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Oracle OBIEE vs Tableau 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
5th
Ranking in Reporting
3rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
157
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Tableau
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
2nd
Ranking in Reporting
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
295
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (1st), Embedded BI (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 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 Tableau is 19.7%, up from 18.9% 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.
ROMIL SHAH - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides fast data access with in-memory extracts, makes it easy to create visualizations, and saves time
When it comes to visualizations, Tableau has a limitation as compared to Power BI. It has a limited set of visualizations. Power BI has the entire marketplace, so you can connect and import many visualizations and use them, whereas Tableau has only 10 or 15 visualizations. There should be more visualizations, and there should also be data integration with more cloud providers. Tableau has recently launched a paid version for the documentation. So, documentation has become a little bit challenging when it comes to Tableau development because we do not have any tool to export the data out of it. It is a license-based feature that you need to purchase to prepare documentation. So, on the documentation front, for preparing clear documentation for any dashboard, it would help if we get an embedded option, rather than buying a license for each user for the documentation. To document anything, if I have to connect to each workbook and see what has been written as a formula and then document in the Word document, it is pretty time-consuming. We have the Microsoft stack, and we are currently evaluating Power BI because Tableau has a limitation of 50 columns for a drill-down report. If we want more than 50 columns, we have found a hack, but there is no ready-made option for doing it. So, we have to use another tool in case we need a drilled report with more than 50 columns. There are many instances where users need 80 or 90 columns for their analysis, and switching between two technologies becomes a challenge. It is not a cost-effective approach for us. Their support should be improved. We are not happy with their support. Whenever we raised queries, we were pointed to a few blogs, and we didn't get a proper solution from them. Their licensing should also be improved. They want us to purchase a Tableau Creator license for business users, whereas Power BI Desktop is free for business users. They should come up with a basic license with one or two connectors that our business users can use for preparing their visualizations. Tableau also charges us per user for users who want the data only through email.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It provides excellent stability."
"It mostly supports enterprise level data. We have millions of records on a daily basis."
"It can be used with any type of data models, such as relational lines and dimensional lines."
"Dashboards provide us with various views and perspectives on our data, allowing us to analyze metrics such as revenue, occupancy rates, etc."
"The “Business Model & Mapping” layer in the Administration Tool, because the maintenance and evolution processes are greatly facilitated."
"Its robustness is most valuable. It can handle massive amounts of data quickly. If it's properly configured and tuned, it can handle massive amounts of data very quickly to produce results. That to me is the number one feature."
"For me, it makes the difference is in terms of our users being able to take advantage of a product which allows you to get access to data, reports, make decisions quickly, and have better insights regarding operations."
"I like the scheduling feature. It has an inbuilt scheduler which is very good, and it allows us to create agents, and those agents can be scheduled. It's quite flexible in that respect and goes into our IT infrastructure. The outputs are sent encrypted to various endpoints. Some are internal, and some are our clients, and it's encrypted at a high level. I do find Oracle OBIEE flexible. If there is stuff that's not in your model or schema, it's very flexible to create SQL scripts and create the data you want. It's quite nice to create a dashboard in OBIEE, and that's pretty straightforward in the way you drag and drop everything. You can create sections, and you can add elements to your page. That bit of the interface is relatively straightforward."
"Self-service is most valuable. Users can pick up quickly and do the resolution. There are a lot of out-of-the-box features, and it satisfies most of the needs. If users are properly trained, they can deal with any situation."
"The most valuable feature is the aggregation function."
"Tableau's initial setup was straightforward."
"Any feature I am looking for usually is part of the next upgrade within a few months. They have a very good dynamic evolution."
"From my perspective, it enables clients to better understand our data and make better decisions based on that information."
"It provides supporting data for critical policy and operational changes"
"I love the customization skills that Tableau has, it is not restricted to what is built-in already."
"Tableau is good for routine dashboards, and it has integration with Slack, through which it can send you daily updates."
 

Cons

"The solution is too expensive for small firms."
"Oracle OBIEE could improve by having better integration and compatibility with other vendors."
"I would like to see the data wrangling features enhanced."
"From the point of view of strategic management, I would like to have a feature, perhaps a form after we get to the KPI dashboard, to be used to note if something unusual happens in the operations. That way we could record extreme KPI situations, and track why a number is very low or too high."
"We needed some technical expertise during setup."
"One feature I would definitely like to see is the ability to provide the in-memory data. Oracle might have some plugins but, as of now, that feature isn't available out-of-the-box. You might have to purchase that feature."
"There should be more integration in the solution. For example, there should be one solution with multiple functionalities so that other solutions are not needed. Having one solution with all the needed functionality would be helpful."
"From an improvement perspective, the technical team should be able to provide more accurate answers by taking into consideration the context of the issues faced by users."
"Provide additional enhancements in any business process: Operations, Marketing and Sales, Finance, Human Resources, Logistics, etc."
"The user experience for less savvy or non-technical people (from my experience)."
"There should be more GIS features, such as location analysis, which is quite limited. There are very few location-based functionalities."
"It should offer better features for customization."
"The price of Tableau is too high."
"I would like to have the product be more flexible in terms of creating online shared dashboards."
"It would be nice if we could export more raw data. Currently, there is a limit as to how much data you can export."
"The ability to use it on MAC machines. As far as I know, this is not possible."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"I would rate it a 4 out of 5 in terms of pricing."
"It's expensive."
"The company had twenty-five Oracle OBIEE licenses and never expanded. Price-wise, the solution is expensive."
"Its licensing is yearly."
"This was not an expensive product for us, although the price varies depending on conditions for each company."
"The price of Oracle OBIEE is expensive, it is difficult for a small business to afford."
"The licensing cost is based on the number of users using it."
"We always consider pricing when considering a new solution. We are a non-profit and price is a huge concern."
"We are paying an annual licensing fee."
"The price of Tableau could improve. The license is too expensive."
"Best advice on pricing is to anticipate the desire for more licenses once the results of this product are acknowledged in other parts of your company."
"I recommend that you discuss your needs with the salesperson and try to negotiate the price."
"The pricing is $70 per month. You have to pay about $800 or something in that ballpark annually for one license."
"This license is on a yearly basis."
"The pricing for Tableau is the same as the other products in the market."
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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
17%
Government
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
42%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

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
It depends on the Data architecture and the complexity of your requirement. Some great tools in the market are Qlik Sense, Power BI, OBIEE, Tableau, etc. I have recently started using Cognos Enter...
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...
Which would you choose - Tableau or SAP Analytics Cloud?
Tableau is easy to set up and maintain. In about a day it is possible for the entire platform to be deployed for use. This relatively short amount of time can make all the difference for companies ...
 

Also Known As

OBIEE, Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition, Oracle BI, Oracle BI EE 11g
Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Banca Transilvania, BeckmanCoulter, Hong Kong Housing Society, HealthShare, Ivanhoe Cambridge Unifies, and Home Credit, and Finance Bank.
Accenture, Adobe, Amazon.com, Bank of America, Charles Schwab Corp, Citigroup, Coca-Cola Company, Cornell University, Dell, Deloitte, Duke University, eBay, Exxon Mobil, Fannie Mae, Ferrari, French Red Cross, Goldman Sachs, Google, Government of Canada, HP, Intel, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Macy's, Merck, The New York Times, PayPal, Pfizer, US Army, US Air Force, Skype, and Walmart.
Find out what your peers are saying about Oracle OBIEE vs. Tableau and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.