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MicroStrategy vs Oracle Essbase 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

MicroStrategy
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
164
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (14th), Embedded BI (5th)
Oracle Essbase
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
4.6
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Database Development and Management (18th)
 

Mindshare comparison

MicroStrategy and Oracle Essbase aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. MicroStrategy is designed for BI (Business Intelligence) Tools and holds a mindshare of 1.2%, down 2.8% compared to last year.
Oracle Essbase, on the other hand, focuses on Database Development and Management, holds 1.5% mindshare, up 0.9% since last year.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
MicroStrategy1.2%
Microsoft Power BI7.4%
Tableau Enterprise5.9%
Other85.5%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
Database Development and Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Oracle Essbase1.5%
Oracle Enterprise Manager4.1%
Redgate SQL Toolbelt Essentials3.9%
Other90.5%
Database Development and Management
 

Featured Reviews

Prabu Thanikchalam - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Architect & Software Engineering Department Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Reporting has improved with strong administration tools but performance and memory still need work
Compared to the new tools, MicroStrategy is still on the old mechanism, the attributes and metric creations that are still a bit vague compared to other tools. They can actually improve on the go, having derived metrics or derived attributes in MicroStrategy. If they have something like that for the attributes as well, it will be good. A pain point is MicroStrategy memory fluctuations that we couldn't actually read that much. If they can improve that performance, that would be great. MicroStrategy struggles a bit with large data volumes, but they are coming up with new ideas. They have moved to Intelligent Cubes, which can actually handle better data handling. They are coming up with good measures to handle big data.
Bhavya N - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I have shown our users how to stop using Excel. They would create these vast Excel files, and I showed them how to do the same thing with MicroStrategy, which saves a significant amount of time for them everyday."
"It's user-friendly, also the MTDI cube is a very good approach, as it helps you to use the pre-format instead of using the standard objects from the schema of MicroStrategy."
"MicroStrategy Mobile application is considered to be one of the best, for almost 4 or 5 years."
"Dependency on development teams, as well as managing the platform, has reduced a lot with Visual Insight.​"
"In version 10, Visual Insight had a major improvement, and now it is a very powerful self-service BI that makes it very easy to build your dashboard and once you save it, it is available on all devices, including your iPad."
"​Mobile brings reports/dashboards closer to the business user."
"With all the APIs it's very scalable."
"We actually researched some of the other solutions; for options, price, and customer acceptance, this product has worked well for us."
"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."
"Its multidimensional analysis is great; 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, allowing you to do 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."
"Essbase is a powerful tool that continues to provide value for companies."
"With Oracle Essbase, everything is centralized in a comprehensive financial statement analysis, allowing for complete management of budget, actuals analysis, and forecast."
"It provides for faster and more assertive forecast cycles and enables businesses to improve their process since with this tool, you can do things easily and quicker as the business can create more complex models than were possible before."
"The solution can handle a large volume of data."
 

Cons

"They need to improve on having more professional, well-equipped premium support.​"
"Exporting to PDF is a major pain point in the dashboarding/self-serve area. Alignment and colours are not maintained."
"In some cases MicroStrategy took too long to respond the opened cases, what made the clients very upset and disappointed."
"Visualisation will improved in the next version."
"Needs more visualizations out-of-the-box."
"However, compared to other tools, the modeling part is not as strong."
"​There is room for improvement on the graphs."
"Data dictionary import would be great."
"The initial setup is pretty complex."
"The ability to drive external reporting out for development could be improved."
"The reporting tool of Essbase needs improvement."
"It's not a very scalable solution."
"Sometimes, the current program is slow. They may have to consider the storage and the RAM, increasing the speed and performing the queries at a faster speed."
"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 solution could enhance business analytics. I delved into the data using Oracle Essbase to create a new support tool."
"There is room for improvement in terms of cost-effectiveness."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution’s licensing cost is expensive."
"MicroStrategy's licensing cost is higher than that of other tools in the market. My company uses the enterprise edition of the product."
"We are waiting to switch to Microsoft Power BI because MicroStrategy is too costly."
"The price of MicroStrategy is reasonable."
"The price was good. We have had great support along the way."
"We actually researched some of the other solutions. For options, price, and customer acceptance, this product has worked well for us.​"
"It is expensive. We would like to extend it to many users, but we are currently restricting that because the cost is a constraint. If we are given a chance, we would love to expand it."
"There is no subscription, I am using the free version."
"The solution is expensive."
"I believe the licensing is on a monthly base."
"Essbase is competitively priced."
"It is a costly solution."
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Comparison Review

it_user6330 - PeerSpot reviewer
Product Manager at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
May 2, 2013
MicroStrategy vs. Tableau
After a recent presentation, several attendees asked me about the applications of Visual Insights and Tableau. Many companies are investing in both tools and are trying to figure out the right tool for specific applications Tableau has found its sweet-spot as an agile discovery tool that analysts…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Construction Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
Midsize Enterprise26
Large Enterprise102
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MicroStrategy?
I would say on a scale of 1 to 10, I have only a four when it comes to pricing and setup cost because in my earlier companies, everything was done by another team. Here, we actually handle some of ...
What needs improvement with MicroStrategy?
Compared to the new tools, MicroStrategy is still on the old mechanism, the attributes and metric creations that are still a bit vague compared to other tools. They can actually improve on the go, ...
What is your primary use case for MicroStrategy?
MicroStrategy is basically a reporting tool, and I take care of the administration side, so I handle complete maintenance and administration of MicroStrategy servers across all environments. Day-to...
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...
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 ...
What advice do you have for others considering Oracle Essbase?
The pricing functionality in Oracle Essbase is handled through the model you develop, where each cube can be customized with members and dimensions for pricing and entities. You can implement any f...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Essbase
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Allstate Insurance, Barneys New York, Boston Children's Hospital, Buenos Aires Department of the Treasury, Campbell Soup Company, DHL, eBay, eHarmony, Facebook, Four Seasons Hotels Inc., Godiva, Hard Rock International, LinkedIn, Netflix, Pfizer, SECO (Swiss Government Unemployment Agency), Starbucks, Texas A&M University, Thomson Reuters Markets, US House of Representatives, and the US Postal Service.
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.
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