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Oracle OBIEE vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

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 OBIEE
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
157
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (3rd)
SAP BusinessObjects Busines...
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
103
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Oracle OBIEE is 3.9%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is 4.0%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Sumeet  Zalpuri - PeerSpot reviewer
Fully integrated enterprise-level tool
The initial setup was not straightforward. Since it is a complete enterprise tool, it needs a certain level of expertise to set up the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform. There are a lot of steps involved. You need to get the user accepted and you need to validate the data. So you need to understand the architecture of the application. I would rate the initial setup as moderate since it's not very easy or much difficult. For a small enterprise, the installation would take one day. You must ensure you are on a supported platform like Windows or Linux and if your database is not on the server but in a different zone of the network, you need to ensure connectivity. You must also ensure the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform supports your organization's browser. These are the major things that must be taken care of before the installation. Around 500 users are using the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform in my company. We are a team of around eight technical people involved in the deployment and maintenance of the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform. If you run a SAP shop with ECC, the best solution is the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform because it's tightly integrated. You'll get lots of offers from SAP when it comes to licensing. So there's an advantage. But if you are not a SAP shop, the licensing becomes a hindrance. So if you have SAP as a source, then I recommend people to go with SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform as it's a tool that works wonders. I have been working on POCs where we use SAP data for BI, which was a nightmare. So if you have ECC and SAP in the back end, go with the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform. If you have any other tools in the back end, then try to negotiate and see the use case.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is easy to use...I rate the scalability of the solution a nine out of ten."
"I think having the conformed structures makes it a lot easier for end users and pulling reports together."
"Some of the dashboard capabilities are good. The dashboard capabilities that tell you what kind of reports are available and provide you a summary of the reports are valuable. It is easy to navigate and easy to download reports into Excel to utilize them."
"The primary reason for using OBIEE is connectivity with Oracle E-Business Suite. It makes it easy to connect with our Oracle E-Business Suite. There are the standard dashboards available, which we sometimes use, and now we are looking for customized dashboards."
"Integration-wise, it's good."
"It has a lot workaround in order to do the report. data blending, and getting information from big data sources."
"The most valuable feature is the user-friendly set of tools that the customer can use to develop their own business dashboards."
"The solution is user-friendly."
"The platform uses a lot of Java technologies so the performance and system-level management are tricky because it needs a lot of resources."
"The features which the solution has been awesome. The way the data is fetched from the database, and the queries are executed, is unique using the Universe of Business Objects. That makes it unique and we could not find another solution that functions in a similar way. It's has a great way of receiving and executing queries."
"It allows the analysis of business data and enables decisions based on the analysis."
"Enables us to present data with Smart Objects that can be embedded within presentations and which automatically update when the presentations are run."
"​It is a very good product, stable, and has good technical capabilities.​"
"SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform's most valuable features are it has a great presentation layer. We can develop the presentation layer with drag-and-drop capabilities. For end-users and for our interns in the company can create reports and do their data analysis processes or works by using the objects that we created on the presentation layer by themselves."
"The scheduling and publication features are very useful."
"It is stable and robust. It has pretty direct integration with SAP ERP. It is easy to use."
 

Cons

"It was a little bit tedious to install a new release."
"One of the things that have been difficult with OBIEE during all the time that I've known it is that when something goes wrong, many times, the error messages are not specific, and you've got to spend a lot of time digging and digging and digging before you say, "Oh, okay. I figured out what it was." There should be more detailed error messages or troubleshooting messages."
"There are times we have slowness when processing the reports with Oracle OBIEE. Improving the performance would be beneficial."
"This solution is weak in the data science perspective. I have past data science experience. And, I find that there is a lot of room for improvement in terms of incorporating more advanced statistical modeling into the product."
"It crashes when many people login simultaneously."
"I would like to see the data wrangling features enhanced."
"There's a lot of redundancy, especially in relation to creating the code."
"Essbase integration needs to be worked on."
"The user interface should be easier to use and navigate."
"It is not simple to use."
"SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is an outdated solution that is missing many features."
"The platform should be a bit more user-friendly."
"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."
"Its data visualization tool is not as good as Power BI and Tableau. Currently, for data visualization, you need to spend more money to buy another solution such as Power BI or Tableau. It is also very hard to integrate it with other third-party solutions. Its integration with other solutions should be improved."
"The financial area in the solution has certain shortcomings that need improvement."
"The interface could be slicker and more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It is reasonable, but it depends on how you're going to use it. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"This is a very costly product."
"It is an expensive solution."
"This was not an expensive product for us, although the price varies depending on conditions for each company."
"The cost of this solution is a little bit high compared with other products like Zoho, so reducing it would make OBIEE more competitive."
"The price of Oracle OBIEE is expensive, it is difficult for a small business to afford."
"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."
"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."
"There is an annual license to use SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform."
"SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is an expensive application."
"SAP is losing market to its competitors because of its costly user license and licensing model. They can do much better on the licensing side. That's what Microsoft has been doing, and that's why Power BI is gaining market share at the moment. SAP needs to relax a little bit on the licensing part. If Microsoft is giving people a solution that is half of the cost of SAP, people will definitely go with Power BI."
"There's no additional charge for a Development environment license, so build an additional development server."
"It is not a subscription model, but you must purchase a perpetual license for this."
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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
Financial Services Firm
18%
Government
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 fully customizable and very user-friendly. This solution is very stable. Oracle ...
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 assist customers. These are two attributes that make this system quite valuable. OB...
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 functionalities that developers can easily understand.
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...
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 process.
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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: January 2025.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.