Oracle Essbase vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Oracle Essbase and SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"I have found the most valuable aspect is the user-friendly environment and current features.""The solution can handle a large volume of data.""It is highly efficient and easily scalable, particularly for handling large databases.""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 helps us fetch specific data sets per users' requirements.""The solution is scalable.""The solution is stable and reliable.""Essbase is extremely stable and low-maintenance."

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"What I like the most about SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform is that it has significantly improved our decision-making process.""The platform uses a lot of Java technologies so the performance and system-level management are tricky because it needs a lot of resources.""​The report development tool called SAP Web Intelligence under the BI Launch Pad portal has been the most valuable feature.""The features which the solution has been awesome. The way the data is fetched from the database, and the queries are executed, is unique using the Universe of Business Objects. That makes it unique and we could not find another solution that functions in a similar way. It's has a great way of receiving and executing queries.""Ease of report development is a key feature.""We are using SAP BusinessObjects because its scheduling capabilities are more powerful than those of other tools.""SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is definitely scalable.""Through the use of Business Intelligence reporting and scheduling features, reports are generated and automatically sent according to a schedule. This has freed up countless hours spent performing the same tasks, month over month."

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Cons
"There is room for improvement in terms of cost-effectiveness.""I would like to see an integration with application performance management and a version control management tool.""It's an expensive product to use.""The initial setup could be simplified.""The ability to drive external reporting out for development could be improved.""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.""They should improve the solution's performance.""The initial setup is pretty complex."

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"The UI could be updated a bit.""SAP BusinessObjects is actually losing popularity within our company because people find the user interface and the way things are set up not to be as easy as many other tools that are on the market, like Qlik and things like that.""The solution could be less expensive. It's a bit pricey now.""The solution is not good for self-services, they can improve in this area.""Tableau was easier for me to use because the interface is more similar to Excel which I was used to using.""Recently, it's become less stable if I am working on Citrix.""There is room for improvement in providing more user-friendly and versatile reporting options.""It would be good if they could integrate the possibility for end users to create end models for themselves that they can use, especially for site operators, and if they could provide the end user not only the self-service BI, but also the self-service analytics, based on a predefined model, the same way that Oracle did."

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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."
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  • "Just work with SAP to make sure you have enough licenses but don't go overboard."
  • "​It is not an expensive platform. The licensing is for a package of users starting at 10 users."
  • "It has an option of a Cloud Platform (SAP Analytics Cloud) which has a lower price than the on-premise platform, and you can buy individual licences per user.​"
  • "Depending on your size, try to stick with SAP BusinessObjects BI Edge. Most people tend to overthink the licensing. Remember that one concurrent user means that one person can be performing a task at a given time. That does not mean that only one user can be on the system at a time, it means that only one person can be refreshing a report or designing a dashboard. There are tons of ways you can access your data or reports without consuming a license. I've seen cases where five concurrent licenses support thousands of users."
  • "There's no additional charge for a Development environment license, so build an additional development server."
  • "Its price is fair."
  • "It is not cost-effective. It is expensive."
  • "I have always found SAP BI to be expensive. It is expensive even when you compare SAP BI Cloud with Microsoft Power BI. Power BI is probably around $9.99 per month, and the cheapest SAP BI is around $20, which is double. In terms of price, Power BI is definitely a lot better. If you have budget issues, you may want to go for Power BI."
  • More SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Comparison Review
    Anonymous User
    A quick look at the whole idea on another weblogs gives you a sense that all of them just talked about very brief things like report refresh feature in BO or cube feature in MS Analysis Service. I choose MS BI and I want to share my reasons and opinions on why I choose it and give you another quick but a little deeper compare on these two BI platforms. As we all know both Business Objects and Microsoft are big companies who are working on BI solutions and both have their own advantages. It’s not true to compare them in term of which one is better, we have to check what is our requirements and then depend on requirements take the decision whether MS or BO. A vision like this could help us relief from religious decisions against a software or technology. In a BI architect first of all we have the data store level, I mean the storage of the raw data not the stage or olap cubes or universe data source, I mean the first place of our data. This is important to know that where your raw data is and what is the type of storage used to store them. Whether file system or Access or Fox database or a complex database solution like oracle, sqlserver or a web service can made our place of raw data. We have to check our tools against them; check to see which one gives us a smooth way to transfer them among ETL process to destination. So take a look at what Business Objects gives us. There is a Data Integration platform in Business objects but the problem is that you have to buy that… Read more →
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:It is a costly solution. This is because we require high-performance servers with substantial CPU and RAM capacities to handle our extensive datasets effectively.
    Top Answer:There is room for improvement in terms of cost-effectiveness.
    Top Answer:We are a telecommunications company operating in Iran, and we manage a vast amount of data related to our network infrastructure. We have hundreds of data points specifically pertaining to our network… more »
    Top Answer:There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I would recommend as follows:  1) If you have legacies of SAP, Oracle  - look for SAP… more »
    Top Answer:Both tools have their positives and negatives. First, I should mention that I am relatively new to Tableau. I have been working on and off Tableau for about a year, but getting to work on it… more »
    Top Answer:What I like the most about SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform is that it has significantly improved our decision-making process.
    Ranking
    Views
    192
    Comparisons
    132
    Reviews
    8
    Average Words per Review
    381
    Rating
    8.4
    2nd
    out of 3 in Legacy BI Tools
    Views
    1,846
    Comparisons
    1,417
    Reviews
    17
    Average Words per Review
    552
    Rating
    7.8
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Essbase
    SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform, SAP BusinessObjects, Business Objects
    Learn More
    Overview

    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.

    SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is a versatile and flexible solution for reporting and dashboards, focusing on analytics and ad hoc reporting. It can be deployed on-premise or in the cloud. The solution includes tools such as Web Intelligence, Crystal Reports, SAP Lumira, and Analytical Cloud and is primarily used for comprehensive business intelligence reporting.

    The most valuable features include excellent reporting features, good technical support, scalability, and the ability to translate database data into business language. The solution has helped organizations by providing analytics, monitoring KPIs, and making important decisions as a financial business.

    SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Key Features

    • Central management: Access all your BI from a single, central launchpad that can be customized to meet user-specific needs. The launchpad provides business users with access to all their BI tools, reports, notifications, and applications in a single place. This includes the ability to launch SAP Analytics Cloud.

    • Data visualization and analytics: Create powerful visualizations, dashboards, and applications to assess risk, improve efficiency, identify opportunities, and enable users to analyze developments and data. Business insights can be shared with colleagues across enterprises.

    • Integration with Microsoft Office: Integrate with SAP Business Warehouse and SAP HANA to power real-time analytics. For large-scale data analysis, you can integrate with Microsoft Excel to discover in-depth business insights and forecasts. Data analytics information can also be embedded into Microsoft PowerPoint presentations.

    • Cloud support: Extend and expand your BI on the cloud. SAP Analytics Cloud connects your BI to the cloud and offers enterprise planning and advanced analytics from a single online solution.

    Reviews from Real Users

    SAP BusinessObjects BI stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Several major ones are its user-friendly dashboard, its impressive reporting and analytic features, and its ability to integrate with multiple solutions.

    A managing partner at a tech services company writes, "One of the most valuable features of SAP BusinessObjects is that it's not a dashboarding solution. It's a real product. You can create operational reports and publish it to anyone. You can create schedules. You can create a Universe, semantic layers. There's also a security configuration. It's a huge product, so if there is a business need, SAP BusinessObjects can cover it."

    An associate manager at a consultancy notes, "It provides flexibility for creating reports. It is very good for creating highly complex reports. I like this solution because when I buy BusinessObjects, it comes with many components, such as reporting, dashboard, and data visualization tools. Its performance is good. It is running on top of SAP BW and SAP HANA."

    A manager of data analytics and interfaces at a healthcare company says, "It has got great flexibility. As a reporting tool, it has a great deal of flexibility for numerous data resources that you can bring into it. It allows you to write your SQL query directly within the product. It has great visualization. 

    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.
    SRAM, Kennametal, Fairfax Water, British American Tobacco, Velux, and FedEx.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm50%
    Retailer25%
    Computer Software Company13%
    Comms Service Provider13%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm23%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Retailer7%
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company18%
    Healthcare Company11%
    Energy/Utilities Company9%
    Insurance Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm14%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Government8%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Large Enterprise73%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business14%
    Midsize Enterprise10%
    Large Enterprise76%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business29%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise55%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise11%
    Large Enterprise71%
    Buyer's Guide
    Database Development and Management
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Oracle, Quest Software, SolarWinds and others in Database Development and Management. Updated: March 2024.
    765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Oracle Essbase is ranked 10th in Database Development and Management with 10 reviews while SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is ranked 2nd in Legacy BI Tools with 102 reviews. Oracle Essbase is rated 8.4, while SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Oracle Essbase writes "It is easy to use and receives patch updates on regular intervals ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform writes "Web intelligence will work with any amount of data even if you have 10 million rows". Oracle Essbase is most compared with Microsoft Power BI, SAP Analytics Cloud, Oracle Analytics Cloud, Oracle OBIEE and Tableau, whereas SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is most compared with SAP Analytics Cloud, Microsoft Power BI, Oracle OBIEE, IBM Cognos and Databricks.

    We monitor all Database Development and Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.