini features process data. The Pro edition's data residency and customer-managed storage for uploads and extracts are the one documented mitigation for keeping our figures where the auditors expect them.

Microsoft Power BI

The EU Data Boundary pages commit Microsoft to storing and processing Power Platform customer data in EU datacenters across named countries including Germany, a data processing addendum is published for download, EU business customers contract with an Irish entity, and an on-premises report server keeps reporting in our own chain. The same pages, however, acknowledge limited continued transfers outside the boundary, make the commitment depend on signup location, billing address and configuration, and state that request data may be processed outside the tenant's home region, while the provider is Microsoft Corporation in Redmond. We found no public information on subprocessors or security certifications on the captured pages.

Google Data Studio (Looker Studio)

The free tier is stated plainly — no charge for creators and report viewers — and Data Studio Pro is stated at $9 per user per project per month with a 30-day trial that can be cancelled without charge, upgradeable self-service from the website. But that per-user price varies with the length of the subscription without the variants published, VAT treatment and minimum term are unstated, and partner connectors such as Supermetrics carry their own separate pricing. I can budget the Google part of the bill; the connectors my colleagues would actually need are not computable from these pages.

Microsoft Power BI

The captured pages state no price figures at all — only a "Preise anzeigen" link and a free trial download — so no seat, viewer, capacity, embedding or on-premises licence cost, and no minimum term, can be computed from this evidence.