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reviewer2592669 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director Software Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Poor performance and difficult installation, but the price is reasonable
Pros and Cons
  • "They were reasonable in terms of price."
  • "The performance and the complex setup are the main reason for switching to Qlik Sense."

What needs improvement?

We were disappointed with Oracle OBIEE, because of the performance.

In terms of an analytical tool, it is quite outdated. End-users want to receive results quickly and to be able to view millions of rows of data in a matter of seconds. OBIEE was unable of doing so because of the way it was modeled and developed. It requires it to go to the database, run the SQL, and then fetch the result for each query. That procedure took a long time to complete.

There are a variety of different in-memory tools available; the data is loaded into the server's RAM or memory, and all requests, including data requests, are served from the RAM, making it extremely fast.

If you look at Qlik Sense or Tableau, or perhaps some other products on the market, such as Power BI, you'll notice that they have all of the data in RAM.

The performance and the complex setup are the main reason for switching to Qlik Sense. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We had been using Oracle OBIEE for around eight years when we decided to stop using it six months ago. We switched to Qlik Sense.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Performance was the primary reason for switching from OBIEE to Qlik Sense.

How are customer service and support?

We have never had any contact with technical support.

Buyer's Guide
Oracle OBIEE
October 2025
Learn what your peers think about Oracle OBIEE. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2025.
871,408 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Oracle has a number of products that we use. We are a large supporter of Oracle.

How was the initial setup?

OBIEE's overall setup is really complex because it relies on Oracle Forms, the Oracle Fusion technology, which requires a middleware.

We require both the front-end and the back-end. It was really difficult to manage the entire setup. Dealing with OBIEE was tough in some circumstances when we had to make infrastructure-related modifications.

The entire setup is extremely complex, and troubleshooting any errors is incredibly difficult due to the large number of logs generated by the WebLogic Server.

Setup is really difficult, which is an area where they are lacking. 

If you only consider Tableau, Qlik Sense, or Power BI, where you will simply download the software, all you have to do is apply it if you have an enterprise license. It's incredibly simple to install and configure these products. It's very easy compared to OBIEE.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

They were reasonable in terms of price. I wouldn't say they were expensive. Pricing was adequate. It's comparable to the current technology we're using, Qlik Sense.

We never had any issues with the pricing of Oracle OBIEE.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Oracle OBIEE a five out of ten.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Senior Software Developer at Sopra
Real User
Good data visualization and reporting features; lacks sufficient direct reporting
Pros and Cons
  • "Provides good data visualization features, and provides a lot of visualization reports from various data sources."
  • "Managing the OB applications requires a high level of experience, and makes the solution quite heavy."

What is our primary use case?

We are a service-based company and we build reports for the PeopleSoft HRMS system that analyze workforce management or higher labor management. We have a partnership with Oracle and I'm a senior software developer.

What is most valuable?

The solution has good data visualization features and provides a lot of visualization reports from various data sources. We can also merge the data from different sources. You can get a lot of reporting through the application and I find it to be a good enterprise solution. 

What needs improvement?

Managing the OB applications requires a high level of experience, and in that sense, the solution is quite heavy. Although the solution offers some direct reporting, I'd like to see something on the database. The way things are now you need to go through an intermediate layer rather than connecting directly to the database which would enable you to immediately start building a report.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for seven years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is quite stable and we're able to manage a lot of data. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is good. In terms of performance and functionality, we can scale it out. We currently have over 3,000 users. We have three or four people dealing with maintenance on a daily basis. 

How are customer service and support?

We don't have too many problems with technical support but at times there are delays getting a response from Oracle. Initially, they released good documentation but it's not so good anymore and it's often difficult to find what you're looking for. There is definitely scope for improvement. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is not completely straightforward but it's not overly complex either. It requires a lot of planning and a lot of effort to implement but it's okay. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I'm aware of the other options in this market category. OBIEE is an enterprise solution whereas other products in this category are not robust enough at that level. There are other good products out there but they are not enterprise solutions. 

What other advice do I have?

It's important to understand your source system and then fully utilize all the features because I've worked on projects where we have not utilized many of the powerful features that the product offers. We generally use no more than a maximum of 10% of the features.

I rate this solution seven out of 10. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Oracle OBIEE
October 2025
Learn what your peers think about Oracle OBIEE. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2025.
871,408 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer1516824 - PeerSpot reviewer
Finance Systems Analyst at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
A business intelligence suite with a useful scheduling feature, but the graphical capabilities could be better
Pros and Cons
  • "I like the scheduling feature. It has an inbuilt scheduler which is very good, and it allows us to create agents, and those agents can be scheduled. It's quite flexible in that respect and goes into our IT infrastructure. The outputs are sent encrypted to various endpoints. Some are internal, and some are our clients, and it's encrypted at a high level. I do find Oracle OBIEE flexible. If there is stuff that's not in your model or schema, it's very flexible to create SQL scripts and create the data you want. It's quite nice to create a dashboard in OBIEE, and that's pretty straightforward in the way you drag and drop everything. You can create sections, and you can add elements to your page. That bit of the interface is relatively straightforward."
  • "The graphical capabilities could be better. They are also cumbersome, and they are limited compared to Tableau, Power BI, or even Business Objects to a certain extent and Cognos. The error logging isn't great either. The errors that come out when you schedule aren't easy to understand. I find how they filter within a query quite cumbersome and difficult to debug if somebody else has done it. You can see as you build, and I think that's where the problem is. It doesn't lend itself to debug something. For example, if you create a formula that's quite complicated, it's not easy to understand what goes with what. It becomes spaghetti, and it's very difficult to unpick. That's really my gripe about it, and in some ways, it's too flexible. It tries to be a Jack of all trades when it's not. I think a lot of these products, if they concentrate on trying to produce your reports, then that's fine. But when they're trying to do all sorts of other things as well, then it isn't very easy. We get lots of support from Oracle, but I think the problem is that we get many invalid file operations. Nobody understands why. It can be a multitude of reasons, but no one reason could cause it. That's just one of the issues we've had in the last year. But the scope of reporting has gone through the roof over the previous 12 to 18 months. We want an end-of-life OBIEE in our environment because some of the infrastructure runs unclustered. We weren't allowed to go clustered for some reason, and we never knew why. Unfortunately, going down that route means that the platform we run it on, WebLogic, has now become non-standard within our organization. Everything's been moved off it and onto other platforms. Unfortunately, our OBIEE runs on that platform, and we're being pushed down different routes, and we don't know where we're going at the moment. Within the next two years, I don't think we'll have OBIEE in our part of the business. In the next release, I think having the capability of being able to develop and then promote to a production environment rather than having to have separate environments will help. I know that Tableau and Power BI can be created on a desktop application, and then when it's ready to go live, you can promote it."

What is most valuable?

I like the scheduling feature. It has an inbuilt scheduler which is very good, and it allows us to create agents, and those agents can be scheduled. It's quite flexible in that respect and goes into our IT infrastructure. The outputs are sent encrypted to various endpoints. Some are internal, and some are our clients, and it's encrypted at a high level.

I do find Oracle OBIEE flexible. If there is stuff that's not in your model or schema, it's very flexible to create SQL scripts and create the data you want. It's quite nice to create a dashboard in OBIEE, and that's pretty straightforward in the way you drag and drop everything. You can create sections, and you can add elements to your page. That bit of the interface is relatively straightforward.

What needs improvement?

The graphical capabilities could be better. They are also cumbersome, and they are limited compared to Tableau, Power BI, or even Business Objects to a certain extent and Cognos. The error logging isn't great either. The errors that come out when you schedule aren't easy to understand.

I find how they filter within a query quite cumbersome and difficult to debug if somebody else has done it. You can see as you build, and I think that's where the problem is. It doesn't lend itself to debug something. For example, if you create a formula that's quite complicated, it's not easy to understand what goes with what. 

It becomes spaghetti, and it's very difficult to unpick. That's really my gripe about it, and in some ways, it's too flexible. It tries to be a Jack of all trades when it's not. I think a lot of these products, if they concentrate on trying to produce your reports, then that's fine. But when they're trying to do all sorts of other things as well, then it isn't very easy.

We get lots of support from Oracle, but I think the problem is that we get many invalid file operations. Nobody understands why. It can be a multitude of reasons, but no one reason could cause it. That's just one of the issues we've had in the last year. But the scope of reporting has gone through the roof over the previous 12 to 18 months.

We want an end-of-life OBIEE in our environment because some of the infrastructure runs unclustered. We weren't allowed to go clustered for some reason, and we never knew why. Unfortunately, going down that route means that the platform we run it on, WebLogic, has now become non-standard within our organization.

Everything's been moved off it and onto other platforms. Unfortunately, our OBIEE runs on that platform, and we're being pushed down different routes, and we don't know where we're going at the moment. Within the next two years, I don't think we'll have OBIEE in our part of the business.

In the next release, I think having the capability of being able to develop and then promote to a production environment rather than having to have separate environments will help. I know that Tableau and Power BI can be created on a desktop application, and then when it's ready to go live, you can promote it. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Oracle OBIEE for about four years, but I don't use it a lot.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Oracle OBIEE is very stable. The only issue have is scheduling too much at the same time. It can get overloaded, and unfortunately, like most things, there are always bottlenecks. 

You're actually pushing it down a tunnel in effect, and if that tunnel's not large enough, it can't cope with the load. Some of the files and some reports are a lot bigger, and OBIEE has a limited 64,000 rows of output. It's not suitable for really extracting large amounts of data.

If I wanted to extract all the transactions on a report for one particular day, then that would blow the 64,000 rows of output. This means that we have to run it separately, and we can't schedule it. It has to be a manual task, or we have to get work done by our development people to provide that report as a standard report. This can be quite difficult at times.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Oracle OBIEE is scalable because you can cluster them and have multiple servers. You can spread the load up to a point. You can have multiple environments running under the same cluster. In our production space, we have two environments. We have a test environment, and we have a production environment. Being clustered, you can cluster those together.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

When I used Cognos, it seemed as though it didn't cater to telling stories. It's like you've got to get the data out into something like Excel or another tool to do the visualizations. It can be done, but it's quite fiddly.

What other advice do I have?

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Oracle OBIEE a seven.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Architect Team Lead at ITC Infotech
MSP
Not too difficult to set up, and offers improved technical support, but needs better reporting
Pros and Cons
  • "The setup isn't too difficult."
  • "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."

What is most valuable?

The solution is offered as a PaaS - a platform as a service.

The setup isn't too difficult.

While technical support used to be quite bad, it's my understanding that it has gotten better.

What needs 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.

The reporting could be better. We can only develop standard PDF reports. We don't have reports that show analytics. It doesn't generate barcodes at the top and it doesn't have the ability to show notes. The reporting system needs to introduce logic so that we can make the reporting more flexible.

Writing any code takes a long time. Merging data is also a long and tedious process. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been working with the solution for 13 and a half years so far. It's been a while. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution isn't exactly stable. There are some reports, for example, in relation to email compliance or other policies that are not working as they should. We're actually migrating off of OBIEE's reports to Crystal Reports as some functionality is just not possible.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability of the solution is fine. It's arranged per user. However, you need to pay more if you add more. 

There are no plans to increase usage as the solution is limiting in the features on offer and the client is leaning more towards Oracle OAC. 

How are customer service and technical support?

I haven't tried to contact technical support in a long while. The last time might have been 2017 or 2018. I recall support not being very good. At the time, the application was new and we had questions, and we did not really get any response. It took them a long, long time to say anything. At that time, we were installing the application and facing some issues and it was a frustrating process. 

That said, their support may have stabilized and gotten better, however, I haven't really dealt with them since. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I've started working more with Oracle OAC.

How was the initial setup?

The solution is a platform as a service. We pick and choose our requirements as we like. If we need more CPU or RAM or hardware, we make sure we have that in the setup. We decide how many users we want, et cetera, and the system is set up to accommodate for that.

What about the implementation team?

Oracle can help set up the solution.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

OAC has a more reasonable price point than OBIEE. OAC gives you more options and choices. It's more flexible.

What other advice do I have?

I'm a consultant. I'm not a partner of Oracle. I have no business relationship with the company.

There is a lot of competition in the market right now and there are so many cloud applications that users can look at, including Power BI. Some have more features and are more user-friendly. This product needs to advance its technology and catch up. It needs more advanced features.

I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
AnjanaPathare - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
A business intelligence tool with a useful cloud deployment feature
Pros and Cons
  • "I like the cloud deployment feature. There are about 20 new features, and they are available on mobile and more. I haven't used any of them, but these features are highly attractive."
  • "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."

What is our primary use case?

We use Oracle OBIEE for reporting.

What is most valuable?

I like the cloud deployment feature. There are about 20 new features, and they are available on mobile and more. I haven't used any of them, but these features are highly attractive.

What needs improvement?

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.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Oracle OBIEE for about five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Oracle OBIEE is quite stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I think Oracle OBIEE is scalable.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

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.

What other advice do I have?

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Oracle OBIEE an eight.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Obiee HR Technologies Specialist at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Reliable, but rigidity and speed could be improved
Pros and Cons
  • "It doesn't have many frills and is definitely older technology, but it is undeniably a workhorse."
  • "Expanding beyond pure data reporting and into analytics, or expanding data science, would be areas for improvement."

What is our primary use case?

Oracle OBIEE is the company's primary workhorse for financial and HR reporting. It is used globally for the company. Everyone uses it for those purposes. The cloud version is also used for account acquisition.

What is most valuable?

It serves its purpose. It doesn't have many frills and is definitely older technology, but it is undeniably a workhorse.

What needs improvement?

Rigidity and speed are areas that could be improved. Everything has to move quickly in today's world, especially in the data world. Everyone wants it right now.

Having a system is great, and when you code it correctly, it can get the job done. However, a modern solution takes a long time; it moves much slower than some other things. You have products such as Tableau, and there are other data science tools out there churning through just as much data. Obviously, that element is not intended to be a data science tool in and of itself. It's more of a reporting tool than anything else. Expanding beyond pure data reporting and into analytics, or expanding data science, would be areas for improvement.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Oracle OBIEE for seven years.

We keep it fairly up to date. We would be using the most recent version or perhaps one back.

We have an on-premises system as well as a cloud system in our environment.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

If it's coded correctly, it can be very reliable.

Oracle OBIEE is very stable, it is very dependable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Oracle OBIEE is scalable, we are using it on a global level.

Given the size and scope of how we use it, every change requires significant effort, some of which is internal. It is managed by our IT department. To make large-scale changes and integrate new systems, I believe a small army is required. The heavy lifting is done once they're all set up, and once they're in there and running, the actual maintenance and minor tweaks are fairly simple. This requires a much smaller skeleton crew.

How was the initial setup?

I was not a part of the initial setup.

What other advice do I have?

I believe it will be about how well the tool they choose fits their company, their company culture, and how scalable it is.  Oracle OBIEE is fantastic, but it is intended to be used in the enterprise. It is meant to be a large-scale workhorse. As a result, make sure it's the right tool for your business.

In comparison to other things we have out there in the grand scheme of things, I would say six or seven. I would rate Oracle OBIEE a seven out of ten.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1782720 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Helpful support, highly stable, and beneficial data visualization
Pros and Cons
  • "Oracle OBIEE is good for data visualization and analytical reporting."
  • "There are a lot of aspects of Oracle OBIEE that are exceptionally complicated, make things unnecessarily difficult for everyone who uses it. In terms of the integrations, Oracle needs to improve a little more, but I believe that they have tried to capture all those issues. The issues we are facing in the Oracle OBIEE 12C versions, in the Oracle Analytical Server Center or Analytical Cloud versions, Oracle has managed to overcome the challenges."

What is our primary use case?

We use Oracle OBIEE for data visualization and analytical reporting.

What is most valuable?

Oracle OBIEE is good for data visualization and analytical reporting.

What needs improvement?

There are a lot of aspects of Oracle OBIEE that are exceptionally complicated, make things unnecessarily difficult for everyone who uses it. In terms of the integrations, Oracle needs to improve a little more, but I believe that they have tried to capture all those issues. The issues we are facing in the Oracle OBIEE 12C versions, in the Oracle Analytical Server Center or Analytical Cloud versions, Oracle has managed to overcome the challenges.

Oracle OBIEE could improve its marketing. There is no additional training, trials, or something else needed. Oracle has  Business partners, such as TCS and Cognizant. All the business partners for Oracle, I never saw that they ever tried to market the Oracle tools for visualization.  We can do visualization of data with it, large analytical data, and analytical analysis. They never try to market it in that way. All I understood as it is a tool for extracting large amounts of data. They need to improve on their outreach.

For how long have I used the solution?

I used Oracle OBIEE within the last 12 months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Oracle OBIEE is a scalable solution.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support was good, I am satisfied.

How was the initial setup?

The implementation of Oracle OBIEE was very complicated in the older versions, but now it has become much easier.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I was able to evaluate many other options before choosing Oracle OBIEE. When I was working for one of my clients in Africa, they wanted us to implement Microsoft BI in their environment for data visualizations. I felt bad about the Oracle OBIEE because Oracle never tried to market that product as a visualization tool, they always try to market it as an analytical tool, and people do not understand what Oracle OBIEE can do. In visualization, it can give the other contenders in the market a good fight, but Oracle never tried to market it in that way.

This is one of the biggest problems with Oracle. If Oracle would have marketed better then they would have had more customers. There are a lot of other clients people prefer, such as Tableau, ClickView, Qlik Sense, or Microsoft BI, because they want to see things in a graph, in a colorful way. The same can be achieved in Oracle OBIEE, but it was never marketed properly.

What other advice do I have?

Oracle OBIEE has been tested and is a proven product and I would highly recommend Oracle OBIEE over any other solution.

I rate Oracle Database an eight out of ten.

I rated the Oracle OBIEE and eight because I haven't tried the newer versions of OBIEE which are in the market. Whatever I have been working in Oracle OBIEE  currently I rate it an eight. Additionally, Oracle might have added many other features that are not in the 12C version. The market is saturated with other visualization tools, such as Tableau, or Microsoft BI. People prefer Tableau and other solutions because they are much more user-friendly and very easy to work on.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. partner
PeerSpot user
Presidente at EDR
Real User
Good technical support, dashboard, and analysis
Pros and Cons
  • "The dashboard and analysis are the most valuable features of this solution."
  • "I would like to see Machine Learning included in this solution."

What is our primary use case?

We use this solution as an adjudicator for an insurance company.

We are a development enterprise, and we sell the solutions we have to our customers. We have several customers that use our solutions in Oracle OBIEE. We are resellers.

What is most valuable?

The dashboard and analysis are the most valuable features of this solution.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see Machine Learning included in this solution.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Oracle OBIEE for almost ten years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Oracle OBIEE is a stable product.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability of Oracle OBIEE is good.

If you combine all of your customers there are almost 150 users.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is fine.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We are also experienced using Tableau. We have the same application ruling in both technologies.

Tableau is deployed on the cloud.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Pricing is an area that could be improved.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Oracle OBIEE a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Oracle OBIEE Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: October 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Oracle OBIEE Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.