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IBM Cognos Reviews

Vendor: IBM
4.0 out of 5
6,082 followers
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IBM Cognos mindshare

Product category:
As of May 2025, the mindshare of IBM Cognos in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category stands at 3.4%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year, according to calculations based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

PeerResearch reports based on IBM Cognos reviews

TypeTitleDate
CategoryBI (Business Intelligence) ToolsMay 29, 2025Download
ProductReviews, tips, and advice from real usersMay 29, 2025Download
ComparisonIBM Cognos vs Microsoft Power BIMay 29, 2025Download
ComparisonIBM Cognos vs TableauMay 29, 2025Download
ComparisonIBM Cognos vs Amazon QuickSightMay 29, 2025Download
Suggested products
TitleRatingMindshareRecommending
Microsoft Power BI4.021.4%93%321 interviewsAdd to research
Tableau4.217.1%89%305 interviewsAdd to research
 
 
Key learnings from peers

Valuable Features

Room for Improvement

ROI

Pricing

Popular Use Cases

Service and Support

Deployment

Scalability

Stability

Review data by company size

By reviewers
By visitors reading reviews

Top industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
47%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Insurance Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Computer Software Company
5%
Government
5%
University
3%
Healthcare Company
2%
Retailer
2%
Comms Service Provider
2%
Energy/Utilities Company
2%
Real Estate/Law Firm
1%
Construction Company
1%
Wholesaler/Distributor
1%
Legal Firm
1%
Media Company
1%
Non Profit
1%
Consumer Goods Company
1%
Outsourcing Company
1%
Hospitality Company
1%
Transportation Company
1%
Performing Arts
1%
Pharma/Biotech Company
1%
Recreational Facilities/Services Company
1%

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IBM Cognos reviews

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AMOL JAJU - PeerSpot user
Senior BI-ETL Consultant at CMA Consulting Services
Verified user of IBM Cognos
Sep 2, 2024
Offers ad hoc analysis reports and good for operational dashboarding

Pros

"The initial setup was straightforward. "

Cons

"It is a costly product; it is comparatively expensive."
PeerSpot user
head of commercial at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Verified user of IBM Cognos
Feb 7, 2025
Robust platform delivers excellent reports and insights while needing improvement in self-service capabilities

Pros

"IBM Cognos is a robust governed platform with significant security features and provides excellent graphics and reporting. "

Cons

"There is room for improvement in self-service analytics and predictiveness."
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Cognos. Updated May 2025
853,271 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Kumar Gurram - PeerSpot user
Senior Business Analyst at HSBC
Verified user of IBM Cognos
Apr 1, 2024
You can use the dashboard to determine where it stands based on the graph

Pros

"We use the account statement report. When you use an account in HSBC, you receive various types of accounts, such as the stock market, fixed accounts, credit cards, and business accounts. We can create one consolidated report called CCS support, which includes all these accounts. In that statement, we are consolidating all those accounts."

Cons

"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."
Gnanavel-Chakkarapani - PeerSpot user
Junior Consultant at CMA CGM
Verified user of IBM Cognos
Apr 4, 2024
Offers good reporting features and is easy to install

Pros

"When it comes to decision-making, the product is very useful and used in many departments since a lot of people prefer the reports to be generated by IBM Cognos."

Cons

"The tool needs to improve the connectivity since I see that, at times, there is a need to increase the memory in the database. "
Carlos Larrad Salgado - PeerSpot user
Deputy Director Operations Management Control at Mapfre
Verified user of IBM Cognos
Aug 19, 2022
Improved the quality of our KPIs, while reducing calls to the IT department

Pros

"The main difference that I like about Cognos compared to other solutions is its data splitting functionality. We have all our company data inside the Cognos environment and so we prefer to split the information Cognos itself. It's more efficient this way. "

Cons

"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. "
Amir Amin - PeerSpot user
Solution Architect - Data Engineering at Tenx
Verified user of IBM Cognos
Aug 25, 2024
Can join data from different sources, write back to databases, generate alerts, and be customized to our preferences

Pros

"The tool can join data from different sources, write back to databases, generate alerts, and be customized to our preferences. It's an enterprise BI tool that's more powerful than just visualization tools like Power BI or Tableau. "

Cons

"I need improvements, particularly with the Framework Manager, which has an outdated user interface from older versions like IBM Cognos 10 or 8. Additionally, the Event Studio, which offered great flexibility in previous versions, is no longer available in IBM Cognos Analytics 12. These are areas that could be improved to enhance the product. "
Mahmoud SAmi - PeerSpot user
Data & AI Solution Arch. at Alkan CIT Ethiopia
Verified user of IBM Cognos
Jan 25, 2024
Along with great scalability and stability, the tool delivers the best of functionalities

Pros

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

Cons

"Most of our company's customers want to be able to deploy IBM Cognos on a web application and use it as a desktop application, which is not possible currently. "
PeerSpot user
Consultant at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
Verified user of IBM Cognos
Apr 19, 2024
Offers ease of use but needs to improve its documentation

Pros

"The solution's most valuable feature is its ease of use, which makes it easily compatible with other tools."

Cons

"There are many problems with the product's stability part, making it an area where improvements are required."