Google Data Studio vs Power BI | Comparison Guide

Power BI and Google Data Studio are both business intelligence tools. Organizations employ BI tools to make informed decisions about business issues. Data-driven evidence is delivered through BI technologies to aid decision-making. Data is now accessible to everyone, not just high management. BI technologies are being used at all levels of the company to dive into the data they require. This allows them to create dashboards and reports to track their progress, set goals, and use a variety of other BI tool features without needing to write.

Given in this blog are two business intelligence tools: Power BI vs Google Data Studio, and the purpose of this blog is to help you decide which one of them is better.

Power BI vs Google Data Studio

Pros of Using Power BI

• Easily interacts with existing applications: Power BI conveniently connects with your current business environment, allowing you to employ analytics and reporting capabilities. Experts from Microsoft Azure can also help you get the most out of this easy technology for easily incorporating dynamic pictures into your projects.
• Rich customized dashboards: The most important aspect of Power BI is its information dashboards, which can be tailored to meet the demands of every business. Dashboards and BI reports may be readily integrated into applications to give a consistent user experience.
• Safely publish reports: The tool enables you to set up automatic data refresh and publish reports, ensuring that all users have access to the most up-to-date information.
• Zero memory or speed limits: Moving an existing BI system to a robust cloud environment with Power BI embedded removes memory and speed constraints, allowing data to be retrieved and analyzed fast.
• No requirement for specialized technical support: Power BI allows for rapid inquiry and evaluation without the need for specialized technical assistance. It includes a sophisticated natural language interface as well as easy-to-use graphical design tools.
• Quickly and accurately retrieving business intelligence: It assists you in converting your enterprise data into rich graphics, allowing you to extract business intelligence for better decision-making.
• Achieve a perfect mix of simplicity and performance: The in-memory analysis technology and the DAX scripting language are both excellent instances of achieving a perfect balance of convenience and effectiveness.
• Supports Advanced Data Services: Microsoft Power BI software developers can assist in the seamless integration of the environment with complex cloud services such as Cognitive services, Cortana, and Bot framework. Thus, providing the results of verbal data queries given in natural language.

Google Data Studio

Data Studio is an app that turns your data into customizable dashboards and reports that are analytical, comprehensible, and collaborative. Use the drag-and-drop tool in the report editor to:

• Tell your data story with charts, pivot tables, and more.
• Use viewer filters and date range options to make your reports more interactive.
• Create product catalogs, video libraries, as well as other hyperlinked material by including links and clickable images.
• Text and photos can be used to annotate and mark your reports.
• Make your data stories into pieces of data visualization art by using styles and color themes.

Who Should Use Google Data Studio?

If your use case fulfills the majority of the following criteria, Data Studio is the way to go.

• You rely heavily on Google’s app ecosystem, and your architecture is built on Google services.
• Your requirement does not necessitate elaborate dashboards or greater report interaction.
• You don’t have a dedicated team of analysts who are knowledgeable enough to use the extra features supplied by by-products like Tableau.
• When data is taken outside your internal network, your compliance rules are not broken.

How does data integration work in Google Data Studio?

Data connectors are used by Google Data Studio to collect data from other systems and consolidate it.

The following are some of the data sources:

• Google Analytics.
• Google Ads.
• Google Search Console.
• Google My Business.
• Google Sheets.
• YouTube Analytics.
• Bing Ads.
• Facebook Ads.
• MailChimp.
• HubSpot.
• SEMrush.
• Shopify.

What deployment options does Google Data Studio offer?

Google Data Studio (GDS) is currently only available as a browser-based (cloud-hosted) tool. This means you’ll need an internet connection and a Google account to access GDS. The dashboards you build will be saved and accessible from any computer with an internet connection.

Power BI vs Google Data Studio: A Comprehensive Comparison

	Power BI	Google Data Studio
Installation	There are three different forms of Power BI. Power BI Desktop, Power BI Pro, and Power BI Premium are the three options. Power BI Desktop is a free desktop version of Power BI that may be installed. The paid editions of Power BI are Pro and Premium.	Google Data Studio is a cloud-based application. It’s a browser-based application that only requires your Google Account to utilize. There isn’t a desktop application.
Data Sources	Microsoft products such as Azure, Sharepoint, MS Office, Excel, and others, as well as marketing platforms such as Google Analytics, Facebook, and others, have Power BI connectors. You can also link to databases, CSV files, and other types of files.	Google Data Studio works with a variety of Google products, including Analytics, Ads, BigQuery, Sheets, and more. However, it does not accept a lot of additional cloud-based sources natively. Google lets its partners create connectors, but they’re normally for a fee.
Data Transformation	Data is rarely available in the format that you require. Cleaning and converting data are crucial aspects of the research process. Power Query, a data connection technique that allows you to clean your data, is included in Power BI. It’s an ETL tool that can connect to a variety of data sources. Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) can also be used to create formulas and expressions. Power BI can execute a wide range of complicated data modifications.	In this way, Google Data Studiolags behind. The only actual transformation you can perform is to use a JOIN key to combine data from various sources. As a result, Data Studio assumes you have clean, ready-to-visualize data.
Ease of Use	If you’re familiar with Excel, you might find Power BI to be a breeze to learn. As a result, the newbie may find it difficult to link and integrate with your sources. In addition, Power BI includes more features than Google Data Studio. Nonetheless, Power BI’s drag-and-drop feature makes it simple to build reports.	Data Studio is incredibly user-friendly, with a short learning curve. The interface is highly user-friendly, and as long as you have clean data, all you have to do is drag-and-drop to rapidly build a professional-looking report.
Sharing	With a premium Power BI account, you may share reports with others.	Google Data Studio takes the prize because you can share your findings with anyone by just sending them a link or an email. You can also get a PDF version of it.
Cost	Although Power BI Desktop is free, it may only be beneficial for beginners who wish to acquire a feel for the software. When you need to share your dashboards for commercial purposes, Power BI Pro costs $9.99 per user, per month. Power BI Pro is a cloud-based business intelligence tool that can be used for collaboration, publishing, and sharing, among other things. Power BI Premium is $4995 a month, per dedicated cloud computing and storage resource, with an annual subscription if you need cloud and on-premises reporting, capability for big data and advanced analytics, and specialized cloud computation and storage resources.	Google Data Studio is completely free. All you need is a Google account to get started.

Conclusion

To conclude, the differences between Power BI and data studio are all given above. If you primarily use Google-based data sources, such as Google Analytics, with readily useable data and little need for significant processing, Google Data Studio is the way to go. If you are not a data expert, it is ideal for quick reporting. It’s also free unless you want to use the community connectors.

If you have a larger number of data sources and need a BI solution with strong data transformation capabilities and customization possibilities, and you don’t mind paying a premium, Power BI is a good alternative. Make sure that while it is more efficient and comprehensive, it will require a higher period of adjustment, especially if you haven’t used Excel in a long period of time.

Database connector support is currently insufficient in both BI tools, and there is no native support for so many cloud-based services.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Is Google Data Studio A BI tool?

Google’s Data Studio is a business intelligence tool. Google Data Studio is a data visualization tool that lets you make a custom dashboard with data visualizations. It’s a web-based custom software solution that lets you quickly create customized graphs and reports.

Can Power BI connect to Google Data Studio?

Using a pipeline, you can sync all of your company data to Power BI and Google Data Studio in real-time.

Does Google use Power BI?

The Google Analytics data is loaded into Power BI Desktop. You may now begin constructing your dynamic reports.

Is Google Data Studio better than Google Analytics? Both platforms perform distinct functions and complement one another. Google Analytics is great for tracking and analyzing performance, whereas Data Studio is great for visually displaying all of your web data in one place and sharing it with others.