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 7.9, and holds a 21.6% mindshare in the category. Oracle is ranked #12 in DDM , with an average rating of 8.6, and holds a 1.0% 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 319 Microsoft Power BI reviews

22,103 Views
17,369 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Oracle Essbase

Read 14 Oracle Essbase reviews

136 Views
95 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, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools.

To learn more, read our detailed BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

March 2025

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Helped 848,253 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

7.3

Number of Reviews

319

Ranking in other categories

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

Oracle Essbase

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

5.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Database Development and Management (12th)

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 21.6%, down 22.4% compared to last year.
Oracle Essbase, on the other hand, focuses on Database Development and Management, holds 1.0% mindshare, up 0.8% since last year.

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Database Development and Management

Featured Reviews

James Balbach

Executive Director, Decision Support at Community Health Network

Robust system consistently elevates data visualization and seamlessly updates with user-driven advancements

Power BI is a general-use visualization system. I can express the performance of our network through high-level key performance indicators. It allows me to show detailed improvements in quality and safety and patient experience. I create improvement dashboards for task forces and work teams. I have built analytic dashboards that guide analytics, enabling research and dataset manipulation.

Read full review

RANOJOY PAUL

Analyst at Tata Consultancy

Stores multidimensional data, good customer support and interface is very easy

It is very fast compared to other normal databases, like SQL and MySQL. It doesn't store data in tables in the back end. To load data into Essbase, we need to prepare it in a table format. When we find the data in the table, we need to verify it. This way, you can rate the data. But Essbase stores multidimensional data. We have dimensions, which means the data belongs to some company or some time period. For example, if you work for three years, your salary should be something. In this way, we prepare top-level members called dimensions. The dimension defines your position, the year, and the section you were working in the company. We get an intersection of all these dimensions for certain data, and fetching that data is very fast in Essbase compared to normal SQL. If you store this data in a normal SQL table, you need to prepare a row with your company name, employee name, employee ID, joining date, and everything, and then you need to push it into a SQL table. You can search it using your query, but here, that thing is different. Here, you can collect data using forms, reports, and we use a Microsoft tool, which is an add-in called Smart View. Using that, you would just take that data. Here, you need to just create an integration of all these dimensions, and then only you can find the data.

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

"The tool is very flexible so it allows creativity."

"Power BI is a general-use visualization system. I can express the performance of our network through high-level key performance indicators."

"The initial setup is relatively simple."

"Microsoft BI's dashboards are helpful."

"It integrates with all of the Microsoft tools."

"Power BI pricing is generally considered more affordable than Tableau."

"You can learn a lot of things quickly using resources like ChatGPT or Microsoft's own solutions, which are very helpful within the Microsoft ecosystem."

"Microsoft BI is easy to use and to design. I found Microsoft BI a lot easier than Tableau."

More Microsoft Power BI pros

"It's a very powerful analytical engine with Essbase as the back end. We can analyze, transform, or utilize a big chunk of data for our calculations."

"It is highly efficient and easily scalable, particularly for handling large databases."

"The solution is scalable."

"Essbase is a kind of backbone, or back end, for systems like Hyperion Planning."

"Essbase is extremely stable and low-maintenance."

"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."

"I have found the most valuable aspect is the user-friendly environment and current features."

"It helps us fetch specific data sets per users' requirements."

More Oracle Essbase pros

Cons

"I would like to see the product offer more graphics to impact different audiences."

"Microsoft has got a very large repository of all change suggestions which have been raised by the BI community. They keep on adding features that are very widely sought after by the community. We don't focus on product features. We focus on business requirements. To use the solution, we find that existing features are good enough and offer us a very effective solution."

"One thing I would like to have is the scripting language, as they already have within Excel. It's already within a Microsoft business product, because Excel is the number one business product out there. So it would be nice to have the scripting capability in order to automate certain processes."

"Microsoft has made a lot of progress with Power BI in the past couple of years, but there is still some room for improvement. For example, Integration is one area they could work on. They are adding more integration with other Microsoft tools, but I would like it if they sped up the process."

"The DAX in Microsoft BI is quite difficult."

"We would like to have better SQL support for queries."

"Microsoft BI's visualization could be better. Though Power BI's visualization has steadily improved over the years, it's not on the level tools like Tableau and SAS or some of the more expensive products on the market."

"The integration in Microsoft BI could improve for other solutions, such as Oracle DB and PostgresSQL. Additionally, the reporting from the databases to Microsoft BI should be in real-time and the overall performance could be better."

More Microsoft Power BI cons

"They should improve the solution's performance."

"Essbase has a programming language, and it has a couple of functions to do forecasting, however, their feature set for that is not that good."

"The ability to drive external reporting out for development could be improved."

"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."

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

"It's an expensive product to use."

"The reporting tool of Essbase needs improvement."

"The solution could enhance business analytics. I delved into the data using Oracle Essbase to create a new support tool."

More Oracle Essbase cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft BI is free for the personal edition, but there is also a paid-for professional version."

"We pay on a monthly basis which is approximately $10 per user on the Microsoft Power BI Pro license. At the moment we are still down at 400 users, but once we reach 500 users, we will move to the premium edition. The premium is $5,000 for unlimited users. Currently, with the 40 users, the cost is roughly $500."

"The license is on a yearly basis."

"My company needs to make monthly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the product."

"No comment."

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

"Licensing is on a monthly basis, but I am not sure."

"I used a two months free trial to see if it had what I needed."

More Microsoft Power BI pricing and cost advice

"Essbase is competitively priced."

"The solution is expensive."

"It is a costly solution."

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

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Comparison Review

it_user79932

Senior Manager - BI Head at NVidia

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

Educational Organization

40%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

23%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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...

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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?

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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Compared 8% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

KNIME vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 6% of the time

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SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs Oracle Essbase

Compared 15% of the time

SAP Analytics Cloud vs Oracle Essbase

Compared 14% of the time

IBM Planning Analytics vs Oracle Essbase

Compared 7% of the time

Tableau vs Oracle Essbase

Compared 7% of the time

IBM Cognos vs Oracle Essbase

Compared 6% of the time

More Oracle Essbase Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI

March 2025

Download Microsoft Power BI product report

Buyer's Guide

Oracle Essbase

March 2025

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

March 2025

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