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Oracle Essbase vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform 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

Oracle Essbase
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
4.6
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Database Development and Management (11th)
SAP BusinessObjects Busines...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
112
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Oracle Essbase and SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Oracle Essbase is designed for Database Development and Management and holds a mindshare of 1.3%, up 1.0% compared to last year.
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 2.2% mindshare, down 3.7% since last year.
Database Development and Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Oracle Essbase1.3%
Redgate SQL Toolbelt Essentials4.2%
Spotlight3.7%
Other90.8%
Database Development and Management
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform2.2%
Microsoft Power BI8.1%
Tableau Enterprise6.0%
Other83.7%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

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.
EO
Data Analytics Manager at Dangote Industries Limited
Solution empowers self-service reporting and delivers comprehensive performance insights
Empowering business users means they should be able to work independently without depending on the developer. One advantage of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is self-service capabilities, allowing users to do drag and drop to build their own reports and perform analyses without needing technical know-how.The platform has many drivers that I can use to connect to virtually all available databases, making it easy to integrate with Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, and many others. With the cloud version, I can fetch data on-premises and to the cloud for analysis easily. It is so flexible that I can make choices for fetching data. For authentication in an SAP environment, I can choose to integrate with SAP logon for SSO or use AD authentication for convenience, along with the flexible integration options.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's a very powerful analytical engine with Essbase as the back end. We can analyze, transform, or utilize a big chunk of data for our calculations."
"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."
"Essbase is a powerful tool that continues to provide value for companies."
"I have found the most valuable aspect is the user-friendly environment and current features."
"It helps us fetch specific data sets per users' requirements."
"Oracle Essbase enables organizations to take their strategic decisions, which helps them make the right decisions at the right time."
"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."
"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."
"Enables us to present data with Smart Objects that can be embedded within presentations and which automatically update when the presentations are run."
"It gives you a lot of flexibility in designing your dashboards."
"Reporting from SAP Business Objects Web Intelligence is amazing, and gives users the ability to quickly access data from existing universes and/or relevant data sources, without the need to involve a functional business analyst or financial analyst."
"If anything, BO is great at controlling the user's interface eg highly user friendly capable."
"The most valuable function of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is the universe, so customers can build their own reports without programming skills."
"​Provides autonomy for all the business users to develop their own reports.​"
"Web Intelligence has allowed our company to move to a self-service delivery model by allowing our internal clients to access, run and schedule reports dynamically without intervention of the BI team."
"Business users manual data-entry load has decreased, and data between different systems are consistent in almost-real time."
 

Cons

"Variable attributes functionality needs to be incorporated in Planning, though it is available in Essbase I believe it is still not in Planning."
"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."
"The licensing costs are too high."
"It's an expensive product to use."
"The initial setup could be simplified."
"There is room for improvement in terms of cost-effectiveness."
"The ability to drive external reporting out for development could be improved."
"The solution could be cheaper. It is costly, and the initial setup could be simplified."
"The technical support has been a challenge when it comes to finding the correct support analyst who is familiar with how the various product components integrate."
"SAP should work on performing the deployment and post-implementation support a bit easier."
"The Dashboard tool Current Xcelsius is not so user and developer friendly and is very bad compared to other vendor products."
"They need to improve the processing of software as it has lag when it initially starts."
"The technical support for general issues gives us a good response, but for certain critical issues, it can takes four weeks to obtain a response."
"Tableau was easier for me to use because the interface is more similar to Excel which I was used to using."
"The user interface should be easier to use and navigate."
"SAP BusinessObjects is actually losing popularity within our company because people find the user interface and the way things are set up not to be as easy as many other tools that are on the market, like Qlik and things like that."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Essbase is competitively priced."
"It is a costly solution."
"I believe the licensing is on a monthly base."
"The solution is expensive."
"The price and the pricing model are fine. We find the solution does not give us a lot of additional value."
"It is not a subscription model, but you must purchase a perpetual license for this."
"Just work with SAP to make sure you have enough licenses but don't go overboard."
"The SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform has to improve its licensing cost."
"​It is not an expensive platform. The licensing is for a package of users starting at 10 users."
"Depending on your size, try to stick with SAP BusinessObjects BI Edge. Most people tend to overthink the licensing. Remember that one concurrent user means that one person can be performing a task at a given time. That does not mean that only one user can be on the system at a time, it means that only one person can be refreshing a report or designing a dashboard. There are tons of ways you can access your data or reports without consuming a license. I've seen cases where five concurrent licenses support thousands of users."
"Its price is fair."
"SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is an expensive application."
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Comparison Review

it_user6663 - PeerSpot reviewer
BI Expert at a transportation company with 51-200 employees
May 25, 2013
SAP Business Objects vs. Microsoft BI
A quick look at the whole idea on another weblogs gives you a sense that all of them just talked about very brief things like report refresh feature in BO or cube feature in MS Analysis Service. I choose MS BI and I want to share my reasons and opinions on why I choose it and give you another quick…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Insurance Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
University
5%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise66
 

Questions from the Community

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 ...
Seeking lightweight open source BI software
There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I would recommend as follows: 1) If you have legacies of SAP, Oracle - look for SAP...
Tableau vs. Business Objects - Which is a better solution for visualization and analysis?
Both tools have their positives and negatives. First, I should mention that I am relatively new to Tableau. I have been working on and off Tableau for about a year, but getting to work on it consta...
 

Also Known As

Essbase
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform, SAP BusinessObjects, Business Objects
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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.
SRAM, Kennametal, Fairfax Water, British American Tobacco, Velux, and FedEx.
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