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Oracle OBIEE vs Pentaho Business Analytics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.9
Oracle OBIEE boosts reporting speed and decision-making despite some ROI challenges and enhances financial outcomes with WebLogic setups.
Sentiment score
5.9
Pentaho Business Analytics enhanced efficiency and output but faced ROI calculation challenges compared to alternatives like QlikView and Tableau.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.8
Oracle OBIEE's customer service is mixed, with prompt responses but inconsistent resolution quality and frequent upgrade suggestions.
Sentiment score
6.8
Pentaho receives mixed feedback on support, with strong community engagement but varying customer service and documentation quality.
The tendency to route users to sales personnel with limited technical expertise detracts from the support experience.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.9
Oracle OBIEE is scalable and versatile for enterprises, but complexity and infrastructure dependency can lead to performance issues.
Sentiment score
7.2
Pentaho scales well and fits organizational needs but may require admin expertise for complex environments and large data.
While Oracle OBIEE is scalable, it is more of a niche product designed to work specifically with Oracle systems.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.7
Oracle OBIEE is stable but needs proper configuration and infrastructure for high user concurrency and optimal performance.
Sentiment score
6.6
Pentaho Business Analytics is generally stable but has occasional Java caching, RAM, and subprocess issues with large databases.
 

Room For Improvement

Oracle OBIEE is hindered by outdated visuals, complex usability, performance issues, and high costs, requiring enhancements and better support.
Pentaho needs user interface, reporting, and visualization enhancements, along with better debugging, metadata management, and cost-effective licensing.
Oracle OBIEE has a steep learning curve compared to tools like SQL Server or Power BI.
Pentaho Business Analytics is hard to learn and not suited for initial users as it requires knowledge of operating systems, Java, and other technical skills.
 

Setup Cost

Oracle OBIEE's high cost and complex licensing can be offset by customizations and negotiated discounts for large-scale use.
Pentaho's Community Edition is cost-free, while the Enterprise Edition, offering enhanced features, can cost up to $250,000 annually.
Oracle OBIEE is quite expensive, especially when compared to Microsoft's solutions.
Pentaho Business Analytics is priced similarly to other competitors such as QlikView and Tableau.
 

Valuable Features

Oracle OBIEE offers interactive dashboards, data visualization, secure data merging, and cloud-based architecture for advanced analytics and mobile access.
Pentaho Business Analytics offers powerful ETL, user-friendly interface, customizable dashboards, and cost-saving, open-source analytics and reporting features.
A valuable feature of Oracle OBIEE is its ability to automate some tasks, such as invoice analysis, saving a significant amount of clerical work.
It is a stable product, and it can handle large datasets.
 

Categories and Ranking

Oracle OBIEE
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
6th
Ranking in Reporting
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
158
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Pentaho Business Analytics
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
20th
Ranking in Reporting
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Operations Analytics (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Oracle OBIEE is 3.7%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pentaho Business Analytics is 0.5%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Mir Gulzar Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
Excels in handling unstructured data, helping organizations navigate through different storage systems
Pentaho can help organizations by providing them an insight of their unstructured data using one platform(Pentaho Business Analytics). The features are almost identical to other BIS platforms but to me, customers can benefit as it has a community version with most of its Enterprise features. It also has a free limited-period trial version. The other feature that I would like to share here is, that users have access to a complete spectrum of data from different sources with the system’s adaptive big data layer, which takes the source of the data into account. The software is built on an open architecture and can be integrated with multiple systems. However, Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics has been acquired by HDS which offers an Enterprise edition for organizations that also need to meet product compliance.
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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
18%
Government
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
14%
Educational Organization
8%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
Seeking lightweight open source BI software
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pentaho Business Analytics?
Pentaho Business Analytics is priced similarly to other competitors such as QlikView ( /products/qlikview-reviews ) and Tableau ( /products/tableau-reviews ). I usually use the community edition.
What needs improvement with Pentaho Business Analytics?
Pentaho Business Analytics ( /categories/bi-business-intelligence-tools ) is hard to learn and not suited for initial users as it requires knowledge of operating systems, Java, and other technical ...
 

Also Known As

OBIEE, Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition, Oracle BI, Oracle BI EE 11g
Pentaho, Kettle, Hitachi Pentaho Business Analytics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Banca Transilvania, BeckmanCoulter, Hong Kong Housing Society, HealthShare, Ivanhoe Cambridge Unifies, and Home Credit, and Finance Bank.
Cargo 2000 Lufthansa, Marketo, ModCloth, Cardiac Science, Telefonica, ExactTarget, Active Broadband Networks, and Brussels Airport.
Find out what your peers are saying about Oracle OBIEE vs. Pentaho Business Analytics and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.