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Oracle Essbase vs Oracle OBIEE 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Oracle Essbase
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Database Development and Management (11th)
Oracle OBIEE
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
158
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (6th), Reporting (3rd)
 

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 0.9%, down 1.0% compared to last year.
Oracle OBIEE, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 3.6% mindshare, down 4.5% since last year.
Database Development and Management
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Pratik Phapale - PeerSpot reviewer
Multidimensional cube structure enables complex data storage and Oracle consistently upgrades Essbase
It's definitely growing and has many great features, especially in the cloud. I haven't used the on-premises server as much. Multidimensional data processing: Essbase is a kind of backbone, or back end, for systems like Hyperion Planning and Hyperion Financial Management. It's a multidimensional cube where we can store and process details, generate reports, and do multiple data processing, which isn't possible in Oracle or other alternatives. So, I'm grateful for this experience. Continuous improvement: Recently, I faced a version upgrade from 11.1.2 to 11.4. Now I'm on 11.2.10. Essbase is continuously upgrading its features in different areas, like configuration, properties, and the cloud platform. It's great to have experience with this, as well as working with the fundamental parts of the VM sets.
VishnuReddy - PeerSpot reviewer
Handles large datasets and easy to interact with and handle but performance could be better
Oracle's technical support usually recommends to upgrade when you contact them for support. They don't focus on fixing the issue at hand or providing guidance on how to do it. If you are in a lower environment, like one version down, they will blindly suggest upgrading. Additional patches are given for other Oracle products like WebLogic, databases, and apps. They fix issues and create patches based on client needs. But from an OBIEE point of view, they mostly provide bundle patches of around 5 to 6 GB that need to be applied and tested end-to-end. It's not an easy way to get small patches, and if issues arise after applying the patches, you have to contact Oracle again.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Essbase is extremely stable and low-maintenance."
"I have found the most valuable aspect is the user-friendly environment and current features."
"The solution is scalable."
"The solution can handle a large volume of data."
"It helps us fetch specific data sets per users' requirements."
"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. This allows you to do a pretty sophisticated analysis so that you can drill into it and slice and dice the data."
"Oracle Essbase is a web integration system that integrates with other data systems."
"Essbase is a kind of backbone, or back end, for systems like Hyperion Planning."
"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."
"The scalability of the product is good."
"The most valuable feature of Oracle OBIEE is its ability to handle large volumes of data and provide traditional BI functionalities that developers can easily understand."
"The security is good. For example, we can implement column-level security."
"We have scheduled reports delivered automatically to our business users using enterprise features."
"There are some great new features in the latest version."
"It is easy to create a report quickly. It does not take much time to create an ad hoc report."
"The most valuable feature of Oracle OBIEE is its ease of use."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in terms of cost-effectiveness."
"It's an expensive product to use."
"The consolidation engine, which is HFM or FCCS, needs some room for improvement."
"The initial setup is pretty complex."
"The ability to drive external reporting out for development could be improved."
"The reporting tool of Essbase needs improvement."
"They should improve the solution's performance."
"I would like to see an integration with application performance management and a version control management tool."
"The development effort takes longer than other BI tools currently on the market."
"It could be more user-friendly. For example, the RPD layer could be more straightforward. From a user's point of view, the visualization, especially the graphs, are not as attractive when compared to other tools like QlikView and Qlik Sense."
"It would be better if it had a wide range of visualization options. For example, Microsoft Power BI has an extensive range of visualization options, but it's not available in OBIEE. There are also some conflicts because it's complicated, but the cloud application is easier. They added some features for ETL with the on-premises application, but we need a different or a separate application for ETL in the cloud. In the next release, I would like to have more AI features."
"Supply chain and finance."
"The tool's downside is that it is very expensive, making it an area where improvements are needed."
"In the on-premises version, the feature for connecting and selecting the data between the databases looks a bit cumbersome, but I am not sure. The person who is using it takes a lot of time to design a data warehouse. When I ask him why is it taking this long, I get a response that this is something that he has to design, and there are different tools that are available. He has to write the ETL and design the warehouse according to the customer's requirement, which takes a lot of time. Its visualization should be enhanced, and there should be a feature where you can easily create your custom data warehouse."
"The platform's data visualization features need improvement."
"I find I prefer Oracle OAC over OBIEE. It's more advanced, has artificial intelligence, and there's more that we can do with it in general. OBIEE is lacking features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."
"It is a costly solution."
"Essbase is competitively priced."
"I believe the licensing is on a monthly base."
"If you compare Qlik Sense and Oracle OBIEE licensing, then Oracle products are much better. With Qlik Sense, you have to pay per client and per use. But we get Oracle OBIEE along with the Oracle database, making it much more cost-effective in the long term."
"A person only needs to pay towards the subscription costs since it is a cloud-based solution. I use the free version of Oracle OBIEE."
"Compared with the other products in the market, I feel Oracle OBIEE is an expensive product."
"Power BI is less expensive than Oracle OBIEE. A benefit to Power BI is having the option to work with concurrent licensing."
"The licensing cost is based on the number of users using it."
"All products from Oracle are very pricey."
"For the license in part of Oracle, my company makes yearly payments."
"The pricing we negotiated with Oracle. But, I do not have details."
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Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
23%
Computer Software Company
10%
Insurance Company
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What needs improvement with Oracle Essbase?
If I got the opportunity to work with Hyperion, which is the best product, I would definitely go with that. The main concern is that Oracle is ending on-premises server support, so it would be bett...
What is your primary use case for Oracle Essbase?
We provide complete ownership of this application to Walmart projects. In the UK system, we support and develop for the Asda account, known as Eltham. We provide installation and support to over 50...
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 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 functionalities that developers can easily understand.
 

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.
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