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Knowage vs Oracle OBIEE 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Knowage
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
33rd
Ranking in Reporting
23rd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Oracle OBIEE
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
12th
Ranking in Reporting
7th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
159
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Knowage is 1.0%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle OBIEE is 1.7%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Oracle OBIEE1.7%
Knowage1.0%
Other97.3%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

BS
Software Engineer at syntegra
Open-source with great embedding capabilities but the dashboards could be better
I know the initial setup is pretty straightforward. It doesn't take a long time to deploy. Even on your own personal computer, when you want to try it out, it doesn't take too long to get it running. For the initial setup, I'd say it's maybe a four out of five in terms of how easy it is. You need to add these Java dependencies and so forth, which can be a bit boring, however, it's almost perfect. To deploy Knowage usually takes about a day. In terms of the implementation strategy, it's just following the instructions that they give us on the installation and then just knowing how to handle the process. Usually, there is a group of engineers who do that for us and manage the server itself. If a team is knowledgeable, then it doesn't take a long time. When you need a new instance, it's very quick. The implementation strategy is based on just following instructions on the installation process from Knowage. For deployment and maintenance, we need just maybe two people simply to monitor the traffic coming in. However, it's maintained by people who were doing other jobs like maintaining our other server. They just monitor the Knowage server and make sure that it's up and running and that there are no bugs. There are not too many bugs coming out from the debugger.
AA
Analyst at Equifax Inc.
Unified semantic layer has driven informed credit risk decisions and real-time analytical insight
Performance-related issues are a concern, as in multiple reports I have seen, some reports were poorly performing. We can focus on implementation of performance so that reports are delivered within seconds. The user interface and self-service experience can be improved through modernization of the UI, addressing self-service limitations, and integrating with mobile. Technical and administrative complexities can also be addressed. Complexities such as system configuration require attention. In the initial setup of Oracle OBIEE, there are multiple things starting from infrastructure provisioning, database schemas, and WebLogic server installations. However, the RPD, the semantic layer, is the steepest hurdle. Security integration, integrating with LDAP or Active Directory, is rarely plug and play and requires deep knowledge of WebLogic. Deep knowledge is necessary when starting with the initial setup of Oracle OBIEE. Other dependencies include Java middleware and client tools. Since Oracle OBIEE deals with huge data, report performance is the biggest concern. The out-of-the-box setup is rarely optimized, so we need to manually check configuration files, such as nqsconfig.ini file settings. For recommendations in Oracle OBIEE, from what I have seen, we work with star schemas in the RPD. I always aim for the star schema in the business model, even if the physical source is normalized. This approach will impact the performance, speed of the data, and accuracy. Oracle OBIEE could improve to allow other schemas as well. Performance is a major area for improvement, and they should work on aggregating the persistence and improve the persistence wizard where we implement aggregations. Caching features have been given, including event polling tables where we can do purging and seeding, but the main focus should be with respect to schema designs.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I can't name the features the way the Knowage community calls them because I still don't know the lingo. However, I can describe them. I like the ability to join more than one report, set all fields on one end, and replicate that on the other reports. I like that a lot. I think it's one of the features that got me using Knowage. They have tables, and I like that too. They took SQL scripts and many other scripts and enabled them to even correlate with Python. That's also one of the best things about Knowage. You could also decide to get information per user role, and this is also a feature that I like in Knowage."
"Unified interface, a lot of tools for BI, easy configuration, standalone SDK."
"Our customers really appreciate the self-service BI functionalities."
"The most valuable features to us are application implementation, development, and analysis."
"Nice features available in SpagoBI compared with other open-source BI are Auditing, Collaborative BI, Query By Example, and User Profiling."
"Customer Service: Excellent."
"In terms of ROI, much better than any other solution when it offer full fledged features in open source, planned to have direct contact with SpagoBI for better support."
"The most valuable feature of SpagoBI is that it is open source and 100% free without limits."
"In terms of features, everything is good."
"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."
"It provides our customers the ability to build simple or complex reports effortlessly."
"The cost factor is the most valuable feature; it's very cheap to deploy it enterprise-wide without having to worry about breaking the bank."
"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."
"In 2006, we bought Oracle BI, eliminated all those different reports and were able to create a single source of truth."
"It has helped to consolidate data and report on a single version of the truth."
"Now, we can better and rapidly answer the user’s reporting needs, even if it involves different sources of information (different applications, different databases, external sources, etc.)."
 

Cons

"When it comes to Knowage, it's a bit heavy, it's time-consuming sometimes, it's not very fast, and definitely not as fast as other business intelligence tools in terms of getting graphical reports."
"Development of SpagoBI has now been moved to Knowage. Users interested in further developments of the platform will have to look there."
"It would be better if more resources were available to help us learn how to use it. I wanted to use Knowage for a more extended period, but learning materials around the product were not really available and were not really straightforward. I've also seen inconsistencies between versions. For example, under the tools, especially in the cockpit, the way you create reports is now different. You will also find some configurations within a particular state, like a line chart, which differs from version to version. I think consistency is an essential feature in a product, especially for business intelligence products."
"We had stability issues."
"There are additional features such as Data Integration, Data Visualization, MobileBI, Cloud BI, Data enrichment and massaging should be implemented in the next release."
"The only challenge here is that it's a Java-based platform. It requires very high technical skills."
"As all software and especially the open-source ones have always something that can work better, in this case, SpagoBI is slightly difficult to implement."
"Unfortunately, many interesting features do not work when you are using a custom database for storing the metadata."
"This solution is weak in the data science perspective. I have past data science experience. And, I find that there is a lot of room for improvement in terms of incorporating more advanced statistical modeling into the product."
"The WebLogic administration could be more intuitive or simplified especially when you are focused on OBIEE"
"The platform's data visualization features need improvement."
"The platform's interface needs improvement."
"The performance could be better."
"Oracle OBIEE has a steep learning curve compared to tools like SQL Server or Power BI. In situations where complex problem-solving is required, Oracle's support tends to direct users to sales representatives with limited technical knowledge, which is less than ideal."
"Oracle OBIEE could improve the visualizations, such as diagrams, charts, and graphical user interface. Other tools on the market have better graphical visualizations this Oracle OBIEE."
"Rigidity and speed are areas that could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It allows the implementation of an effective reporting system using internal skills at a limited upfront cost."
"Knowage is open-source, and an enterprise edition is also available."
"Power BI is less expensive than Oracle OBIEE. A benefit to Power BI is having the option to work with concurrent licensing."
"Be prepared to spend a lot of time and money."
"This is a very costly product."
"I would rate it a 4 out of 5 in terms of pricing."
"Compared with the other products in the market, I feel Oracle OBIEE is an expensive product."
"Oracle products are extremely expensive."
"There are no additional costs, but there might be some charges for the Java feature."
"This was not an expensive product for us, although the price varies depending on conditions for each company."
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Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager - BI Head with 5,001-10,000 employees
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
Construction Company
19%
University
11%
Marketing Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
8%
Construction Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business40
Midsize Enterprise34
Large Enterprise103
 

Questions from the Community

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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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle OBIEE?
Oracle OBIEE is quite expensive, especially when compared to Microsoft's solutions.
 

Also Known As

SpagoBI
OBIEE, Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition, Oracle BI, Oracle BI EE 11g
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

FIAT Group, Italian air navigation service provider, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Telecom Italia, ASL Genovese, San Giovanni Battista University Hospital
Banca Transilvania, BeckmanCoulter, Hong Kong Housing Society, HealthShare, Ivanhoe Cambridge Unifies, and Home Credit, and Finance Bank.
Find out what your peers are saying about Knowage vs. Oracle OBIEE and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.