No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Oracle Essbase vs Oracle OBIEE comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Oracle Essbase
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
4.6
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Database Development and Management (17th)
Oracle OBIEE
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
159
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (17th), Reporting (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Oracle Essbase and Oracle OBIEE aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Oracle Essbase is designed for Database Development and Management and holds a mindshare of 1.5%, up 0.8% compared to last year.
Oracle OBIEE, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 1.8% mindshare, down 2.5% since last year.
Database Development and Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Oracle Essbase1.5%
Oracle Enterprise Manager4.0%
Redgate SQL Toolbelt Essentials3.8%
Other90.7%
Database Development and Management
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Oracle OBIEE1.8%
Microsoft Power BI7.1%
Tableau Enterprise5.8%
Other85.3%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Bhavya N - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Essbase is a multidimensional database (MOLAP) is undoubtedly leading in that space."
"With Oracle Essbase, everything is centralized in a comprehensive financial statement analysis, allowing for complete management of budget, actuals analysis, and forecast."
"Essbase is a kind of backbone, or back end, for systems like Hyperion Planning."
"Oracle Essbase is a web integration system that integrates with other data systems."
"The solution is stable and reliable."
"Its multidimensional analysis is great; unlike relational, where you're linking together multiple tables, with Essbase, you basically define what the dimensions are beforehand, and you define the hierarchy, and then load the data, allowing you to do sophisticated analysis so that you can drill into it and slice and dice the data."
"It is highly efficient and easily scalable, particularly for handling large databases."
"The solution can handle a large volume of data."
"Now, we can better and rapidly answer the user’s reporting needs, even if it involves different sources of information (different applications, different databases, external sources, etc.)."
"OBIEE is amazing in its integration with Hyperion and dashboard reporting."
"It helps us in quick-wins development to get the trust of users."
"For me, it makes the difference is in terms of our users being able to take advantage of a product which allows you to get access to data, reports, make decisions quickly, and have better insights regarding operations."
"Oracle OBIEE is good for data visualization and analytical reporting."
"OBIEE 11c is pretty slick these days, and it has a new look so that's nice."
"It is very stable; it is much stronger than any other solution that I've seen till now."
"Caching is a valuable feature, as we can simply schedule the report to run before the users get to work, which reduces the time it takes for the users to load data-heavy dashboards."
 

Cons

"The reporting tool of Essbase needs improvement."
"I would like to see an integration with application performance management and a version control management tool."
"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."
"The ability to drive external reporting out for development could be improved."
"The initial setup is pretty complex."
"The licensing costs are too high."
"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."
"I would like to improve calculations by optimizing performance and reducing processing time."
"When you open up SR Oracle has a list of things which they ask for. Being an end customer, when we open an SR, we give as much information as we want and again the support person comes into the picture, and without reading what we have put through, they just ask the same questions over and over."
"Expanding beyond pure data reporting and into analytics, or expanding data science, would be areas for improvement."
"There are a lot of bugs, hangs and freezes."
"Setup and migration are very complex. Technically, Oracle accessory is extremely complex. These days, the industry demands a kind of Excel analysis, which is very easy to install, set up, and it's very developer-friendly as well as end-user friendly. OBIEE lacks all those features."
"The web services are pretty weak. There are so many bugs in it and it doesn’t support that many features."
"In the previous release of the administration tool, there were a lot of issues and compatibility issues that didn't work with OBIEE."
"This product is not easy to use and there is a steep learning curve."
"The platform's interface needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Essbase is competitively priced."
"I believe the licensing is on a monthly base."
"It is a costly solution."
"The solution is expensive."
"The licensing cost is based on the number of users using it."
"The company had twenty-five Oracle OBIEE licenses and never expanded. Price-wise, the solution is expensive."
"Compared with the other products in the market, I feel Oracle OBIEE is an expensive product."
"Oracle products are extremely expensive."
"There are no additional costs, but there might be some charges for the Java feature."
"I would rate it a 4 out of 5 in terms of pricing."
"Its licensing is yearly."
"All products from Oracle are very pricey."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Database Development and Management solutions are best for your needs.
914,889 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
15%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business41
Midsize Enterprise34
Large Enterprise105
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Oracle Essbase?
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 incl...
What is your primary use case for Oracle Essbase?
The initial setup of Oracle Essbase is dependent on whether you select BSO or ASO cubes. First, you need to set up the type of information and once the type of cubes is defined, you need to define ...
What advice do you have for others considering Oracle Essbase?
The pricing functionality in Oracle Essbase is handled through the model you develop, where each cube can be customized with members and dimensions for pricing and entities. You can implement any f...
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 fully customizable and very user-friendly. This solution is very stable. Oracle ...
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 assist customers. These are two attributes that make this system quite valuable. OB...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle OBIEE?
Oracle OBIEE is quite expensive, especially when compared to Microsoft's solutions.
 

Also Known As

Essbase
OBIEE, Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition, Oracle BI, Oracle BI EE 11g
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CHU de Rennes, Bellco Credit Union, Akindo Sushiro Co. Ltd, Deutsche Telekom AG, Samarco MineraÊo 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.
Banca Transilvania, BeckmanCoulter, Hong Kong Housing Society, HealthShare, Ivanhoe Cambridge Unifies, and Home Credit, and Finance Bank.
Find out what your peers are saying about Quest Software, Oracle, SolarWinds and others in Database Development and Management. Updated: August 2026.
914,889 professionals have used our research since 2012.