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Oracle Essbase 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

Oracle Essbase
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Database Development and Management (11th)
Oracle OBIEE
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
158
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (6th), Reporting (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Oracle Essbase and Oracle OBIEE aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Oracle Essbase is designed for Database Development and Management and holds a mindshare of 0.9%, down 1.0% compared to last year.
Oracle OBIEE, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 3.6% mindshare, down 4.5% since last year.
Database Development and Management
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Pratik Phapale - PeerSpot reviewer
Multidimensional cube structure enables complex data storage and Oracle consistently upgrades Essbase
It's definitely growing and has many great features, especially in the cloud. I haven't used the on-premises server as much. Multidimensional data processing: Essbase is a kind of backbone, or back end, for systems like Hyperion Planning and Hyperion Financial Management. It's a multidimensional cube where we can store and process details, generate reports, and do multiple data processing, which isn't possible in Oracle or other alternatives. So, I'm grateful for this experience. Continuous improvement: Recently, I faced a version upgrade from 11.1.2 to 11.4. Now I'm on 11.2.10. Essbase is continuously upgrading its features in different areas, like configuration, properties, and the cloud platform. It's great to have experience with this, as well as working with the fundamental parts of the VM sets.
VishnuReddy - PeerSpot reviewer
Handles large datasets and easy to interact with and handle but performance could be better
Oracle's technical support usually recommends to upgrade when you contact them for support. They don't focus on fixing the issue at hand or providing guidance on how to do it. If you are in a lower environment, like one version down, they will blindly suggest upgrading. Additional patches are given for other Oracle products like WebLogic, databases, and apps. They fix issues and create patches based on client needs. But from an OBIEE point of view, they mostly provide bundle patches of around 5 to 6 GB that need to be applied and tested end-to-end. It's not an easy way to get small patches, and if issues arise after applying the patches, you have to contact Oracle again.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is scalable."
"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."
"Essbase is extremely stable and low-maintenance."
"It is very fast compared to other normal databases, like SQL and MySQL."
"It helps us fetch specific data sets per users' requirements."
"The solution is stable and reliable."
"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."
"Easy to create ad hoc reporting for different solutions."
"The solution offers a wide range of software tools to meet various needs, such as those concerning reports, developer solutions like APEX and the integration of data."
"We have scheduled reports delivered automatically to our business users using enterprise features."
"The most valuable feature is the openness of the solution. It helps us integrate some of our clients."
"User-friendly look and feel."
"The complexity that OBIEE can handle in the form of RPD is unmatched. I haven't found this level of complexity in other reporting tools, especially when dealing with complex calculations that are not readily available in the reporting layer."
"It is a very stable solution."
"Dashboards provide us with various views and perspectives on our data, allowing us to analyze metrics such as revenue, occupancy rates, etc."
 

Cons

"The ability to drive external reporting out for development could be improved."
"They should improve the solution's performance."
"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."
"There is room for improvement in terms of cost-effectiveness."
"The initial setup is pretty complex."
"The solution could enhance business analytics. I delved into the data using Oracle Essbase to create a new support tool."
"It's an expensive product to use."
"I would like to see an integration with application performance management and a version control management tool."
"It is very biased towards Oracle infrastructure. One of the major red flags we have at the moment against Oracle is that it doesn't support deployment on other cloud providers. We're quite heavily vested in AWS as our infrastructure, and Oracle is yet to formally support deploying on those virtual infrastructure instances. That's quite disappointing, and it also cuts them out of over 70% of the market."
"In the on-premises version, the feature for connecting and selecting the data between the databases looks a bit cumbersome, but I am not sure. The person who is using it takes a lot of time to design a data warehouse. When I ask him why is it taking this long, I get a response that this is something that he has to design, and there are different tools that are available. He has to write the ETL and design the warehouse according to the customer's requirement, which takes a lot of time. Its visualization should be enhanced, and there should be a feature where you can easily create your custom data warehouse."
"The development effort takes longer than other BI tools currently on the market."
"I would rate its current performance as a five out of ten because a lot of features are missed out in OBIEE."
"One of the things that have been difficult with OBIEE during all the time that I've known it is that when something goes wrong, many times, the error messages are not specific, and you've got to spend a lot of time digging and digging and digging before you say, "Oh, okay. I figured out what it was." There should be more detailed error messages or troubleshooting messages."
"We needed some technical expertise during setup."
"Implementation is cumbersome and requires expertise."
"The complexity of this product means that you need to have a technical team to develop the reports, although this is also true for products like Microsoft BI and Zoho."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I believe the licensing is on a monthly base."
"The solution is expensive."
"Essbase is competitively priced."
"It is a costly solution."
"I would rate it a 4 out of 5 in terms of pricing."
"Pricing is an area that could be improved."
"Its licensing is yearly."
"Simplifying the data integration process would save our clients considerable costs."
"It is high."
"Power BI is less expensive than Oracle OBIEE. A benefit to Power BI is having the option to work with concurrent licensing."
"The licensing cost for Oracle OBIEE is expensive."
"I think to spread this across an enterprise will be a significant investment."
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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
23%
Computer Software Company
10%
Insurance Company
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What needs improvement with Oracle Essbase?
If I got the opportunity to work with Hyperion, which is the best product, I would definitely go with that. The main concern is that Oracle is ending on-premises server support, so it would be bett...
What is your primary use case for Oracle Essbase?
We provide complete ownership of this application to Walmart projects. In the UK system, we support and develop for the Asda account, known as Eltham. We provide installation and support to over 50...
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.
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CHU de Rennes, Bellco Credit Union, Akindo Sushiro Co. Ltd, Deutsche Telekom AG, Samarco MineraÊo 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.
Banca Transilvania, BeckmanCoulter, Hong Kong Housing Society, HealthShare, Ivanhoe Cambridge Unifies, and Home Credit, and Finance Bank.
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