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MicroStrategy vs Oracle Essbase comparison

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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 (17th)
 

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 2.0% compared to last year.
Oracle Essbase, on the other hand, focuses on Database Development and Management, holds 1.5% mindshare, up 0.8% since last year.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
MicroStrategy1.2%
Microsoft Power BI7.1%
Tableau Enterprise5.8%
Other85.9%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
Database Development and Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Oracle Essbase1.5%
Oracle Enterprise Manager4.0%
Redgate SQL Toolbelt Essentials3.8%
Other90.7%
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

"There are lots of features that provide very robust functionalities."
"The dashboard features and functionalities that come through the MicroStrategy Suite are the most valuable, and it can be used by end users with minimum knowledge of the product, as they can run a report or create a dashboard on their phones, which is kind of cool."
"It has the potential to become a great evangelist for AI and other embedded analytics."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to actually embed actions, comments, being able to leverage Transaction Services to embed the tool into a business process."
"MicroStrategy is the best of all enterprise solutions on a price/value axis."
"Underwriters love the transactional side."
"We are embedding multimedia content in our apps... You can embed streaming video from websites, or you can host the video files on your internal media servers. The video is clear, absolutely."
"The mobile for MicroStrategy is the best of all the BI platforms. As a separate product for the mobile device, MicroStrategy is the entire BI platform. It is an enterprise solution, a separate unit, etc."
"Oracle Essbase is a web integration system that integrates with other data systems."
"It is highly efficient and easily scalable, particularly for handling large databases."
"It helps us fetch specific data sets per users' requirements."
"The solution is stable and reliable."
"The solution is scalable."
"Essbase is a multidimensional database (MOLAP) is undoubtedly leading in that space."
"Oracle Essbase enables organizations to take their strategic decisions, which helps them make the right decisions at the right time."
"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."
 

Cons

"If there are some advanced visualization features - maybe I'm not aware of them - but if there were a Vitara which could work on top of MicroStrategy, it would make sense for MicroStrategy to have that within their own library. So they should add more visualizations to the library."
"Doing business with MicroStrategy is relatively challenging because of the processes that are involved."
"The product could be improved by adding additional visualization."
"They need to supply the support system that's just not there right now. They don't have Enterprise Manager classes. You need in-depth classes to understand what those metrics are doing, to understand the table associations from one to the other. You can't just go and pick it up and understand that DT_DAY connects to all of these tables, without going into Architect, looking at the source tables. I, as a analyst, a slightly technical user, I don't have the expertise to do that. Business users definitely don't have the expertise to do that."
"I am not really a great fan of tech support, because my project's issues didn't get solved or the response was not quick."
"Long way to go to explore complete suite."
"The performance isn't where I need it to be."
"MicroStrategy is not cloud native today and some of their APIs are a little limiting.​"
"There is room for improvement in terms of cost-effectiveness."
"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."
"I find managing the database difficult, especially regarding optimization and data storage with the huge volume of data."
"The licensing costs are too high."
"The solution could enhance business analytics. I delved into the data using Oracle Essbase to create a new support tool."
"When it comes to scalability, I note that the on-premise solution of Oracle Essbase is not very scalable. In the cloud solution, I think it is easier, because that is the point; however, in the on-premise solution, there is no scalability, so if the server goes down, Oracle Essbase is not reachable."
"The consolidation engine, which is HFM or FCCS, needs some room for improvement."
"The ability to drive external reporting out for development could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"​They gave us a good deal.​"
"All BI software vendors' list prices are high. It's about a price that fits the customer's needs. And I think MicroStrategy has some flexibility in its pricing model where we can easily demonstrate a total cost of ownership comparison against any of the other players."
"The licensing is a bit high per user."
"The price of MicroStrategy is reasonable."
"They offer yearly as well as perpetual licenses."
"MicroStrategy's licensing cost is higher than that of other tools in the market. My company uses the enterprise edition of the product."
"The price was good. We have had great support along the way."
"There have been actual direct bottomline impacts in terms of extra revenue created from the reporting solutions."
"It is a costly solution."
"I believe the licensing is on a monthly base."
"The solution is expensive."
"Essbase is competitively priced."
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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%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Construction Company
10%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Construction Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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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