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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
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.6
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Database Development and Management (9th)
Oracle OBIEE
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
158
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (6th), Reporting (4th)
 

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 0.8%, down 1.1% compared to last year.
Oracle OBIEE, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 2.5% mindshare, down 3.9% since last year.
Database Development and Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Oracle Essbase0.8%
SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer6.6%
Redgate SQL Toolbelt Essentials6.0%
Other86.6%
Database Development and Management
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Oracle OBIEE2.5%
Microsoft Power BI14.5%
Tableau Enterprise11.0%
Other72.0%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Bhavya N - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Ashok Bhadra - PeerSpot reviewer
Though comprehensive, it is expensive
The solution's most valuable feature is that it is a very comprehensive tool. Oracle OBIEE is a really robust tool for a very large enterprise implementation. Its features in terms of physical data model to logical data model building are all really robust. Though somebody else had developed the tool for the client for whom I used the tool, it was very well done. The data modeling was very well done, and it depends on the person who is executing it, as I hadn't developed it. I had just enhanced it. I had seen whatever my role was, but somebody had initially developed it. It was developed very well. It has a fantastic feature of documenting. When you work with many clients, you see the documentation is always missing, and you end up taking up some other vendor's job. It is usually very hard to figure out technically what was done, what was not done, and where the data is, so the data dictionaries are not up to date, and information documentation is always very poor. Oracle OBIEE has a built-in feature where you can actually create entire documentation of all the data elements and how they are linked, and it throws out HTML documents that are all interlinked, so if you have an entire directory structure, it helps create the document. You can find out which logical model links to which physical table, and it is very easy to identify. There are multiple combinations if you want to identify one particular table and how many models are involved. You just need to click a hyperlink click, and it gives you all the information. If somebody has made any enhancements, you can just regenerate the document as there is a component of the tool that generates the documentation automatically, which is brilliant, I think.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"It is highly efficient and easily scalable, particularly for handling large databases."
"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."
"It helps us fetch specific data sets per users' requirements."
"I have found the most valuable aspect is the user-friendly environment and current features."
"The solution can handle a large volume of data."
"Oracle Essbase is a web integration system that integrates with other data systems."
"The solution is scalable."
"The most valuable feature of Oracle OBIEE is the security of the solution."
"I think the most valuable features are the ability to drill down, the graphs, and the scheduling for the reports to be received in Excel on a daily basis. Users like Excel, so it's good for them that they receive the reports by email, that they don't have to specify the schedule."
"The most valuable feature of Oracle OBIEE is it's designed for Oracle. It works well in the Oracle environment and can sit on top of any application."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to run it in Exalytics within memory coupled to a Repository on Exadata is where it flies. So it's not meant for mom and pop shops, but if you are a global 500 fortune 1000 company, this is a tool that can get you what you need on time and even in real time."
"The most valuable feature of Oracle OBIEE is interactive reporting because it allows better analysis versus conventional reporting, especially on the data warehouse side."
"I have not personally used any such products related to this service, however based on the popular opinion, Microsoft Power BI is more popular. We have never switched from this software due to infrastructure and license related costs. However, my team acknowledges that the Power BI is much more enhanced and includes features that are easier to use, including its drag and drop features. I am not sure, if OBIEE has these features, due to lack of updated versions."
"It's the connectors, the adapters. Built in connectors with different ERPs, you can plug in XL, other sources of data. It's very easy to configure. It's very easy to use."
"We can see almost-real-time performance in our operations. When there is a problem, it is easy to escalate it to top management and the time for management to make a decision about it is much shorter than it would be using a manual process."
 

Cons

"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 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 initial setup is pretty complex."
"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."
"There is room for improvement in terms of cost-effectiveness."
"The initial setup could be simplified."
"I would like to see an integration with application performance management and a version control management tool."
"It is not a good product for data visualization."
"Oracle OBIEE can improve the ease of use. It is a lot to learn and it could be made easier."
"In our organization, we feel that data visualization for APIs is an area in which the solution lacks."
"The functionality to customize and modify reports has been removed, and it would be beneficial to reinstall it, as it allows greater customization and flexibility in creating reports."
"There are times we have slowness when processing the reports with Oracle OBIEE. Improving the performance would be beneficial."
"An area for improvement is that Oracle pushes more users to Oracle BI Publisher rather than emphasizing Oracle OBIEE for reporting. The pricing for Oracle OBIEE could be improved."
"Even though we have a feature to enable the physical query to be seen in the log, in case of any issues, it is challenging to debug and see or identify where is the issue. For example, we designed the OBIEE repository and deployed it into the server, and we are now accessing and creating a report. For some reason, if the report is not working as expected, it is very difficult to identify the issue. We have a feature to see the physical query that is being generated in the central OBIEE server. I feel that this feature should have been available at the repository level so that while designing the repository, we can select the presentation columns and the query it is going to create. This will avoid the additional task of deploying a feature into the server and then testing the report. It will also make the implementation process friendly if, while designing the repository, we can see: How is a feature working? Are any of the presentation columns selected? How is the query being generated? Which query is being generated? Are any joints used? What kind of joints are used? Having this kind of information will make Oracle OBIEE more powerful and developer-friendly."
"When a large number of queries are running at the same time, the report fails."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Essbase is competitively priced."
"The solution is expensive."
"I believe the licensing is on a monthly base."
"It is a costly solution."
"I think to spread this across an enterprise will be a significant investment."
"Pricing is an area that could be improved."
"This is a very costly product."
"The price of Oracle OBIEE is expensive, it is difficult for a small business to afford."
"All products from Oracle are very pricey."
"The cost of this solution is a little bit high compared with other products like Zoho, so reducing it would make OBIEE more competitive."
"Oracle products are extremely expensive."
"Be prepared to spend a lot of time and money."
report
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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
21%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
8%
Retailer
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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 Business39
Midsize Enterprise34
Large Enterprise102
 

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?
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 ...
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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