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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

"Essbase is extremely stable and low-maintenance."
"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 helps us fetch specific data sets per users' requirements."
"I have found the most valuable aspect is the user-friendly environment and current features."
"Essbase is a multidimensional database (MOLAP) is undoubtedly leading in that space."
"It is highly efficient and easily scalable, particularly for handling large databases."
"Oracle Essbase enables organizations to take their strategic decisions, which helps them make the right decisions at the right time."
"It is very fast compared to other normal databases, like SQL and MySQL."
"It is more user-friendly and easier to work with the report creation part, creating reports out of an established universe."
"We are using SAP BusinessObjects because its scheduling capabilities are more powerful than those of other tools."
"ROI is absolute."
"We find that we can scale it as needed."
"The feature that allows pivot users to create the report dashboards and run them when they want with a lot of flexibility with the drill-downs is very useful."
"It gives you a lot of flexibility in designing your dashboards."
"Enables us to present data with Smart Objects that can be embedded within presentations and which automatically update when the presentations are run."
"SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform outperforms all other tools such as Power BI and Tableau, showing more accuracy, reliability, and flexibility compared to all other BI tools worldwide."
 

Cons

"It's an expensive product to use."
"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 technical support for EPM is bad. I don't remember anytime that the service support helped me in something."
"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 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."
"The solution could be cheaper. It is costly, and the initial setup could be simplified."
"They should improve the solution's performance."
"I really want SAP to focus on the dashboarding side. Based on what I have seen in the past 10 years, dashboarding has captured a lot of markets. Executives at the top-level want data that is summarized, looks good, and tells you a story. That's where Tableau, Qlik, and Power BI have an upper edge. It doesn't mean SAP doesn't give you dashboarding. They do have a dashboarding solution, but Tableau, Qlik, and Power BI are more intuitive and more attractive. I would like SAP to capture the dashboarding market as well, wherein they give at least some competition to other competitors. Presently, Tableau, Qlik, and Power BI are leading the market."
"The solution can improve by having more analytical features."
"Lot of issues, because it is a huge product."
"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."
"The biggest area for improvement would be the dashboarding capabilities due to the recent change from Xcelsius to Dashboard Designer. This has created a gigantic ripple in many companies because the skill sets required are drastically different."
"Customer Service: In a word, bad."
"The stability isn't quite as good as it could be."
"But SAP sort of dropped the ball with their 4.x release, leaving out features that we had become used to with 3.1, which was stable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Essbase is competitively priced."
"It is a costly solution."
"The solution is expensive."
"I believe the licensing is on a monthly base."
"It is not cost-effective. It is expensive."
"Just work with SAP to make sure you have enough licenses but don't go overboard."
"There is an annual license to use SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform."
"The SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform has to improve its licensing cost."
"We are satisfied with the solution, but we are not satisfied with the licensing cost which SAP offers. They offer one lumpsum licensing which does everything. That is not the right strategy, because sometimes you don't have power users, they are only viewers, but we need to buy the full license for them. This is not something we want to continue with."
"There's no additional charge for a Development environment license, so build an additional development server."
"SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is an expensive application."
"Its price is fair."
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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
7%
 

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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886,510 professionals have used our research since 2012.