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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 Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
MicroStrategy1.2%
Microsoft Power BI9.3%
Tableau Enterprise6.7%
Other82.8%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
Database Development and Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
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

"The convenience of it. Having it on the mobile, so someone has it right there in their pocket most of the time."
"The most valuable features are the Visual Insights and the visualizations."
"On our mobile solution you can deploy up to 100,000 users. In our case, we're up to about 10,000 active users, and MicroStrategy's server technology behind the scenes, the Intelligence Server and the Mobile Servers, are very robust and they can handle the workload."
"It scales well. It used to have only a max of four I-servers, but I think recently, somewhere in version 10, they doubled that, so you can have eight I-servers now."
"We pretty much use the knowledge base.​ We feel that Microstrategy's community is a good forum to use."
"Tech support has been great, very responsive. We usually hear back within a day.​ We usually email them and that works out perfect. The right person always gets back to us."
"Reports are very easy to create. It takes a very short amount of time to build a report, which is very useful."
"We are using it for operations analysis and sales data analysis."
"I have found the most valuable aspect is the user-friendly environment and current features."
"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."
"Oracle Essbase is a web integration system that integrates with other data systems."
"The solution is stable and reliable."
"With Oracle Essbase, everything is centralized in a comprehensive financial statement analysis, allowing for complete management of budget, actuals analysis, and forecast."
"The solution is scalable."
"It helps us fetch specific data sets per users' requirements."
"Essbase is a kind of backbone, or back end, for systems like Hyperion Planning."
 

Cons

"I would like to see a feature where migrations are easier. When you migrate from certain environments, it could probably be a little cleaner. Sometimes it seems to be somewhat clunky when you migrate from one environment, say a development to a test or production environment."
"Getting our data to work with the tool is where we are having issues.​"
"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 want to be able to have one report that's delivered to 30 different people and all 30 different people see something different. Now, you can do that today with metrics. You cannot do that with attributes. There's a component of that which, if an attribute is on granularity-one and another is on granularity-two, and you remove granularity-one, you're now going to be summing to a level that you did not expect before."
"The In-Memory Capability (cubes) needs a lot of improvement."
"I would like to see the enterprise version available in a demo or as a trial version."
"The UI seems klutzy with its manual entry."
"The pricing could be lower because it is costly."
"The solution could enhance business analytics. I delved into the data using Oracle Essbase to create a new support tool."
"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."
"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 initial setup could be simplified."
"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."
"The consolidation engine, which is HFM or FCCS, needs some room for improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"While initial cost of MicroStrategy is still on the higher side, the long-term benefits brings down overall cost of ownership significantly as compared to other tools like Tableau/Cognos."
"Pricing, in general, is high. With Power BI, you get mobile with the license, whereas with MicroStrategy, you have to purchase mobile for extra."
"They made a change in the licensing module some time ago and we can now use all the enterprise tools for free."
"Now, the price is high."
"​The solution is scalable. A little expensive perhaps, but it is scalable.​"
"The pricing list itself is not publicly accessible, so it's a bit opaque."
"The licensing is a bit high per user."
"Additional costs are associated with maintenance."
"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
13%
Marketing Services Firm
10%
Retailer
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Insurance Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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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