Looker provides analytics through LookML — a modeling language that defines metrics, dimensions, and relationships once. Every dashboard, report, and embed uses the same governed definitions. This eliminates metric inconsistency. Looker connects to cloud data warehouses (BigQuery, Snowflake, Databricks, Redshift) and pushes queries to the database — no data extraction needed.
Choose Looker when: metric governance is critical, you use BigQuery (native Google integration), you need embedded analytics in your product, or your organization values the LookML modeling approach. Enterprise Looker requires: LookML development, content governance, usage analytics, and database optimization for Looker-generated queries.