Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Oracle Big Data Appliance vs Oracle Exadata comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

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

Oracle Big Data Appliance
Ranking in Data Warehouse
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Oracle Exadata
Ranking in Data Warehouse
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
128
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Oracle Big Data Appliance is 1.4%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Exadata is 16.9%, down from 18.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

Mohammed Hamad - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides clean, centralized data
From a technical perspective, Big Data Appliance could be improved with more innovation in the AI and machine-learning parts instead of relying on Cloudera. Oracle could also improve Big Data Appliance by having one technology on their stack and working on it instead of continually changing the name or technologies or features. In addition, they could have a program to enable their partners to use this technology because right now, I have to have an expert to use the AI elements.
Anand_Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
A solid data warehouse for transactional data that needs to be priced more competitively
Since the product is an appliance, it is very costly. And in the current age, people are cautious about spending this amount of money on any of these types of backend products. Some use cases are in real-time, where all other databases are much faster, but if you talk about the data warehouse, business intelligence, and all other perspectives in the transactional world, Oracle has to reduce the cost. Otherwise, a customer wouldn't want to continue this. If the same thing can be done at half or one-third of the cost, why would people stay with Oracle? Oracle Exadata would not have great value in front of a CFO. Other solutions can guard your data and address security concerns. Security, volumetrics, and so on are also provided by other databases, which are not that costly. Apart from Exadata, Oracle has other tools for business intelligence and other things, which they add on top of Exadata when they're selling a general license. For example, the Vertica database, an HP data warehouse. They have come up with their own analytic engine within the database, which gives an edge for the client to use the data analytics engine as a part of their database. Exadata does not have an analytic engine. Even MySQL has some statistical tools within it. If Exadata integrates analytical tools, it will be good for them.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This is a comprehensive solution that is easy to deploy."
"Because Big Data Appliance allows me to have a single source of truth, it means I have clean data that can be monetized and leveraged to gain more insights with real-time reports from the dashboard."
"The best thing about the product is that the end-user can build the reports by themselves without really knowing anything about databases."
"Backup/Restore performance: Fast backups, fast restores (especially useful for creating clone environments)."
"It offers a significant advantage for accommodating a large number of users."
"The ease of setup is an eight out of ten."
"The key capability of Exadata, which is not found in any other solution or appliance, is its enhancement specifically for databases."
"Regarding features, there are so many that we can offer to customers. When we sell Exadata Cloud, there are many options to choose from, especially when it comes to enterprise database options. In my experience, the main features that are appreciated are various ones like GPS and the assortment of security options."
"We have used this solution for a long period of time so it has become easy for us to query any kind of data from Oracle Exadata which has been valuable."
"The most valuable feature of Oracle Exadata is the integration with other solutions, such as SAN storage and shared VLAN network."
"Parallelism is the most valuable feature."
 

Cons

"The product should be simplified for the average user."
"From a technical perspective, Big Data Appliance could be improved with more innovation in the AI and machine-learning parts instead of relying on Cloudera."
"It seems like the deployment of repositories has become more difficult in later versions of the product rather than easier."
"The analytics features must be improved."
"Oracle Exadata compatibility with the analytics could be better and the OBIEE could improve. Oracle BI to Exadata needs to be improved. Even if the full analytics practice for Oracle should be improved and when compared with other solutions it is weak."
"I believe Oracle must improve its procedure to support the clients. The customer Ready Service must provide more use cases and benchmarks of their infrastructure to support client design decisions. Oracle must audit their partners regularly to guarantee they provide quality service even after been passed on partnership examination."
"Sometimes it takes too long time to get help with technical issues."
"Checking the Smart Scan issues is complicated."
"The solution takes a lot of time to clone the environment. I would like to see some improvement in the cloning support or the time it takes on the storage side."
"It is difficult to evaluate return-on-investment because of the way billing is handled for the product. This should be improved by oracle."
"There is one aspect to Exadata that I dislike, and that's the inconsistency with other databases. When you try to get Exadata to function with another type of database like SQL, or others, there should be reliable and consistent operation. When this is improved on, we should start to see more applications growing the market."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Oracle's prices are too high compared to others in the market."
"I give the pricing of the solution a five out of ten."
"It is an expensive product and you pay more for certain performance enhancements."
"I did note that Oracle does tend to internally oversize things especially if they want to fill up a budget, and hence third-party oversight is essential."
"The price of the solution has been expensive to implement."
"Oracle Exadata is costly. Its licensing should also be more versatile. Smaller companies would benefit if Oracle Exadata had lower pricing."
"You have to pay for the storage and the database in Oracle Exadata. It cost a lot, but it is worth it. It would be a benefit if we could reduce the price for the number of CPUs and extend the memory."
"The cost of the solution is high."
"The cost of the product could be improved."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Warehouse solutions are best for your needs.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
30%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
32%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
5%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What do you like most about Oracle Exadata?
It is the best solution for OLTP and data warehousing.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Exadata?
The price is a major consideration. I would rate the price an eight on a scale from one to ten, indicating it is fairly expensive.
What needs improvement with Oracle Exadata?
We recently completed an extension of our storage space. There are minor areas where improvement is needed, such as making the user interface more user-friendly and enhancing configuration and cust...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Caixa Bank
PayPal, EBS, Organic Food Retailer, Garmin, University of Minnesota, Major Semiconductor Company, Deutsche Bank, Starwood, Ziraat Bank, SK Telecom, and P&G.
Find out what your peers are saying about Oracle Big Data Appliance vs. Oracle Exadata and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.