Alternative To Looker: Holistics, An As-Code Self-Service BI
LookML is hard to use and Looker's upfront cost is eye-watering. We're here to change that, with better value for money and 10x easier-to-use data modeling layer.
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Buying Analytics Tool Shouldn't Be A Huge Sweat
Advancing analytics is easier when you don't get bogged down by heavy upfront costs. Here's how Holistics has better value for money than Looker:
| Aspect | Looker | Holistics |
|---|---|---|
| Starting Price | Opaque (need to speak to sales); Require high upfront commitments. | 100$. Transparent. Can start small & scale up as usage grows. |
| Payment Terms | Annual payment only. | Monthly & annual payments are both available. |
| Pricing Metrics | Per User | Per Usage |
| Service Motion | Sales-led and Enterprise-focused, hence higher price to balance out higher CAC. | SMBs and Mid-market. Self-service free trial process. |
| Onboarding Experience | Steep learning curve, requires engagement with the training team, hence higher prices to make up for higher onboarding costs. | Gentler learning curve. Come with highly praised documentation. |
Why Holistics Is A Good Looker Alternative: A Breakdown
Both Holistics and Looker are architecturally similar:
- Code-based modeling layer with self-service data exploration.
- 100% cloud-based with a centralized data modeling approach for BI teams.
Holistics is 100% bootstrapped, while Looker is VC-funded. Either we get crushed, or we crush it with a really customer-driven product. We choose the latter, which means:
- Gentler learning curve towards data modeling setup so you can save time on training and quickly spring to actions.
- Friendlier price point with pay-as-you-go pricing so you can scale without sweating money.
For a side-by-side detailed comparison between Looker and Holistics, see the table below.
| Aspect | Looker | Holistics |
|---|---|---|
| General | ||
| High-level Approach | Take similar approach: 1. Analysts define analytics logic centrally 2. Business users perform self-service data exploration | |
| Evaluation Process | Sales-led; Compulsory to speak to Sales | Self-service trial; Speak to sales for further questions. |
| Deployment | Cloud hosted or self-hosted | Cloud hosted |
| Compliance | GDPR; SOC2; HIPAA | GDPR; SOC2 Type II |
| Pricing | Opaque (need to speak to sales); Require high upfront commitments; Annual payment | Transparent; Can start small ($100/mo), scale up as usage grows; Pay monthly & annually |
| Support | Dedicated Customer Love team | Highly praised |
| Learning Curve | Steep. Require analysts to learn LookML, and work with code interface. | Gentler. Provide both visual interface (GUI) and code interface (AML) |
| Modeling Layer | ||
| Central Modeling Layer to define Business Logic | Yes, with LookML. | Yes. With AML. |
| GUI to model data | No. Only code-based interface. | Yes. Dual interface (both code-based and GUI-based). |
| Prebuilt Data Models | Yes, with Looker Blocks | No. |
| Integration with data transformation tool | No | Yes. Native integration with dbt. |
| Work with CSV / Google Sheets source | No. | Yes. Native support. |
| Developer Experience | ||
| Code-based approach | Yes (LookML) | Yes (AML) |
| Version Control with Git | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Reporting & Visualization | ||
| Self-service Exploration | Yes | Yes |
| Visualizations | Rich visualization | Rich visualization |
| Custom Visualizations | Yes, through Looker Marketplace | No |
| Pivot Table | Yes | More advanced, with subgroup calculation |
| Date Comparison | No native support (Workaround) | Native support with Period-over-Period Comparison |
| Embedding | Yes | Yes |
And We'll Never Leave You On Hold
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Frequently Asked Questions
How do I know if you guys won't shut down in the future?
Good question. We're designed to give you the freedom to choose the right tool, without worrying about being locked in to any particular software. If you ever decide that Holistics is not the right tool for you and want to switch to another one, you can do that easily with our Analytics as code functionality. However, since Looker and Holistics are similar in architecture, recreating your Looker dashboards in Holistics are relatively straightforward.
How do I extract my report definitions data out of Holistics in the future?
As users of a lot of softwares ourselves, we hate vendor lock-in. If you ever decide that Holistics is not the right tool for you and want to migrate, you can do that easily with our upcoming Business Intelligence as code. Your entire BI project will be represented as text and checked in to your Git repository.
Is Holistics EU-compliant? Do you guys have GDPR?
Yes. Read more about our GDPR Statement.
We also have a standard Data Privacy Agreement provided upon request, please email [email protected] for more information.
We also have a standard Data Privacy Agreement provided upon request, please email [email protected] for more information.
Is Holistics SOC2 compliant?
We engage a US vendor, Vanta, to provide our customers or companies evaluating our software with a live up-to-date report on our SOC2 compliance. Their assessment can be found in the link below: http://r.holistics.io/soc2live
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How easy is it to learn Holistics? Does it require advanced training or can users pick it up quickly within few hours?
Holistics is intuitive, both technical and non-technical people can pick it up pretty fast.
For Data Consumers: zero learning curve. They can create their own charts and dashboards without writing SQL, using a drag-and-drop interface.
For Data/technical teams: just SQL knowledge is needed in terms of skills.
For Data Consumers: zero learning curve. They can create their own charts and dashboards without writing SQL, using a drag-and-drop interface.
For Data/technical teams: just SQL knowledge is needed in terms of skills.
What SQL data sources do you support?
We support most popular SQL databases and data warehouses: Google BigQuery, Amazon Redshift, Snowflake, Presto, ClickHouse, AWS Athena, PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server. See full list.
I'm based in the US/Europe. Will customer support be a problem?
Although we're based in Singapore (Asia), the majority of our customers are in US and Europe. Despite the time zone difference, Customer Support has been among our most praised qualities from our customers.