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Looker vs Oracle OBIEE comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Looker
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Embedded BI (7th)
Oracle OBIEE
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
158
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (9th), Reporting (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Looker is designed for Embedded BI and holds a mindshare of 8.0%, down 10.4% compared to last year.
Oracle OBIEE, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 2.4% mindshare, down 3.8% since last year.
Embedded BI Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Looker8.0%
Tableau Enterprise26.6%
Qlik Sense12.2%
Other53.2%
Embedded BI
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Oracle OBIEE2.4%
Microsoft Power BI14.1%
Tableau Enterprise10.3%
Other73.2%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Kishore Jhunjhunwala - PeerSpot reviewer
A cloud solution for operational reporting but is expensive
Some basic feature that is available in other reporting tools is missing. Looker has the ability to show more than 5,000 rows for operational reporting. Some reporting tools allow users to scroll down to see more than 5,000 rows, but in Looker, you have to download the entire dataset. Looker should consider adding a scroll-down option to allow users to view large datasets on screen without downloading them. Looker has some options for granting users access as viewers. However, viewers cannot download the entire dataset. Only superusers can download the whole dataset on the Explore screen. This is a big limitation, as you cannot give any user viewer access. You can give access to superuser access, which is a cost to the company.
Ashok Bhadra - PeerSpot reviewer
Though comprehensive, it is expensive
The solution's most valuable feature is that it is a very comprehensive tool. Oracle OBIEE is a really robust tool for a very large enterprise implementation. Its features in terms of physical data model to logical data model building are all really robust. Though somebody else had developed the tool for the client for whom I used the tool, it was very well done. The data modeling was very well done, and it depends on the person who is executing it, as I hadn't developed it. I had just enhanced it. I had seen whatever my role was, but somebody had initially developed it. It was developed very well. It has a fantastic feature of documenting. When you work with many clients, you see the documentation is always missing, and you end up taking up some other vendor's job. It is usually very hard to figure out technically what was done, what was not done, and where the data is, so the data dictionaries are not up to date, and information documentation is always very poor. Oracle OBIEE has a built-in feature where you can actually create entire documentation of all the data elements and how they are linked, and it throws out HTML documents that are all interlinked, so if you have an entire directory structure, it helps create the document. You can find out which logical model links to which physical table, and it is very easy to identify. There are multiple combinations if you want to identify one particular table and how many models are involved. You just need to click a hyperlink click, and it gives you all the information. If somebody has made any enhancements, you can just regenerate the document as there is a component of the tool that generates the documentation automatically, which is brilliant, I think.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product is easy to use."
"Looker allows you to generate the most optimal SQL queries in a DC through UI actions. We had signed a contract with Google Cloud to use BigQuery. That was the primary reason we adopted Looker. It works better with BigQuery than any other BI platform. We also like how this tool was developed. It was designed with an eye toward microservices architecture."
"It's quite effortless to navigate through various applications and review their updated data in real-time."
"It is a pretty stable solution because it is a cloud-based product."
"I would rate the stability a ten out of ten. I didn't face any issues with stability."
"From a developer's perspective, the way the functionality's being handled is great."
"The stability of Looker has been good since I have been using it. However, it depends on what components are being used."
"With Looker, I have experienced benefits in terms of usability and shareability."
"It doesn't have many frills and is definitely older technology, but it is undeniably a workhorse."
"The most valuable feature of Oracle OBIEE is the security of the solution."
"The technical support services are good."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to set up the automated delivery of reports."
"Oracle OBIEE is very easy to use. Looking at analytics, I think they have come a long way by adding new features like visualization, which is really cool."
"Ability to create our own reports."
"It is easy to use...I rate the scalability of the solution a nine out of ten."
"The most valuable features of Oracle OBIEE are ease of use, the graphical user interface is simple to understand, and the reports can be done without problems. There are many tutorials and training materials available if needed."
 

Cons

"Looker doesn't connect to Excel, which is a huge disappointment because a lot of data is presented in Excel. Also, it can't consume data directly from REST APIs, which is necessary. Looker needs to expand its horizons when it comes to data sources. The inability to connect to different data sources is hampering our use cases. Currently, it only has an ODBC connection that connects to a database. It needs to connect to other data sources, such as Excel, APIs, and different platforms."
"The main area of concern in Looker is probably related to blending the data from the different sources, including the data present internally in the company and on the cloud."
"The product does not have documented material."
"The integration with different databases must be improved."
"It needs to be more user-friendly."
"Integrations with other BI tools could be better."
"The visualization capability of the product is limited."
"Stability needs improvement."
"Oracle OBIEEE's performance and licensing costs could be improved."
"n the beginning it had it's stability issues, but it became stable."
"There are times we have slowness when processing the reports with Oracle OBIEE. Improving the performance would be beneficial."
"Oracle products have a lot of complications...Oracle has a history of not really providing great support."
"From the point of view of strategic management, I would like to have a feature, perhaps a form after we get to the KPI dashboard, to be used to note if something unusual happens in the operations. That way we could record extreme KPI situations, and track why a number is very low or too high."
"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."
"From an improvement perspective, the technical team should be able to provide more accurate answers by taking into consideration the context of the issues faced by users."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's not cheap, but it's not expensive for big companies."
"The price of Looker usually depends on the solution's provider, but it is usually cheaper than the other products in the market. Looker is offered at different prices for different companies."
"Looker is expensive and could be made better by reducing it."
"I do not have to make any payments to use the solution."
"It is cheap."
"It is high."
"There are no additional costs, but there might be some charges for the Java feature."
"The price of Oracle OBIEE is expensive, it is difficult for a small business to afford."
"Pricing is an area that could be improved."
"It is reasonable, but it depends on how you're going to use it. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"I think to spread this across an enterprise will be a significant investment."
"This was not an expensive product for us, although the price varies depending on conditions for each company."
"Compared with the other products in the market, I feel Oracle OBIEE is an expensive product."
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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
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Retailer
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business40
Midsize Enterprise34
Large Enterprise102
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Looker?
With Looker, I have experienced benefits in terms of usability and shareability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Looker?
I do not have to make any payments to use the solution. In the beginning, Looker may work fine for its users. If advanced users who have experience with BI tools use Looker, then they may find it t...
What needs improvement with Looker?
The visualization capability of the product is limited. From an improvement perspective, the product should have more visualization capability. I can't clean data in Looker, and if I try to do it, ...
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
OBIEE, Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition, Oracle BI, Oracle BI EE 11g
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Yahoo!, Etsy, Kohler, Hipcamp, Hubspot, Kickstarter, Venmo, Dollar Shave Club, 600+ customer
Banca Transilvania, BeckmanCoulter, Hong Kong Housing Society, HealthShare, Ivanhoe Cambridge Unifies, and Home Credit, and Finance Bank.
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