Databricks vs Oracle Essbase comparison

The compared Databricks and Oracle solutions aren't in the same category. Databricks is ranked #9 in CDW , with an average rating of 8.3, and holds a 10.0% mindshare in the category. Oracle is ranked #11 in DDM , with an average rating of 7.9, and holds a 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Databricks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Oracle users who would recommend it.

Databricks

Read 93 Databricks reviews

18,865 Views
2,075 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Oracle Essbase

Read 18 Oracle Essbase reviews

1,800 Views
342 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Databricks

Oracle Essbase

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Databricks and Oracle Essbase based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Snowflake Computing, Microsoft, Teradata and others in Cloud Data Warehouse.

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Buyer's Guide

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January 2026

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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

Databricks

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Data Warehouse (9th), Data Science Platforms (1st), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (5th), Streaming Analytics (1st)

Oracle Essbase

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

4.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Database Development and Management (11th)

Mindshare comparison

Databricks and Oracle Essbase aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Databricks is designed for Cloud Data Warehouse and holds a mindshare of 10.0%, up 7.2% compared to last year.
Oracle Essbase, on the other hand, focuses on Database Development and Management, holds 1.2% mindshare, up 1.2% since last year.

Cloud Data Warehouse Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Databricks	10.0%
Snowflake	15.9%
Teradata	8.4%
Other	65.7%

Cloud Data Warehouse

Database Development and Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Oracle Essbase	1.2%
Redgate SQL Toolbelt Essentials	4.5%
Spotlight	4.0%
Other	90.3%

Database Development and Management

Featured Reviews

Satyam Wagh

Consultant at Nice Software Solutions

Unified data workflows have cut ticket processing times and are driving faster business insights

Databricks already provides monthly updates and continuously works on delivering new features while enhancing existing ones. However, the platform could become easier to use. While instruction-led workshops are available, offering more free instructional workshops would allow a wider audience to access and learn about Databricks. Additionally, providing use cases would help beginners gain more knowledge and hands-on experience. Regarding my experience, I was initially unfamiliar with the platform and had to conduct research and learn through various videos. I did find some instruction-led classes, but several of those required payment. The platform should provide more free resources to enable a broader audience to access and learn about Databricks. The platform itself is user-friendly and easy to use without complex issues, so I believe it does not need improvement in its core functionality. Rather, supporting aspects can be enhanced.

Read full review

Bhavya N

Senior System Engineer at Infosys

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Automation with Databricks is very easy when using the API."

"The Delta Lake data type has been the most useful part of this solution. Delta Lake is an opensource data type and it was implemented and invented by Databricks."

"The integration with Python and the notebooks really helps."

"I like cloud scalability and data access for any type of user."

"Databricks allows me to automate the creation of a cluster, optimized for machine learning and construct AI machine learning models for the client."

"It's very simple to use Databricks Apache Spark."

"We can scale the product."

"Databricks has a Unified Catalog that assists with secured access and governance."

More Databricks pros

"The solution is scalable."

"With Oracle Essbase, everything is centralized in a comprehensive financial statement analysis, allowing for complete management of budget, actuals analysis, and forecast."

"Essbase is a kind of backbone, or back end, for systems like Hyperion Planning."

"It is highly efficient and easily scalable, particularly for handling large databases."

"Oracle's capability to define custom hierarchies and dimensions has helped my organization in performing nuanced data exploration and advanced modeling because we use Oracle Essbase for dimension definition and also to define the properties of these members, such as dynamic members, stored members, shared members."

"I have found the most valuable aspect is the user-friendly environment and current features."

"It is very fast compared to other normal databases, like SQL and MySQL."

"It's a very powerful analytical engine with Essbase as the back end. We can analyze, transform, or utilize a big chunk of data for our calculations."

More Oracle Essbase pros

Cons

"The solution could improve by providing better automation capabilities. For example, working together with more of a DevOps approach, such as continuous integration."

"The API deployment and model deployment are not easy on the Databricks side."

"Cluster failure is one of the biggest weaknesses I notice in our Databricks."

"Would be helpful to have additional licensing options."

"Databricks requires writing code in Python or SQL, so if you're a good programmer then you can use Databricks."

"Databricks has added some alerts and query functionality into their SQL persona, but the whole SQL persona, which is like a role, needs a lot of development. The alerts are not very flexible, and the query interface itself is not as polished as the notebook interface that is used through the data science and machine learning persona. It is clunky at present."

"Databricks may not be as easy to use as other tools, but if you simplify a tool too much, it won't have the flexibility to go in-depth. Databricks is completely in the programmer's hands. I prefer flexibility rather than simplicity."

"This solution only supports queries in SQL and Python, which is a bit limiting."

More Databricks cons

"They should improve the solution's performance."

"There is room for improvement in terms of cost-effectiveness."

"The initial setup is pretty complex."

"It's an expensive product to use."

"The solution could enhance business analytics. I delved into the data using Oracle Essbase to create a new support tool."

"The ability to drive external reporting out for development could be improved."

"The initial setup could be simplified."

"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."

More Oracle Essbase cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is a good value for batch processing and huge workloads."

"Licensing on site I would counsel against, as on-site hardware issues tend to really delay and slow down delivery."

"Databricks' cost could be improved."

"The solution uses a pay-per-use model with an annual subscription fee or package. Typically this solution is used on a cloud platform, such as Azure or AWS, but more people are choosing Azure because the price is more reasonable."

"I would rate Databricks' pricing seven out of ten."

"I rate the price of Databricks as eight out of ten."

"The price is okay. It's competitive."

"The product pricing is moderate."

More Databricks pricing and cost advice

"I believe the licensing is on a monthly base."

"Essbase is competitively priced."

"The solution is expensive."

"It is a costly solution."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

18%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

20%

Insurance Company

Computer Software Company

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	26
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	56

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	14

Questions from the Community

Which do you prefer - Databricks or Azure Machine Learning Studio?

Databricks gives you the option of working with several different languages, such as SQL, R, Scala, Apache Spark, or Python. It offers many different cluster choices and excellent integration with ...

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How would you compare Databricks vs Amazon SageMaker?

We researched AWS SageMaker, but in the end, we chose Databricks. Databricks is a Unified Analytics Platform designed to accelerate innovation projects. It is based on Spark so it is very fast. It...

See all answers

Which would you choose - Databricks or Azure Stream Analytics?

Databricks is an easy-to-set-up and versatile tool for data management, analysis, and business analytics. For analytics teams that have to interpret data to further the business goals of their orga...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Databricks

Compared 5% of the time

Dremio vs Databricks

Compared 4% of the time

Informatica PowerCenter vs Databricks

Compared 4% of the time

Alteryx vs Databricks

Compared 3% of the time

More Databricks Competitors

Microsoft Power BI vs Oracle Essbase

Compared 22% of the time

SAP Analytics Cloud vs Oracle Essbase

Compared 10% of the time

IBM Planning Analytics vs Oracle Essbase

Compared 9% of the time

IBM Cognos vs Oracle Essbase

Compared 8% of the time

More Oracle Essbase Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Databricks

January 2026

Download Databricks product report

Buyer's Guide

Oracle Essbase

January 2026

Download Oracle Essbase product report

Also Known As

Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash

Essbase

Overview

Databricks offers a scalable, versatile platform that integrates seamlessly with Spark and multiple languages, supporting data engineering, machine learning, and analytics in a unified environment.

Databricks stands out for its scalability, ease of use, and powerful integration with Spark, multiple languages, and leading cloud services like Azure and AWS. It provides tools such as the Notebook for collaboration, Delta Lake for efficient data management, and Unity Catalog for data governance. While enhancing data engineering and machine learning workflows, it faces challenges in visualization and third-party integration, with pricing and user interface navigation being common concerns. Despite needing improvements in connectivity and documentation, it remains popular for tasks like real-time processing and data pipeline management.

What features make Databricks unique?

Notebook: Enables collaborative work among team members.
Delta Lake: Optimizes data management operations.
Unity Catalog: Provides governance over data assets.
Cloud Integration: Seamlessly connects with major cloud platforms.

What benefits can users expect from Databricks?

Versatility: Supports diverse applications in data science and engineering.
Performance: Delivers efficient handling of large-scale analytics tasks.
Collaboration: Enhances teamwork in data projects.
Unified Environment: Centralizes machine learning and analytics activities.

In the tech industry, Databricks empowers teams to perform comprehensive data analytics, enabling them to conduct extensive ETL operations, run predictive modeling, and prepare data for SparkML. In retail, it supports real-time data processing and batch streaming, aiding in better decision-making. Enterprises across sectors leverage its capabilities for creating secure APIs and managing data lakes effectively.

Databricks

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.

Oracle

Sample Customers

Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware

CHU de Rennes, Bellco Credit Union, Akindo Sushiro Co. Ltd, Deutsche Telekom AG, Samarco MineraÊo 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.

Find out what your peers are saying about Snowflake Computing, Microsoft, Teradata and others in Cloud Data Warehouse. Updated: January 2026.

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