OneStream vs Essbase

OneStream has garnered significant praise for its ability to unify various financial processes, such as financial close, consolidation, reporting, planning, and analysis, into a single platform. Users appreciate the software's flexibility and scalability, allowing them to adapt it to their specific needs and grow with their organization. The platform's Extensible Dimensionality® feature enables users to incorporate additional dimensions and attributes without impacting performance, providing a level of customization that sets it apart from competitors like Oracle Hyperion and SAP BPC. This is particularly beneficial for complex organizations with diverse reporting requirements. While OneStream offers a robust set of features, some users find the initial learning curve to be steeper compared to other EPM solutions. The software's extensive capabilities and flexibility require a deeper understanding to fully leverage its potential. Additionally, implementing OneStream often necessitates a significant investment in time and resources, particularly for larger organizations with complex financial processes. However, many users believe that the long-term benefits outweigh the initial challenges, citing improved data accuracy, increased efficiency, and better decision-making as key advantages. OneStream appears to be most suitable for mid-sized to large enterprises with complex financial consolidation and reporting needs. Its ability to handle large data volumes, support multiple currencies and entities, and provide granular reporting capabilities makes it an ideal choice for organizations operating in multiple countries or with diverse business units. The platform's unified approach also benefits organizations seeking to break down silos between finance and operations, fostering collaboration and providing a single source of truth for financial data.

Essbase is a multidimensional database with a fast querying engine and an intuitive interface. Available both in the cloud or on-premises, it enables users to build and manage analytic applications, which can be migrated to the cloud. It features a robust set of tools to perform planning, forecasting and analytics. Users can slice and dice intersections easily to find specific data. It can be integrated with Excel, enabling users to build budget and forecasting models, with ad hoc reporting capabilities. Users liked the flexibility offered when designing reports, or changing hierarchies. With access to all optimization and tuning options, users are given control of hardware utilizations and other settings. However, users complained that they needed to learn multiple languages, such as Calc scripts, MDX, business rules and Groovy, to leverage the platform’s capabilities. They also found it difficult to export data or integrate it with a data warehouse. Some users reported performance and stability issues, with rare instances of crashes and connection loss. Reviewers also complained about the low level of support provided when critical tickets are submitted, some of which are closed without providing any solution. Overall, it’s a flexible solution with a powerful calculation engine to drive business insights.