Microsoft Power BI vs Oracle Essbase comparison

The compared Microsoft and Oracle solutions aren't in the same category. Microsoft is ranked #1 in BIT , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 8.9% mindshare in the category. Oracle is ranked #11 in DDM , with an average rating of 7.9, and holds a 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Oracle users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Power BI

Read 327 Microsoft Power BI reviews

23,151 Views
14,585 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Oracle Essbase

Read 18 Oracle Essbase reviews

1,800 Views
342 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Power BI

Oracle Essbase

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Microsoft Power BI and Oracle Essbase based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Salesforce, Domo and others in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools.

To learn more, read our detailed BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

January 2026

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Helped 881,665 peers since 2012

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

Microsoft Power BI

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

327

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (1st), Reporting (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

Microsoft Power BI and Oracle Essbase aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Microsoft Power BI is designed for BI (Business Intelligence) Tools and holds a mindshare of 8.9%, down 21.4% 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.

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Power BI	8.9%
Tableau Enterprise	6.2%
Amazon QuickSight	3.7%
Other	81.2%

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

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

Livia Vasilescu

HR Manager at PPB

Use advanced data preparation features in analytics projects

Microsoft Power BI can be quite slow when working with data sources that aren't from a data warehouse or a more robust source or data artifact. When working with exports, which we do frequently, the load takes considerable time. This occurs with any BI tool, and it's related to our working methods due to limitations within the area. In HR, we typically use exports because we have numerous data sources. Ideally, Microsoft Power BI would have a no-code or low-code solution for the data sources to be built by the actual developers or development team. This would eliminate the need to work directly with exports. We would have a middle ground to create a warehouse without all the infrastructure, as building a warehouse within an organization can require substantial resources, both in time and personnel.

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

"Real-time refresh is quite interesting and user-friendly, provided you have access to a gateway. It works well."

"I like data modeling. You can connect with your database, which is quite useful for me. It is a good tool if you have a large amount of data and you want to gather different data and interconnect it. The Power Query functionality is quite an interesting feature. If you have a query in Excel, you can also copy your query and run it in Power BI. Its dashboard is also very nice and not complicated. You don't need to be a developer to be able to use it. I am not an IT guy, and it is quite easy to use for somebody who is not an IT person."

"As it was my first time using Power BI, I can say that it was fairly easy to learn, especially if you already know BI-type tools."

"The solution is stable with reasonable performance."

"Power BI's integration with other tools is very good."

"The various different ETL tools within it and the ability to have different data refreshes and scheduled refreshes [real-time data refresh capabilities] have most significantly improved the data analysis processes."

"Connectivity, installation, and configuration are pretty fast and seamless compared to Cognos."

"Tech support is very helpful."

More Microsoft Power BI pros

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

"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 Essbase is a web integration system that integrates with other data systems."

"Essbase is extremely stable and low-maintenance."

"Oracle Essbase enables organizations to take their strategic decisions, which helps them make the right decisions at the right time."

"Unlike relational, where you're linking together multiple tables, with Essbase, you basically define what the dimensions are beforehand, and you define the hierarchy, and then load the data. This allows you to do a pretty sophisticated analysis so that you can drill into it and slice and dice the data."

"The solution is stable and reliable."

More Oracle Essbase pros

Cons

"It needs a wizard that covers all its options."

"I believe Power BI could improve by making data tables and databases easier to handle, especially for non-programmers who may not be familiar with languages like Python. Simplifying these aspects would enhance the usability and accessibility of Power BI for a broader range of users."

"My main complaint is that the error messages need to be made more clear. Currently, they are either too generic or outright misleading, and finding the real problem is like searching for a needle in a haystack."

"The solution could improve the extraction and transformation of data. For example, you transform the data and then send it to Microsoft BI without having to use your own API. We are only providing the API to Power BI, and then Power BI is doing the job."

"Licensing could be improved."

"It needs more graphics and overlays."

"One opportunity for improvement would be on the Power Query side. As a consultant, I know Power Query is not the main strength of Power BI. It is not where Power BI shines, but many customers use Power Query to do full ETL workloads for deliverable cookies."

"In Microsoft Excel, you are able to have tabs. However, in Microsoft BI you do not have this flexibility."

More Microsoft Power BI cons

"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."

"I would like to see an integration with application performance management and a version control management tool."

"The initial setup is pretty complex."

"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 include the financial consolidation module that is available in EPM."

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

"The main concern is that Oracle is ending on-premises server support, so it would be better if there was a cloud platform available for Oracle Essbase."

"The reporting tool of Essbase needs improvement."

More Oracle Essbase cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Power BI premium is really expensive for our market. A lot of small and medium companies would like to purchase it, but they can't afford it."

"Paid for itself in the first month."

"This solution came free, it was offered by Microsoft with our E3 license."

"Microsoft BI is not very cheap. A premium license costs roughly 5,000 euros a month."

"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with one being cheap and ten being expensive."

"Power BI is cheaper than Tableau and Cognos."

"We view it as an expensive product."

"I'm not very familiar with the licensing aspect, as it operates in the cloud as a SaaS (Software as a Service) model. Essentially, you pay based on cloud cost models, which might include hourly rates or similar billing structures introduced by Microsoft. Many organizations utilize it and pay for its services, somewhat like Office 365. It's a cloud-based platform that provides the necessary services, including support, for development, and you pay accordingly for the usage."

More Microsoft Power BI pricing and cost advice

"It is a costly solution."

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

"The solution is expensive."

"Essbase is competitively priced."

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Comparison Review

it_user79932

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software 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	135
Midsize Enterprise	57
Large Enterprise	165

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

Questions from the Community

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...

See all answers

Is Power BI a complete platform or only a visualization tool?

Power BI is an advanced visualization tool oriented to big data with a very complete set of widgets to visualize information, control users accessing information, the configuration of governance po...

See all answers

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 ...

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

Amazon QuickSight vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 16% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 13% of the time

Domo vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 6% of the time

Databricks vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 3% of the time

KNIME Business Hub vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Power BI Competitors

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

Oracle Analytics Cloud vs Oracle Essbase

Compared 7% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Oracle Essbase

Compared 6% of the time

More Oracle Essbase Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI

January 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Oracle Essbase

January 2026

Download Oracle Essbase product report

Also Known As

SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI

Essbase

Overview

Microsoft Power BI is a powerful tool for data analysis and visualization. This tool stands out for its ability to merge and analyze data from various sources. Widely adopted across different industries and departments, Power BI is instrumental in creating visually appealing dashboards and generating insightful business intelligence reports. Its intuitive interface, robust visualization capabilities, and seamless integration with other Microsoft applications empower users to easily create interactive reports and gain valuable insights.

Microsoft

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

Accenture Adidas Aetna AIG Airbus Alibaba Allstate Amazon American Express Aon AT&T Audi Bank of America BASF Bayer Berkshire Hathaway Boeing Coca-Cola Comcast Cisco Coca-Cola Dell Disney Emirates Equinix FedEx Ford GE Google H&M Home Depot Honda IBM Intel JPMorgan Chase Kellogg's Kroger L'Oréal McDonald's Merck MetLife Microsoft Nike Oracle P&G PepsiCo Procter & Gamble Prudential Financial SAP Siemens Snapchat Spotify Starbucks Target Toyota T-Mobile Unilever Visa Walmart WeWork World Bank Xerox

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.

Buyer's Guide

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

January 2026

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