MicroStrategy vs Oracle Essbase comparison

The compared MicroStrategy and Oracle solutions aren't in the same category. MicroStrategy is ranked #7 in BIT , with an average rating of 7.3, and holds a 2.8% mindshare in the category. Oracle is ranked #11 in DDM , with an average rating of 8.1, and holds a 0.9% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of MicroStrategy users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Oracle users who would recommend it.

MicroStrategy

Read 161 MicroStrategy reviews

4,464 Views
3,214 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Oracle Essbase

Read 18 Oracle Essbase reviews

1,850 Views
130 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

MicroStrategy

Oracle Essbase

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between MicroStrategy and Oracle Essbase based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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August 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

MicroStrategy

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

161

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (7th), Embedded BI (3rd)

Oracle Essbase

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

4.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Database Development and Management (11th)

Mindshare comparison

MicroStrategy and Oracle Essbase aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. MicroStrategy is designed for BI (Business Intelligence) Tools and holds a mindshare of 2.8%, down 3.7% compared to last year.
Oracle Essbase, on the other hand, focuses on Database Development and Management, holds 0.9% mindshare, down 1.1% since last year.

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Database Development and Management

Featured Reviews

AJIN S L

Technical Analyst at Allianz

Experience has shown effective features for analysis, but needs interface improvements

The most effective features of MicroStrategy for data analysis are those that cater to user needs. However, I find Power BI to be more useful when comparing some features, but my company does not choose Power BI due to certain code restrictions. The MicroStrategy interface is not as good as Power BI, especially concerning the user-friendly aspects.

Read full review

Bhavya N

Senior System Engineer at Infosys

Ensuring efficient data analysis and reporting while identifying areas for calculation and export improvements

The features of Oracle Essbase are valuable, such as its multi-dimensional database used for dynamic calculations and reporting purposes. These features are valuable because they support multi-dimensional data views, allowing users to analyze relationships across various data categories and establish a comprehensive perspective on business operations. Moreover, dynamic calculations allow real-time data analysis, significantly improving the accuracy and depth of financial insights. I have utilized Essbase's data aggregation capabilities. The Oracle Essbase interface provides a good user experience, allowing users to easily navigate and analyze data with fast query performance, effective data visualization tools such as charts, graphs, and tables, and flexibility for customizable analysis and reporting, including the ability to create ad hoc reports. The benefits of the interface include improving productivity and enhancing decision-making.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"MicroStrategy's best feature is that it is a user-friendly tool."

"The most valuable features are drill down, dashboards, documents, bringing everything under one roof, and visualizations."

"The most valuable features are the Visual Insights and the visualizations."

"The solution's platform analytics gives us real-time analysis of how a particular user uses the report and how the systems behave."

"Comprehensive security control and more."

"We prefer having the analytic capabilities in a single platform, like MicroStrategy provides, because it is easier. The customer gets used to one type of tool, then sticks with it."

"Reports are very easy to create. It takes a very short amount of time to build a report, which is very useful."

"The solution is ideal for enterprise-level companies or corporations."

More MicroStrategy pros

"It helps us fetch specific data sets per users' requirements."

"Essbase is extremely stable and low-maintenance."

"The solution is scalable."

"It is highly efficient and easily scalable, particularly for handling large databases."

"Oracle's capability to define custom hierarchies and dimensions has helped my organization in performing nuanced data exploration and advanced modeling because we use Oracle Essbase for dimension definition and also to define the properties of these members, such as dynamic members, stored members, shared members."

"It's a very powerful analytical engine with Essbase as the back end. We can analyze, transform, or utilize a big chunk of data for our calculations."

"I have found the most valuable aspect is the user-friendly environment and current features."

"The solution is stable and reliable."

More Oracle Essbase pros

Cons

"MicroStrategy should become more user friendly. It should behave more like Tableau."

"If there are some advanced visualization features - maybe I'm not aware of them - but if there were a Vitara which could work on top of MicroStrategy, it would make sense for MicroStrategy to have that within their own library. So they should add more visualizations to the library."

"I know we are not competing against Tableau, but MicroStrategy needs to step up its game on the GUI side."

"It is actually pretty complicated to use. It is complicated enough that user adaptation is sometimes difficult. We developed more experts rather than people using it."

"They need to supply the support system that's just not there right now. They don't have Enterprise Manager classes. You need in-depth classes to understand what those metrics are doing, to understand the table associations from one to the other. You can't just go and pick it up and understand that DT_DAY connects to all of these tables, without going into Architect, looking at the source tables. I, as a analyst, a slightly technical user, I don't have the expertise to do that. Business users definitely don't have the expertise to do that."

"I would like to see more integration."

"I don't think that they will, but I'd like to see parallel processing, scalable parallel processing."

"It needs better visualizations."

More MicroStrategy cons

"The ability to drive external reporting out for development could be improved."

"There is room for improvement in terms of cost-effectiveness."

"It's an expensive product to use."

"A significant area for improvement in Oracle Essbase is that financial statement analysis, CAPEX and OPEX analysis, and financial consolidation must be done manually, as Oracle Essbase doesn't include the financial consolidation module that is available in EPM."

"The initial setup could be simplified."

"Essbase has a programming language, and it has a couple of functions to do forecasting, however, their feature set for that is not that good."

"The consolidation engine, which is HFM or FCCS, needs some room for improvement."

"The main concern is that Oracle is ending on-premises server support, so it would be better if there was a cloud platform available for Oracle Essbase."

More Oracle Essbase cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"All BI software vendors' list prices are high. It's about a price that fits the customer's needs. And I think MicroStrategy has some flexibility in its pricing model where we can easily demonstrate a total cost of ownership comparison against any of the other players."

"It is expensive. We would like to extend it to many users, but we are currently restricting that because the cost is a constraint. If we are given a chance, we would love to expand it."

"The price of MicroStrategy is reasonable."

"They made a change in the licensing module some time ago and we can now use all the enterprise tools for free."

"It would be nice if there was a sticker price that says, "This software costs this amount of money." But I think that's just indicative of all software vendors. A lot of people are in it to make money, commissions, so it's just the nature of the business. But I would like to see more transparency, more equality, on pricing. Some people get better deals than others, I think."

"There have been actual direct bottomline impacts in terms of extra revenue created from the reporting solutions."

"The solution’s licensing cost is expensive."

"The pricing for MicroStrategy is always on the higher side. They should seriously start thinking about their pricing and licensing strategy."

More MicroStrategy pricing and cost advice

"Essbase is competitively priced."

"It is a costly solution."

"I believe the licensing is on a monthly base."

"The solution is expensive."

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Comparison Review

it_user6330

Product Manager at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

May 2, 2013

MicroStrategy vs. Tableau

After a recent presentation, several attendees asked me about the applications of Visual Insights and Tableau. Many companies are investing in both tools and are trying to figure out the right tool for specific applications Tableau has found its sweet-spot as an agile discovery tool that analysts…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

10%

Retailer

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

22%

Computer Software Company

10%

Insurance Company

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about MicroStrategy?

The stability of the product is good.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MicroStrategy?

For larger businesses, I think the pricing is logical, but for smaller companies, it can be a bit costly.

See all answers

What needs improvement with MicroStrategy?

Areas of MicroStrategy that have room for improvement include pricing because it is costly. Organizations that are well-established and have more money can afford MicroStrategy, but startups and mi...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Essbase?

It's not that expensive, but also not cheap. I'm not sure because it's a private license.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Oracle Essbase?

Improvements for Oracle Essbase could be made, as there are many tools available now, such as FCCS, TRCS, and ERCS. I find managing the database difficult, especially regarding optimization and dat...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Oracle Essbase?

I have been using Oracle Essbase for the last thirteen years and I am into this space for thirty years. I am working on the sales-based platform where I work with different clients for GE, Thomson ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Power BI vs MicroStrategy

Compared 16% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs MicroStrategy

Compared 16% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs MicroStrategy

Compared 8% of the time

Databricks vs MicroStrategy

Compared 7% of the time

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs MicroStrategy

Compared 7% of the time

More MicroStrategy Competitors

Microsoft Power BI vs Oracle Essbase

Compared 24% of the time

SAP Analytics Cloud vs Oracle Essbase

Compared 11% of the time

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs Oracle Essbase

Compared 10% of the time

IBM Cognos vs Oracle Essbase

Compared 7% of the time

Qlik Sense vs Oracle Essbase

Compared 3% of the time

More Oracle Essbase Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

MicroStrategy

August 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Oracle Essbase

August 2025

Download Oracle Essbase product report

Also Known As

No data available

Essbase

Overview

Company: Founded in 1989, MicroStrategy (Nasdaq: MSTR) is a leading worldwide provider of enterprise software platforms. With direct operations in 26 countries worldwide and approximately 2,000 employees, our mission is to provide enterprise analytics, mobility, and security platforms that are flexible, powerful, scalable and user-friendly. To learn more, visit MicroStrategy online, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Product portfoilio:

MicroStrategy 10 Secure Enterprise™ empowers leading organizations to analyze vast amounts of data and distribute actionable business insight throughout an enterprise through two distinct offerings: MicroStrategy Analytics™ and MicroStrategy Desktop™. MicroStrategy Analytics delivers reports and dashboards, and enables users to conduct ad hoc analysis and share insights anywhere, anytime, via mobile devices or the Web. It also combines the agility and productivity of self-service visual data discovery with the security, scalability, and governance features of enterprise-grade business intelligence. MicroStrategy Desktop is a standalone, on-premise visual data discovery tool designed to enable business users to analyze and understand their data. MicroStrategy Mobile™ enables organizations to rapidly build custom business applications that deliver analytics combined with transactions, multimedia, and custom workflows to mobile devices. MicroStrategy Secure Cloud™ combines all of the enterprise analytics, mobile, and security features in MicroStrategy 10 Secure Enterprise with powerful and scalable data integration, validation, and warehousing services — all delivered in an environment where organizations can deploy transformational analytics applications in minutes.

Usher, MicroStrategy’s breakthrough security solution, is a powerful mobile security platform designed to dematerialize traditional forms of identity verification (such as passwords, tokens, and physical badges) and replace them with a single mobile identity badge that is cryptographically linked to its owner’s smartphone and dynamically linked to an enterprise’s existing identity repositories. Usher works on standard Android and iOS smartphones, and also boasts an Apple Watch™ integration.

MicroStrategy

Oracle Essbase is an OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) Server that provides an environment for deploying pre-packaged applications or developing custom analytic and enterprise performance management applications.

Oracle

Sample Customers

Allstate Insurance, Barneys New York, Boston Children's Hospital, Buenos Aires Department of the Treasury, Campbell Soup Company, DHL, eBay, eHarmony, Facebook, Four Seasons Hotels Inc., Godiva, Hard Rock International, LinkedIn, Netflix, Pfizer, SECO (Swiss Government Unemployment Agency), Starbucks, Texas A&M University, Thomson Reuters Markets, US House of Representatives, and the US Postal Service.

CHU de Rennes, Bellco Credit Union, Akindo Sushiro Co. Ltd, Deutsche Telekom AG, Samarco MineraÊo S.A., PCCW Ltd., QDQ media S.A.U., Boiron Italia, Specialized Bicycle Components Inc., Akindo Sushiro Co. Ltd., Air Canada, Daelim Industrial Co. Ltd.

Buyer's Guide

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

August 2025

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