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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
6.5
Number of Reviews
162
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (14th), Embedded BI (4th)
Oracle Essbase
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
4.6
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Database Development and Management (11th)
 

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 3.2% compared to last year.
Oracle Essbase, on the other hand, focuses on Database Development and Management, holds 1.2% mindshare, up 1.1% since last year.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
MicroStrategy1.2%
Microsoft Power BI9.3%
Tableau Enterprise6.7%
Other82.8%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
Database Development and Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Oracle Essbase1.2%
Redgate SQL Toolbelt Essentials4.5%
Spotlight4.0%
Other90.3%
Database Development and Management
 

Featured Reviews

AS
Lead Software Engineer at Momentus
Provides strong data visualization and security while easing deployment across multiple sectors
The most effective features of MicroStrategy for data analysis in my experience are the security, the metadata management, and the administration, along with the options of different workarounds available to accommodate different types of requirements. MicroStrategy's data visualization capabilities are great, and I would rate them nine out of 10.
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

"We've made it an open BI platform, so that all our business analysts can build their own dashboards and Dossiers."
"Dependency on development teams, as well as managing the platform, has reduced a lot with Visual Insight.​"
"It plays a vital role in establishing a connection with predictive continuous improvement."
"We prefer having the analytic capabilities in a single platform, like MicroStrategy provides, because it is easier. The customer gets used to one type of tool, then sticks with it."
"It drives us away from Excel. For what it is for, it is good. You can't run a business on Excel."
"MicroStrategy has what they call the Semantic Graph — an enterprise-grade semantic graph — and I think the technology is fantastic."
"The technical support is quite good."
"​I have had a lot of projects where we had a lot of users, like thousands of users, and the data was in one report which could bring in six million records. MicroStrategy is doing a good job on scalability."
"The solution is scalable."
"Essbase is a kind of backbone, or back end, for systems like Hyperion Planning."
"Oracle's capability to define custom hierarchies and dimensions has helped my organization in performing nuanced data exploration and advanced modeling because we use Oracle Essbase for dimension definition and also to define the properties of these members, such as dynamic members, stored members, shared members."
"It is highly efficient and easily scalable, particularly for handling large databases."
"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."
"The solution is stable and reliable."
"It helps us fetch specific data sets per users' requirements."
 

Cons

"They should give proper industry-based tutorials so that one can learn it easily and implement it based on the requirements. They should give more MMP files so that we can import a whole project altogether and learn from that project."
"Needs more visualizations out-of-the-box."
"Preparation, data loading and data management application is challenging with MicroStrategy. It lacks cube-based analytics as it is outdated, meaning there is no memory or fast processing analytics or MMA deployment."
"​There is room for improvement on the graphs."
"They need to improve the web."
"We have the mobile server. We have not used it. That is because the people on our team have not been trained on it yet, but that is something that we want to do."
"There is room for improvement in data visualization."
"I don't think that they will, but I'd like to see parallel processing, scalable parallel processing."
"The initial setup is pretty complex."
"The ability to drive external reporting out for development could be improved."
"The consolidation engine, which is HFM or FCCS, needs some room for improvement."
"There is room for improvement in terms of cost-effectiveness."
"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 include the financial consolidation module that is available in EPM."
"It's an expensive product to use."
"The reporting tool of Essbase needs improvement."
"The initial setup could be simplified."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing list itself is not publicly accessible, so it's a bit opaque."
"There have been actual direct bottomline impacts in terms of extra revenue created from the reporting solutions."
"For larger businesses, the pricing is logical."
"​The solution is scalable. A little expensive perhaps, but it is scalable.​"
"Additional costs are associated with maintenance."
"The solution’s licensing cost is expensive."
"We have one of the best pricing available, but we can't disclose that information."
"The price was good. We have had great support along the way."
"The solution is expensive."
"Essbase is competitively priced."
"I believe the licensing is on a monthly base."
"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
11%
Marketing Services Firm
10%
Retailer
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
Retailer
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
Midsize Enterprise26
Large Enterprise100
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MicroStrategy?
My company has many licenses for MicroStrategy because we can build reports in this tool. I don't know what the cost is for these licenses.
What needs improvement with MicroStrategy?
I don't have any issues with MicroStrategy and would not suggest how it can be improved. I would not change anything because it's a great tool to build reports. I would appreciate improvements in M...
What is your primary use case for MicroStrategy?
I use MicroStrategy to build reports for my client, and in IQVIA, we work with pharmaceutical data and I build some reports in MicroStrategy. I built some cards for my client using MicroStrategy. T...
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?
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 ...
 

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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