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Oracle Big Data Appliance vs Oracle Exadata comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

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

Oracle Big Data Appliance
Ranking in Data Warehouse
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Oracle Exadata
Ranking in Data Warehouse
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
127
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Oracle Big Data Appliance is 1.0%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Exadata is 18.4%, down from 18.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

Mohammed Hamad - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides clean, centralized data
From a technical perspective, Big Data Appliance could be improved with more innovation in the AI and machine-learning parts instead of relying on Cloudera. Oracle could also improve Big Data Appliance by having one technology on their stack and working on it instead of continually changing the name or technologies or features. In addition, they could have a program to enable their partners to use this technology because right now, I have to have an expert to use the AI elements.
Anand_Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
A solid data warehouse for transactional data that needs to be priced more competitively
Since the product is an appliance, it is very costly. And in the current age, people are cautious about spending this amount of money on any of these types of backend products. Some use cases are in real-time, where all other databases are much faster, but if you talk about the data warehouse, business intelligence, and all other perspectives in the transactional world, Oracle has to reduce the cost. Otherwise, a customer wouldn't want to continue this. If the same thing can be done at half or one-third of the cost, why would people stay with Oracle? Oracle Exadata would not have great value in front of a CFO. Other solutions can guard your data and address security concerns. Security, volumetrics, and so on are also provided by other databases, which are not that costly. Apart from Exadata, Oracle has other tools for business intelligence and other things, which they add on top of Exadata when they're selling a general license. For example, the Vertica database, an HP data warehouse. They have come up with their own analytic engine within the database, which gives an edge for the client to use the data analytics engine as a part of their database. Exadata does not have an analytic engine. Even MySQL has some statistical tools within it. If Exadata integrates analytical tools, it will be good for them.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Because Big Data Appliance allows me to have a single source of truth, it means I have clean data that can be monetized and leveraged to gain more insights with real-time reports from the dashboard."
"This is a comprehensive solution that is easy to deploy."
"The best thing about the product is that the end-user can build the reports by themselves without really knowing anything about databases."
"The most valuable feature of Oracle Exadata is its capabilities for storing and processing data. It is very good for our domain."
"The data replication is very good."
"It offers a significant advantage for accommodating a large number of users."
"Exadata's best features are its performance during redo logging and the elasticity of the database handling."
"Once installed, Exadata is very stable."
"Oracle Exadata has very good hardware."
"We like the tool’s features like Smart Scan, Hybrid Columnar Compression, and the TFA."
"The offloading of data to the SIM is a valuable feature."
 

Cons

"The product should be simplified for the average user."
"From a technical perspective, Big Data Appliance could be improved with more innovation in the AI and machine-learning parts instead of relying on Cloudera."
"It seems like the deployment of repositories has become more difficult in later versions of the product rather than easier."
"There is a feature for security, but it is not included in the first purchase of this solution. That means if you need to increase the security, you need to buy the security feature which doesn't come by default on these solutions."
"The analytics features must be improved."
"The performance could be improved."
"The customization can sometimes be difficult to achieve."
"Certification should also be improved. Today, Oracle doesn't certify applications with engineered systems."
"There is one aspect to Exadata that I dislike, and that's the inconsistency with other databases. When you try to get Exadata to function with another type of database like SQL, or others, there should be reliable and consistent operation. When this is improved on, we should start to see more applications growing the market."
"I liked Spark, but it was discontinued when Exadata L6 came back. I loved it, and I wish they would bring back Spark integration."
"I have found Oracle Exadata to be scalable. However, you have to purchase more hardware, such as memory."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Oracle's prices are too high compared to others in the market."
"The solution’s cost is a little bit more than the traditional databases."
"I would rate the tool's pricing a nine out of ten."
"We pay for an annual license and it is expensive."
"Exadata is an expensive tool, but, considering the ROI, it's worth going for the solution."
"I think it's free."
"It is quite expensive."
"The majority of our customers are in government or big enterprises, and the projects that we sell come out to several million USD. With this amount of money on the table, it's always better to have an experienced team of consultants, who know Exadata very well, handle the implementation."
"Our customers are always looking to reduce the license's cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
30%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
10%
University
9%
Financial Services Firm
31%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about Oracle Exadata?
It is the best solution for OLTP and data warehousing.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Exadata?
The pricing of Exadata is high. It is more expensive than usual, making it suitable only for big enterprises or businesses that can afford it.
What needs improvement with Oracle Exadata?
Also considered an advantage, the main drawback is the inability to cluster two Exadata systems across sites. For example, with one node on one site and another node on a different site, I cannot c...
 

Comparisons

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Caixa Bank
PayPal, EBS, Organic Food Retailer, Garmin, University of Minnesota, Major Semiconductor Company, Deutsche Bank, Starwood, Ziraat Bank, SK Telecom, and P&G.
Find out what your peers are saying about Oracle Big Data Appliance vs. Oracle Exadata and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
842,388 professionals have used our research since 2012.