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Microsoft Power BI vs Oracle HFM comparison

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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

Microsoft Power BI
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
332
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (1st), Reporting (1st)
Oracle HFM
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Business Performance Management (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Microsoft Power BI is designed for BI (Business Intelligence) Tools and holds a mindshare of 7.1%, down 14.5% compared to last year.
Oracle HFM, on the other hand, focuses on Business Performance Management, holds 3.4% mindshare, down 5.6% since last year.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Power BI7.1%
Tableau Enterprise5.8%
SAP Business Data Cloud3.0%
Other84.1%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
Business Performance Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Oracle HFM3.4%
Anaplan5.8%
Workday Adaptive Planning5.6%
Other85.2%
Business Performance Management
 

Featured Reviews

Hemanthreddy Vakiti - PeerSpot reviewer
Junior Data engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Interactive dashboards have transformed restaurant data into faster daily business decisions
Microsoft Power BI has many features and there is not a lot to improve. However, the licensing can be confusing. When deciding between Pro and Premium, I find it difficult to distinguish what features are offered by Pro and what features are offered by Premium, including the particular differences to choose between both licensing models. Additionally, some features such as DAX, which I mentioned previously, involve DAX calculations and complex data modeling, which are somewhat advanced and not easily understandable. Prior knowledge is required or you need to go through the documentation. If the documentation is made comprehensive so that anyone with no knowledge on DAX can easily use it by going through the documentation, it would be really helpful. Additionally, if the integration with non-Microsoft tools is improved and performance is optimized, then Microsoft Power BI can become a top-ranked visualization tool. The user experience with Microsoft Power BI is quite good. The intuitive user interface makes it easy for both technical and non-technical users to create reports. However, only the advanced features are somewhat complex, and if the documentation is improved, it can be easily accessible.
Segun Oladele - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Manager, Accounting at BIC
Has supported financial consolidation through accurate reporting and global currency conversion
Oracle HFM is excellent for consolidation and reconciliation. It helps me see the general overview of the business across several locations. The drill-through reporting enhances accuracy in financial analysis. Oracle HFM has a schedule that requires reporting, especially one that ties back to my general ledger. I have to report each line item that comprises that number. It helps me fact-check reported numbers with a schedule. For example, with payables, Oracle HFM allows me to have a list of numbers reported per supplier. This provides comfort that the numbers are not fictitious. Additionally, it has a feature that performs fact-checking from P&L to balance sheet. For instance, if depreciation is reported, it must align with what is in the profit or loss account. These features ensure integrity in the reported numbers and allow for quick error detection while serving as a reconciliation tool. The currency conversion feature provides a global view from entity currency to local currency perspective, enabling value checks in different currencies for the company as a whole. In Nigeria, I report in Naira, and I don't need to report in my parent currency. The entity can report in their currency into Oracle HFM, and the parent company converts to their currency. By inputting budget rates, I can convert to any reporting currency, particularly the parent company currency. This feature saves time, increases speed, and allows the parent company to value its subsidiaries quickly. Regarding data integration capabilities for ensuring data consistency and accuracy, it deserves a high rating. For example, with inventory, if there is an impairment, the reported amount in P&L should match the balance sheet's inventory impairment. This level of checking provides confidence in the accuracy of reported figures.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Very high, as it is a very cost effective application compared to any BI tools in the market."
"The most significant implementation was to reduce the Financial consolidation time for one hundred and twenty companies into one shareholder report, from thirty days to four minutes."
"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."
"It gives us, the ability to do a lot of analysis quickly, similar to ad hoc analysis."
"The primary use cases for Microsoft BI are typical for business intelligence, including operational monitoring and KPI tracking."
"The standard BI visualization capabilities are great."
"If someone wants an embedded solution then Microsoft BI is very good because it works on many types of data, such as JSON."
"Microsoft SQL Server BI made data correlation between the agencies so fast, that the simple POCs for the dashboards let the decision-makers to migrate our so-called enterprise architecture."
"HFM is a very successful consolidation tool in the market since it provides an excellent and easy to use interface and the technology behind is very powerful which helps the business to perform the consolidation activities end to end."
"Time saving during accounting closing periods."
"Oracle HFM is excellent for consolidation and reconciliation; it helps me see the general overview of the business across several locations."
"It is an expensive product but delivers what it promises, ensuring regulatory compliance, reducing risks associated with spreadsheets, and providing a better return on investment based on usage."
"The data consolidation engine is outstanding in terms of speed and functionality."
"Decreased time spent on the preparation of main financial statements and cross checking data."
"The versatile data is probably the most valuable feature, since you can access it through the web interface or through Microsoft Office based solutions like Excel, Excel Smart View, PowerPoint and Word."
"The most valuable features are around consolidations, eliminations, conversions."
 

Cons

"The build in Report Builder for end users needs improvement."
"Defining a relationship was very confusing. There were circular directions for which I had to do a lot of adjustments in the data. They can do something to make it easier."
"For our reporting services, it would be good to have the capability for email-based subscriptions. I want to be able to change the sender dynamically, without having to rely on running through an exercise passage."
"I would like to see integration with Excel."
"We identified a couple of issues in the reports. Some reports took too long to load, particularly at the end of our data refresh."
"What you get with Power BI is that you start to find that even simple stuff requires a lot of gymnastics to achieve because there's no in-built, straightforward feature for it and you need to come up with a workaround."
"It's quite difficult to learn how to use Power BI."
"Right now, their premium pricing is keeping us out of the premium market. The premium price per user just doesn't make sense for us, but we haven't reached the limit of 500 users to justify the premium."
"The user interface for data entry (forms) is very primitive – and lacks common Windows functionality such as copy/paste functions."
"The tool almost feels a little disconnected from some of the other tools, so you have to piece together multiple tools into one solution."
"Integration is an area where it lacks and can be improved."
"The complexity is okay. I don't see it as super complex. The solution could have more functionality to make it a little bit more flexible."
"There have been some stable cases, but not all of them are."
"In terms of improvement, one challenge with Oracle HFM is the need for technical knowledge in writing SQL syntax for custom extensions."
"Yes I did have issues."
"The solution has integration challenges. We need a simple tool that is fool-proof for the data that is submitted not only for consolidation purposes but also for performance management and reporting purposes."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are end-users, and we don't take care of the prices and accounting. We get a product and pay the fee to our internal service provider, but its price should be reasonable. Otherwise, they wouldn't have bought it."
"It is free."
"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with one being cheap and ten being expensive."
"The costs are small and the benefits are high."
"It would be better if the price was cheaper."
"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."
"There are a few options available for purchasing a license. Typically the number of users you have will determine the price of the license. The more users you have the more you will pay."
"Its licensing cost is very high. It is $20 per user, which is very high, but it is a good product, so you pay for it."
"Oracle Hyperion Financial Management (HFM) uses the named user licensing model. There's different pricing depending on HFM and Essbase planning."
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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
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Construction Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business137
Midsize Enterprise59
Large Enterprise171
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise11
 

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...
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...
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 ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle HFM?
It depends on the discount offered by Oracle. It is an expensive product but delivers what it promises, ensuring regulatory compliance, reducing risks associated with spreadsheets, and providing a ...
What needs improvement with Oracle HFM?
Oracle HFM could be improved or enhanced in handling metadata or the dimensionality. I currently handle updates in the dimension hierarchies and properties manually. There is a way for it to be cen...
What is your primary use case for Oracle HFM?
The usual use cases for Oracle HFM that I support are for financial institutions, crewing for ships, and an Australian airlines company. They use the application mainly for management reporting pur...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

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
B&B Hotels, Goldwind, Drake & Scull
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Salesforce, SAP and others in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.