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Looker vs Oracle OBIEE vs ThoughtSpot comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.4
Looker provides large organizations with efficiency and savings, while smaller companies benefit from integration and automation improvements.
Sentiment score
6.4
Oracle OBIEE improved reporting and decision-making but had mixed ROI feedback; automation offered notable time savings.
Sentiment score
6.4
ThoughtSpot offers time savings and strategic benefits, though ROI quantification is challenging and adoption varies despite its user-friendly interface.
The number of employees has reduced to half, and time is saved by nearly two to three hours a day because of automated reports.
Data engineer at Cognizant
Using ThoughtSpot has resulted in significant time savings and improved business sales by allowing us to identify sellers and buyers across regions, facilitating targeted marketing.
Business Intelligence & Reporting Manager at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
Based on our implementation in one project, we are trying to raise more funding to expand its use.
Senior Business Intelligence Architect at Mphasis
This tool has really improved our decision-making by 70 to 80% because we are able to rely on insights from different data sources from different departments.
Financial Analyst at Nestlé
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.2
Looker's support is generally praised for responsiveness and community help, but complex issues and weekends need improvement.
Sentiment score
5.8
Oracle OBIEE's customer service is prompt and knowledgeable but often unhelpful, with delays and recurring repetitive queries.
Sentiment score
5.9
ThoughtSpot's customer service receives mixed reviews, with praise for responsiveness but some criticism for delays and knowledge base limitations.
Anyone with minimal knowledge of Looker can easily go through the documentation and understand the steps and the UI.
Data engineer at Cognizant
The tendency to route users to sales personnel with limited technical expertise detracts from the support experience.
Innovation & Data Management Enterprise Architect at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
I stopped opening tickets due to insufficient and untimely responses.
Software Engineer (Data specialist) at Salesforce
ThoughtSpot provides a dedicated customer success person and the ability to submit tickets online, with a response time of no more than a day.
Business Intelligence & Reporting Manager at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
The customer support for ThoughtSpot is very proactive and supportive, available 24/7.
Financial Analyst at Nestlé
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.8
Looker is praised for scalability, especially with Amazon Redshift, though large deployments require careful data management for optimal performance.
Sentiment score
6.9
Oracle OBIEE is scalable, supporting large enterprises and databases, despite occasional challenges and performance issues during heavy processing.
Sentiment score
6.1
ThoughtSpot is praised for scalability and flexibility but faces challenges in governance; contract type affects its scalability potential.
I rate Looker's scalability a nine because of how easily we can scale by simply combining tables.
Data engineer at Cognizant
While Oracle OBIEE is scalable, it is more of a niche product designed to work specifically with Oracle systems.
Innovation & Data Management Enterprise Architect at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Tableau, Power BI, or Looker have separate tools for preparation, customization, and storytelling.
Sr Data Analytics Consultant at Capgemini
The platform does not have technical problems with scaling data or connections.
Software Engineer (Data specialist) at Salesforce
As our data has grown, I have validated huge datasets and complex models without significant issues.
Data Analyst at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Looker is reliable and cloud-based, integrates with BigQuery, handles large data well despite minor bugs and setup challenges.
Sentiment score
6.7
Oracle OBIEE is stable and reliable, though performance can drop with large datasets and many users simultaneously.
Sentiment score
6.3
ThoughtSpot is reliable and stable, with minimal downtime and smooth upgrades, despite occasional performance issues and integration needs.
I use it primarily for large datasets, and it performs faster than regular data visualization tools such as Power BI, which has limits on dataset size.
Sr Data Analytics Consultant at Capgemini
The upgrades are smooth with no downtime, which is super important.
Software Engineer (Data specialist) at Salesforce
The responsiveness of accessing live data is exceptional and faster than most other BI tools.
Business Intelligence & Reporting Manager at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Looker's customization, integration, and performance lag behind competitors, with users seeking more features, transparency, and training resources.
Oracle OBIEE's challenges include outdated visuals, complexity, performance issues with large datasets, high cost, and insufficient support.
ThoughtSpot lacks customization, flexibility, and affordable options, with users desiring improved integrations, usability, and a free learning version.
The performance is not optimal on large data sets.
Data engineer at Cognizant
Oracle OBIEE has a steep learning curve compared to tools like SQL Server or Power BI.
Innovation & Data Management Enterprise Architect at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
The RPD, the semantic layer, is the steepest hurdle. Security integration, integrating with LDAP or Active Directory, is rarely plug and play and requires deep knowledge of WebLogic.
Analyst at Equifax Inc.
Currently, it is not as customizable as the options available on Power BI or Tableau.
Sr Data Analytics Consultant at Capgemini
Handling governance when there are many models and dashboards is complex.
Software Engineer (Data specialist) at Salesforce
Enhancing integration capabilities with other tools like DBT would also be beneficial as it would make our lives easier.
Business Intelligence & Reporting Manager at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
 

Setup Cost

Looker's pricing suits medium to large enterprises but may be costly for small businesses with additional expenses.
Oracle OBIEE is costly, requiring extensive negotiations, with high setup and ongoing fees, yet valued for robust performance.
ThoughtSpot offers competitive pricing with flexible negotiation, generally costing more than Power BI but less than Tableau.
Oracle OBIEE is quite expensive, especially when compared to Microsoft's solutions.
Innovation & Data Management Enterprise Architect at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
HubSpot is expensive.
Software Engineer (Data specialist) at Salesforce
ThoughtSpot's pricing is reasonable and in line with other BI tools.
Business Intelligence & Reporting Manager at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing for ThoughtSpot are competitive.
Financial Analyst at Nestlé
 

Valuable Features

Looker enhances data-driven decisions with intuitive modeling, robust integrations, and tools for advanced analytics without extensive SQL.
Oracle OBIEE provides robust dashboards, self-service analytics, powerful data modeling, secure access, and excels in data visualization and integration.
ThoughtSpot simplifies data exploration with AI analytics, offering speed, scalability, and user-friendly interfaces for efficient decision-making.
For a business user to understand data from free form or Essbase, it usually takes thirty minutes to an hour to go through the previous day's trend. However, with the visualization tools in Looker, they can easily understand the data and compare it to the previous one or two years using a bar graph, pie chart, or other graphs.
Data engineer at Cognizant
A valuable feature of Oracle OBIEE is its ability to automate some tasks, such as invoice analysis, saving a significant amount of clerical work.
Innovation & Data Management Enterprise Architect at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
The best features in Oracle OBIEE include improved visualizations, look and feel, and user-friendliness, particularly in OAC, which is the extended version in cloud where DV has been introduced.
Analyst at Equifax Inc.
Its compatibility with most databases, including the latest from FlexMovely and Redshift, allows users to create joins and worksheets easily.
Sr Data Analytics Consultant at Capgemini
This alerting feature is very beneficial for our company at the moment, and we use it extensively.
When I upload a data dump, AI analytics suggest possible data visualizations and insights, which I can pin to dashboards or live boards for modification.
Data Analyst at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Mindshare comparison

Embedded BI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Looker6.4%
Tableau Enterprise17.6%
Qlik Sense8.6%
Other67.4%
Embedded BI
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Oracle OBIEE1.3%
Microsoft Power BI9.3%
Tableau Enterprise6.7%
Other82.7%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ThoughtSpot1.6%
Microsoft Power BI9.3%
Tableau Enterprise6.7%
Other82.4%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Hemanthreddy Vakiti - PeerSpot reviewer
Data engineer at Cognizant
Automated dashboards have transformed daily trend analysis and now drive faster business decisions
One of the best features that Looker offers is LookML, which allows us to develop dashboards directly rather than dragging and dropping. We can also customize some fields that are not available in the table by combining different tables using LookML. Compared to other reporting tools, Looker is somewhat more customizable and interactive. With the help of Views and Explore in Looker, we can combine different tables and create a unique column that is not available in the table, and then use that column in our reporting dashboard. Since we brought Looker into our project, it has improved data visibility and enabled faster interaction between us and our client. Rather than simply using free form or Essbase, seeing customizable and visualized data in Looker allows the business users to understand the trends in the data more easily rather than just seeing numbers. It has helped us save a lot of time. The automated dashboards that we develop allow us to run the dashboard for the coming years with only some modifications, which has reduced some manpower and working hours. When I joined this project, there were around eight to nine people for developing Looker dashboards. Once the development part is completed for almost all cases, the next part is just monitoring the dashboards and making some minor changes required to align with business goals. After development, the team was reduced to three or four people, so the manpower has significantly reduced, and time taken has decreased as well. For a business user to understand data from free form or Essbase, it usually takes thirty minutes to an hour to go through the previous day's trend. However, with the visualization tools in Looker, they can easily understand the data and compare it to the previous one or two years using a bar graph, pie chart, or other graphs. The return on investment has been very good. The number of employees has reduced to half, and time is saved by nearly two to three hours a day because of automated reports. We are just monitoring the reports to ensure they are released. This has saved nearly two hours per day, and the team has been reduced to half.
AA
Analyst at Equifax Inc.
Unified semantic layer has driven informed credit risk decisions and real-time analytical insight
Performance-related issues are a concern, as in multiple reports I have seen, some reports were poorly performing. We can focus on implementation of performance so that reports are delivered within seconds. The user interface and self-service experience can be improved through modernization of the UI, addressing self-service limitations, and integrating with mobile. Technical and administrative complexities can also be addressed. Complexities such as system configuration require attention. In the initial setup of Oracle OBIEE, there are multiple things starting from infrastructure provisioning, database schemas, and WebLogic server installations. However, the RPD, the semantic layer, is the steepest hurdle. Security integration, integrating with LDAP or Active Directory, is rarely plug and play and requires deep knowledge of WebLogic. Deep knowledge is necessary when starting with the initial setup of Oracle OBIEE. Other dependencies include Java middleware and client tools. Since Oracle OBIEE deals with huge data, report performance is the biggest concern. The out-of-the-box setup is rarely optimized, so we need to manually check configuration files, such as nqsconfig.ini file settings. For recommendations in Oracle OBIEE, from what I have seen, we work with star schemas in the RPD. I always aim for the star schema in the business model, even if the physical source is normalized. This approach will impact the performance, speed of the data, and accuracy. Oracle OBIEE could improve to allow other schemas as well. Performance is a major area for improvement, and they should work on aggregating the persistence and improve the persistence wizard where we implement aggregations. Caching features have been given, including event polling tables where we can do purging and seeding, but the main focus should be with respect to schema designs.
Purity Wairimu - PeerSpot reviewer
Financial Analyst at Nestlé
Self-service analytics has empowered teams and now drives faster data-driven decisions
I have an experience of four years using ThoughtSpot. ThoughtSpot is very easy to use. Even non-technical users find it very easy to use and user-friendly. Some of the best features ThoughtSpot offers are innovation, ease of use, and data analytics. Reporting development is also pretty easy, making complex formulas slightly easier. Additionally, dashboarding for non-technical people, easy search of data, ease of getting insights, AI-driven analytics, and the ability to easily build charts are highlights. ThoughtSpot also offers data connection with live data sources. ThoughtSpot's scalability is impressive; it can handle large data easily, and performance has been powerful and reliable. The AI-driven analytics capabilities in ThoughtSpot help to predict future outcomes and are very helpful in tracking data, and performance is great.
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Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager - BI Head with 5,001-10,000 employees
Feb 4, 2015
Comparison of SAP BO, Tableau, QlikView, Cognos, Microsoft, OBIEE and Pentaho
1. SAP BO/BI Enterprise scalability Security Ease of use Semantic layer 2. Tableau Visualization Data discovery Turnaround time 3. IBM Cognos Enterprise scalability Security In-memory feature 4. MS BI - Flexibility 5. Pentaho - Open source but still enterprise grade 6. QlikView Data…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Retailer
9%
Media Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Construction Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business40
Midsize Enterprise34
Large Enterprise103
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

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How does Oracle OBIEE compare with Microsoft BI?
Oracle OBIEE is great in allowing design and creativity per the individual needs of the organization. Dashboards are ...
Which Oracle product is better - OBIEE or Analytics Cloud?
Oracle OBIEE is designed to be relatively easy to set up and has a helpful customer support staff at the ready to ass...
What do you like most about Oracle OBIEE?
The most valuable feature of Oracle OBIEE is its ability to handle large volumes of data and provide traditional BI f...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ThoughtSpot?
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing for ThoughtSpot are competitive, and it is a very user-friendly tool compared ...
What needs improvement with ThoughtSpot?
The customizability of the visualization live boards should be improved. Additional support for more data warehouse s...
What is your primary use case for ThoughtSpot?
My name is Peter Chemo, a Financial Analyst at Nesto. One of the major challenges that ThoughtSpot solves is reducing...
 

Also Known As

No data available
OBIEE, Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition, Oracle BI, Oracle BI EE 11g
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Yahoo!, Etsy, Kohler, Hipcamp, Hubspot, Kickstarter, Venmo, Dollar Shave Club, 600+ customer
Banca Transilvania, BeckmanCoulter, Hong Kong Housing Society, HealthShare, Ivanhoe Cambridge Unifies, and Home Credit, and Finance Bank.
Primary Capital Mortgage, Sterling Backcheck, RichRelevance, Rambus, Batteries Plus Bulbs
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