Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Oracle OBIEE vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Cognos
Sponsored
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (4th)
Oracle OBIEE
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
157
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (3rd)
SAP BusinessObjects Busines...
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
103
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 3.8%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle OBIEE is 3.9%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is 4.5%, down from 5.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Larrad Salgado - PeerSpot reviewer
Improved the quality of our KPIs, while reducing calls to the IT department
I don't like that when we use Colab packages, we get less functionality. For example, you can make groups of data with Excel or with the data sets from the packages, but when you use the Colab packages directly, you can only group the data when you analyze it with Analysis Studio. I think Cognos needs to improve more on this functionality. The user experience is also very important. Cognos is not very easy to understand sometimes, especially when they change the layout but keep the functionality the same. The help is not very graphic and they have no examples. Cognos has to make a big effort to help with understanding the functionality by improving the documentation. There is a lot of documentation, but the examples are hard to find and they should make their help section easier to understand for non-technical users.
VishnuReddy - PeerSpot reviewer
Handles large datasets and easy to interact with and handle but performance could be better
Oracle's technical support usually recommends to upgrade when you contact them for support. They don't focus on fixing the issue at hand or providing guidance on how to do it. If you are in a lower environment, like one version down, they will blindly suggest upgrading. Additional patches are given for other Oracle products like WebLogic, databases, and apps. They fix issues and create patches based on client needs. But from an OBIEE point of view, they mostly provide bundle patches of around 5 to 6 GB that need to be applied and tested end-to-end. It's not an easy way to get small patches, and if issues arise after applying the patches, you have to contact Oracle again.
MukeshMathur - PeerSpot reviewer
Visualization is better than other tools, offers good dashboard and analytics features but it is not easy to adapt to the product
As per my opinion, because SAP is a very worldwide product or very useful product, I'm not talking about improvement, because I just think that SAP can focus on the pricing factor. The cost of this product, so every company is not suitable to use it. Because of the very huge amount of integrations, every organization can not use it. So, it is a very costly product. Secondly, from an educational point of view, So, it is not easy to adapt to each and every IT person because some, most, in India, most cities, such as Delhi, Bangalore, or Chennai, only metro support the educational platform for that. So, just my suggestion is SAP should focus on every user; it should be easy to pick the product and, easy to carry, easy to use in every life. So, SAP must try to improve in this part.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The comprehensiveness or broadness of the software functions or business intelligence functions that it provides is valuable. It is also quite easy to use and user-friendly."
"The most valuable feature is developing reports from different data sources, making it a reliable data source."
"A drag-and-drop interface for selecting creating ad hoc reports makes this product very easy to use."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"We use IBM Cognos for enterprise analytics and reporting."
"The solution's initial setup process is easy."
"Mapbox integration for geospatial analytics down to longitude/latitude layers."
"A positive feature is Report Studio, where we create beautiful, complex reports."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the various scenarios the product offers and its stability."
"I think having the conformed structures makes it a lot easier for end users and pulling reports together."
"The technical support services are good."
"The most valuable feature of Oracle OBIEE is its ability to handle large volumes of data and provide traditional BI functionalities that developers can easily understand."
"I think the most valuable features are the ability to drill down, the graphs, and the scheduling for the reports to be received in Excel on a daily basis. Users like Excel, so it's good for them that they receive the reports by email, that they don't have to specify the schedule."
"It has a lot workaround in order to do the report. data blending, and getting information from big data sources."
"The centralized metadata model component is most valuable."
"I have not personally used any such products related to this service, however based on the popular opinion, Microsoft Power BI is more popular. We have never switched from this software due to infrastructure and license related costs. However, my team acknowledges that the Power BI is much more enhanced and includes features that are easier to use, including its drag and drop features. I am not sure, if OBIEE has these features, due to lack of updated versions."
"It is stable and robust. It has pretty direct integration with SAP ERP. It is easy to use."
"​The report development tool called SAP Web Intelligence under the BI Launch Pad portal has been the most valuable feature."
"We use it to identify critical KPIs to senior management."
"First of all, visualization tools, productivity, and predictive forecasting are mature."
"The common metadata environment means that the entire organisation has the same definition of core measures rather than these being derived in spreadsheets or specific reports."
"We are using SAP BusinessObjects because its scheduling capabilities are more powerful than those of other tools."
"The solution can scale."
"The planning and dashboarding features have been useful. Additionally, the fixed-format reports are good."
 

Cons

"Data modeling needs to be improved. We use the ETL process, and when we get errors, we then need to identify which structural change is required. The error messaging should be better. They should be descriptive rather than semantic."
"This product could use improvement in terms of usability for those with less technical know how."
"Compared to Tableau and PowerBI, the IBM interface is easier to use. However, the drag-and-drop functionality isn't as straightforward. Formatting is also more challenging in the cloud than in other applications, like Power BI. Also, if you encounter an issue, it takes more time to resolve it on the formatting side."
"The data uploads that we do, such as Excel files, have a lot of restrictions. If we can make it a bit more user-friendly, allowing us to have more flexibility it would be a great help."
"It is a costly product; it is comparatively expensive."
"I would like them to reinclude PowerPlay. One thing that I am missing in the current Cognos is what was formally named PowerPlay. They have basically removed PowerPlay from it, which is something that I fail to understand because it was the most wonderful tool for business intelligence that I've ever used. As far as I know, they don't provide this functionality anymore, so this is one thing that I dislike about Cognos."
"The charts and graphics are weak."
"Tableau and Power BI are faster than Cognos."
"It is very biased towards Oracle infrastructure. One of the major red flags we have at the moment against Oracle is that it doesn't support deployment on other cloud providers. We're quite heavily vested in AWS as our infrastructure, and Oracle is yet to formally support deploying on those virtual infrastructure instances. That's quite disappointing, and it also cuts them out of over 70% of the market."
"I would like to see enhancements in tracking, debugging, and flexibility."
"It is complex for designing RPD, and it can be simpler. Their support can also be improved in terms of response time."
"Its functionality is lacking."
"The performance and the complex setup are the main reason for switching to Qlik Sense."
"There are times we have slowness when processing the reports with Oracle OBIEE. Improving the performance would be beneficial."
"There's a lot of redundancy, especially in relation to creating the code."
"The main problem we face is migrating all of the reports into the solution."
"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."
"There is room for improvement in providing more user-friendly and versatile reporting options."
"The combination of Lumira along with Design Studio merger last year still needs development from a visualization standpoint."
"It is limited for us because SAP is shifting toward the cloud, and we can't use a cloud solution for SAP BusinessObjects. SAP introduced a product called PlusTimes one or two years ago and another one that I believe was called Automatic BI. This tool is more powerful than BusinessObjects and other tools because it's provided in the cloud."
"There is still a lot to be done on the mobile side to make Web Intelligence truly seamless between the desktop and mobile versions and I would like to see SAP pay a lot more attention to this."
"The initial setup could be simplified."
"The platform should be a bit more user-friendly."
"The admin features for disk space management need work. It's very difficult to manage the disk space by the application; good admin features and not included to allow you to do that. I don't believe that is in the latest version of the product either."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing and licensing policies are comparatively cheaper than other products in the market ."
"IBM Cognos offers competitive pricing similar to other BI vendors in the market."
"I don't know the exact cost, but I believe Cognos is quite expensive, especially when it comes to the support consultants and the procedures that need to be applied."
"It is quite pricy. I think Microsoft BI is cheaper. Tableau might also be cheaper, but it also depends on the usage. If you have very many users, Cognos can be a problem. It could be cheaper than Tableau but not for so many users. If you have a few thousand users, Tableau, which is generally quite expensive, can be cheaper than Cognos."
"My company uses IBM Cognos with another IBM product, so I think only one license is used."
"There is some additional licensing that we needed to purchase because we were touching data outside of our core data platform. The cost was approximately $25,000 for the additional licenses, which were approximate 45 licenses. For the application itself, updates, and the core platform it was approximately $50,000. Giving a total cost of $75,000 annually for our usage of IBM Cognos."
"It is pretty expensive."
"Cognos is super expensive compared to Tableau ($70/month) and Power BI ($20/month) — I think Cognos is roughly $200 a month."
"If you compare Qlik Sense and Oracle OBIEE licensing, then Oracle products are much better. With Qlik Sense, you have to pay per client and per use. But we get Oracle OBIEE along with the Oracle database, making it much more cost-effective in the long term."
"The company had twenty-five Oracle OBIEE licenses and never expanded. Price-wise, the solution is expensive."
"I think to spread this across an enterprise will be a significant investment."
"The pricing we negotiated with Oracle. But, I do not have details."
"It's comparable to the current technology we're using, Qlik Sense."
"Power BI is less expensive than Oracle OBIEE. A benefit to Power BI is having the option to work with concurrent licensing."
"It's expensive."
"Its licensing is yearly."
"There is an annual license to use SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform."
"We purchase licenses through Epic. So, we get an Epic price as opposed to the SAP price. If we were going to use other products like Webby that they offer or exclusively use BI Launch Pad, it would cost a lot because half of our employees would touch it in some fashion. So, we use Epic-Crystal integration to keep the licensing cost down. I believe the BI Launch Pad licensing is something like $800 for each, and the Crystal Report licensing is something like $500 for each, but that's not what we pay."
"It is not a subscription model, but you must purchase a perpetual license for this."
"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."
"It is not cost-effective. It is expensive."
"The price and the pricing model are fine. We find the solution does not give us a lot of additional value."
"Just work with SAP to make sure you have enough licenses but don't go overboard."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which BI (Business Intelligence) Tools solutions are best for your needs.
816,192 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 4, 2015
Comparison of SAP BO, Tableau, QlikView, Cognos, Microsoft, OBIEE and Pentaho
1. SAP BO/BI Enterprise scalability Security Ease of use Semantic layer 2. Tableau Visualization Data discovery Turnaround time 3. IBM Cognos Enterprise scalability Security In-memory feature 4. MS BI - Flexibility 5. Pentaho - Open source but still enterprise grade 6. QlikView Data…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
56%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
5%
Government
4%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Seeking lightweight open source BI software
It depends on the Data architecture and the complexity of your requirement. Some great tools in the market are Qlik ...
What do you like most about IBM Cognos?
The solution's most valuable feature is its ease of use, which makes it easily compatible with other tools.
What needs improvement with IBM Cognos?
I need improvements, particularly with the Framework Manager, which has an outdated user interface from older version...
How does Oracle OBIEE compare with Microsoft BI?
Oracle OBIEE is great in allowing design and creativity per the individual needs of the organization. Dashboards are ...
Which Oracle product is better - OBIEE or Analytics Cloud?
Oracle OBIEE is designed to be relatively easy to set up and has a helpful customer support staff at the ready to ass...
What do you like most about Oracle OBIEE?
The most valuable feature of Oracle OBIEE is its ability to handle large volumes of data and provide traditional BI f...
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 wou...
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 be...
What do you like most about SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform?
What I like the most about SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform is that it has significantly improved our decision-making ...
 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
OBIEE, Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition, Oracle BI, Oracle BI EE 11g
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform, SAP BusinessObjects, Business Objects
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

More than 23,000 leading organizations across multiple industries use Cognos. Some examples of Cognos customers include BMW Financial Services, Quinte Health Care, Troy Corporation, Michigan State University, and GKN Land System.
Banca Transilvania, BeckmanCoulter, Hong Kong Housing Society, HealthShare, Ivanhoe Cambridge Unifies, and Home Credit, and Finance Bank.
SRAM, Kennametal, Fairfax Water, British American Tobacco, Velux, and FedEx.
Find out what your peers are saying about Oracle OBIEE vs. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,192 professionals have used our research since 2012.