ReportsHQ compared with Looker Studio
Looker Studio draws dashboards over connectors you configure. This runs inside the application instead, so there is no connector, no copy of the data and no second place for it to live.
| What you are comparing | ReportsHQ | Looker Studio |
|---|---|---|
| Where your data goes | Nowhere. Queried in place, in your own process. | Reachable by a connector, or exported somewhere it can read. |
| Blending several sources | One application at a time. It does not try to be this. | Many sources at once. This is what it is for. |
| Freshness | Live, because it queries the table when you open the page. | As fresh as the last connector run. |
| Reports as code | Reviewed in a pull request, deployed with the app. | Built in a browser, versioned by nobody. |
| Access control | Your application's own login. | Google accounts and sharing settings. |
| Working offline or air-gapped | Yes. No outbound call, including the licence check. | No. It is a hosted product. |
| Cost | Per installed application. | Free. |
Looker Studio is free and connects to everything
That is a strong combination, and for reporting across several sources at once, marketing spend beside sales beside a spreadsheet somebody maintains by hand, it is hard to argue against.
It needs your data to be reachable
A connector wants credentials into your database, or an export somewhere it can read. Either way the numbers leave the application, and there is now a copy of them living somewhere with its own access rules.
This never moves the data
The report runs inside the application, against its own database, in the same process. There is nothing to connect and nothing to export, so there is no second copy to secure and no sync to be stale.
Reports as code
A report here lives in your repository. What is queryable is declared in your repository, reviewed in a pull request and deployed with the feature it describes. A dashboard built in a browser is a thing somebody made once and nobody can review.
Where Looker Studio wins
Blending sources this cannot see, and giving an analyst somewhere to explore. If the question is about your application's own data, and it is the same question every week, this is the smaller and more honest tool.
Fewer moving parts
One place that collects the events and draws the charts, rather than a drawing tool plus the pipeline that feeds it.
Start free