5 Best Google BigQuery Data Visualization Tools for 2024

Organizations often rely on Google BigQuery for its robust data warehousing capabilities. Analysts can create interactive dashboards with visualization tools highlighting key metrics and trends. However, the plethora of available tools can make it challenging for businesses to choose the best one.
This article will:

• Introduce Google BigQuery and its key features.
• Present the top BigQuery data visualization tools for 2024.
• Discuss the benefits and limitations of each tool.

Introduction to BigQuery Data Visualization Tools

• According to a survey, businesses generate much digital data almost daily. However, a few businesses or organizations find managing the sheer volume of available data hard.
• Companies rely on GCP visualization tools to streamline data analysis processes and drive informed decision-making.
• This helps businesses understand their data properly overall. The data generated from these reporting tools can be further used for better analysis and decision-making.
• Using the accumulated information, one can also create graphs and other visual formats. Reporting tools help represent collected information in an easy-to-understand way by generating tables, graphs, and other visual formats.
• Integration capabilities make the GCP reporting tool an indispensable asset for organizations seeking seamless data coordination and analysis across various cloud services.

These are significant for any business as they help understand data sets and enable better decisions. Reporting tools make it easier for users to collect, analyze, and create reports. Check out our list of the top Google BigQuery Reporting Tools.

Top 5 Google BigQuery Data Visualization Tools

Choosing a BigQuery Data Visualization tool that can cater to your business needs can be a troublesome task, especially when many tools are available on the market. To simplify your search, here is a complete list of the five best BigQuery Data Visualisation Tools for you to choose from and easily create engaging reports from your data:

1) Tableau

Tableau has won many hearts with its advanced features. This BigQuery Data Visualization Tool is highly compatible with almost any database and is one of the best tools for data visualization.

Advantages

• It comprises a highly interactive dashboard, visual library, and metadata support. 
• Also, the reporting tool notifies quickly if a data connection fails from the platform and collaborates on key insights more securely.
• The popular Tableau supports drag-and-drop and easy integration features. 

Disadvantages

• It lacks some functionalities that you will find in a full-fledged business intelligence tool.
• It has a relatively steep learning curve compared to other tools in its class.

2) Looker

Access real-time business analytics and exploration with another Google Cloud Platform product, Looker.

Advantages

• You can obtain insightful visualizations and enjoy a user-friendly workflow with one of the powerful business intelligence tools. 
• This BigQuery Data Visualization Tool provides access to the full dataset. It further supports data centralization along with the semantic modeling layer. 

Disadvantages

• Compared with other BI tools, it lacks advanced charting functionality.

3) Holistics

Holistics is a self-service new BI tool.

Advantages

• A robust visualization layer for non-technical users. 
• You do not require a technical team to answer your data queries using Holistics. This BigQuery Data Visualization Tool allows data teams to curate business metrics and use them later to analyze and build reports. 
• With this feature, you no longer need to have expertise in writing SQL or be dependent on technical experts. 
• Its modeling layer helps share crucial data in BigQuery and other data warehouses. 
• It stores the materialized query views to BigQuery for visualization and reporting. It has Drag-and-drop features to generate reports quickly.

Disadvantages

• Limited visualization options: Holistics offers a variety of basic visualization types, but its customization options are somewhat limited compared to more advanced data visualization tools like Tableau or Power BI. 
• Potential scalability issues: Holistics may experience scalability issues when dealing with very large datasets or complex analyses.
• Lack of support for some data sources: Holistics does not support all data sources, so users may need to use additional tools or workarounds to connect to certain data sources. This could add complexity to the data preparation process.

4) Power BI

PowerBI is another popular business intelligence tool developed by Microsoft that provides interactive data visualization.

Advantages

• The user-friendly interface lets you unify data from multiple external sources to create insightful reports. 
• This BigQuery Data Visualization Tool helps various companies to centralize their data at one location and create a data-driven culture using smart tools. 
• One can also access self-service analytics options at an enterprise scale.

Disadvantages

•  The only drawback is the BI tool performs data modeling only with Windows Desktop.

5) QlikView

QlikView is a simple and intuitive business intelligence tool for data integration, transformation of raw data into a knowledge base, and analysis.

Advantages

• The software supports fast integration, collaboration, and consistent reporting. It also maintains automatic Data Association and other features like dynamic applications, dashboards, etc. 
• This BigQuery Data Visualization Tool is a window-only product with a memory-resident app, making it highly cost-effective. 
• This tool allows users to easily access information and make quick decisions. Users can also search for answers in any direction with QlikView.

Disadvantages

• It is sometimes inefficient for real-time data analysis.
• QlikView has limits in loading heavy data, as the computer’s RAM sets a limit for it. 
• The end-user application development requires technical expertise.
• Integrating QlikView with other software would be difficult because of its distinct appearance.

Comparison of Top 5 Data Visualization Tools

Aspect	Tableau	PowerBI	Looker	QlikView	Holistic
Ease of Use	Moderate, complex features.	High. User-friendly interface.	Moderate.	Low, requires knowledge of SQL.	High, User Friendly
Real-time Data Access	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes, but it proves to be inefficient at times	Yes
Advanced Visualization	Very High	High	High	High	High
Collaboration Features	Moderate.  Lack of version control and collaboration	High, Integrates well with Microsoft products.	High. Integrates well with the Google ecosystem.	Moderate	High
Customization Options	High, Advanced customization may require knowledge of Tableau’s scripting language.	High	High	Moderate	Moderate
Learning Curve	High, requires technical knowledge.	Low and easy for users to get acquainted with Microsoft products.	Moderate	High, requires significant training.	Moderate
Integration with BigQuery	Integrates well	Seamless	Seamless	Seamless	Integrates well
Cost Considerations	Subscription-based pricing,  generally high	Free tier available, Subscription-based.	Pricing is based on usage.	High	Competitive pricing, based on usage.

Why Use BigQuery Data for Visualization?

Using BigQuery Data for visualization is a great idea because of the following reasons:

1. Handles Big Data: BigQuery supports vast volumes of data, which is an essential requirement, especially when vast amounts of information need to be processed.
2. Fast Processing: Processing the data takes less time, so you won’t have to wait long enough for your findings.
3. Scalable: BigQuery is designed to scale, so when your data grows, Google BigQuery grows with you. BigQuery can increase its data volumes without any loss of performance.
4. Easy to use: Integrates well with significant visualization tools such as Google Data Studio and Tableau, making chart and graph generation relatively easy.
5. Real-Time Data Analysis: The data can be analyzed in real time, allowing users to make prompt decisions based on the discovery.

Benefits of BigQuery Data Visualization Tools

Using the right BigQuery Data Visualization Tool can provide the following benefits to your business:

• Cost Reduction – Even if BI tools’ implementation and operation costs exist, a large sum of ROI is generated in return that covers these expenses. You no longer have to invest separately in data collection, report generation, training IT experts, or performing programming. BI tools cover it all in one place. Thus, it reduces cost.
• Quick Setup – No business wishes to spend extra time learning how to set up a data tool for aggregating all the data. The best part of BigQuery is it is quick and easy to set up. It hardly takes to install the data warehouse. Once installed, you can commence running data queries immediately. It also helps manage data input.
• Allows Better Insight Reports: After running data queries, the platform provides a complete data view. This further helps businesses understand their information, create reports, and make better future decisions.
• Affordable: BigQuery is quite affordable. Whether it’s storage or computing resources, one pays only for the resources used in the tool. Also, there are no additional charges for copying or exporting data.

Limitations of BigQuery Data Visualization Tools

Using a BigQuery Data Visualization Tool also comes with the following limitations:

• Concurrent Interactive Queries: One can run only 100 concurrent interactive queries using Google Bigquery. Dry-run queries are not countable. 
• Concurrent Scripts: Your business can run only up to 1,000 concurrent Standard SQL scripts using Google Bigquery.

Additional Resources –

• Explore Data Analysis with BigQuery

Conclusion

This article introduced you to Google BigQuery and Google BigQuery Data Visualization Tools.

• Google BigQuery is a trusted tool that helps businesses process data faster, get insightful reports, and more.
• Also, it is one of the most secure and cost-effective solutions that can help businesses make better decisions.
• Test some powerful BI tools above to check if they meet your daily demands.
• While a few of the Google BigQuery Reporting Tools might sound impressive, compare each before making a final decision.

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BigQuery Data Visualization FAQs

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