Adaptive Insights vs IBM Cognos comparison

Workday and IBM are both solutions in the Reporting category. Workday is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.2, while IBM is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.1. Workday holds a 0.7% mindshare in RT, compared to IBM’s 4.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Workday users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Adaptive Insights

Read 18 Adaptive Insights reviews

1,459 Views
321 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM Cognos

Read 134 IBM Cognos reviews

5,905 Views
2,244 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Adaptive Insights

IBM Cognos

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

Adaptive Insights and IBM Cognos are competitive solutions in the financial planning and analytics sector. Adaptive Insights is favored for its ease of use and rapid deployment, while IBM Cognos is preferred for its comprehensive feature set and powerful data processing capabilities.

Features: Adaptive Insights offers ease of use, intuitive planning, and reporting tools for financial planning. IBM Cognos provides a broad range of analytics features, including advanced data visualization tools, making it suitable for organizations requiring extensive analytical capabilities.

Room for Improvement: Adaptive Insights could enhance its advanced analytics capabilities and data processing power. It can also work on providing more sophisticated data visualization options. IBM Cognos can improve by simplifying its user interface and reducing its complexity for new users. Additionally, the high cost can be a barrier, and streamlining deployment could be beneficial.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Adaptive Insights offers a straightforward cloud-based deployment model with strong customer support, ideal for businesses needing a quick setup. IBM Cognos involves a more complex implementation process but provides detailed support options to ensure successful integration in data-heavy environments.

Pricing and ROI: Adaptive Insights generally has a lower setup cost, providing a quicker return on investment through simplified implementation and operational effectiveness. IBM Cognos, with higher initial costs, offers significant ROI for businesses that leverage its advanced analytical features over time.

To learn more, read our detailed Adaptive Insights vs. IBM Cognos Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Adaptive Insights vs. IBM Cognos

September 2025

Download the complete report

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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

Adaptive Insights

Ranking in Reporting

11th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Performance Management (6th), Financial Performance and Strategy Management (3rd), Data Visualization (10th), ESG Reporting Software (2nd)

IBM Cognos

Ranking in Reporting

6th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

134

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Adaptive Insights is 0.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Cognos is 4.3%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Reporting Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM Cognos	4.3%
Adaptive Insights	0.7%
Other	95.0%

Reporting

Featured Reviews

Andrew Rosenberg

Adaptive Planning Manager at Alight

Adaptive scales well, simple to create new budget versions and models

For the organization I used to work at, it streamlined the process of creating budgets. It's very simple to create a new version and do some more modeling based on your need for planning things like headcount, other expenses, and revenue, everything is configurable within Workday. So that made it easy. Reporting was pretty easy to set up as well. It streamlined the amount of time it took to do the budget as well as kind of making it simple to implement a rolling forecast process. So, it really was more just a productivity increase and time shortening for the budgeting and forecasting process.

Read full review

AMOL JAJU

Senior BI-ETL Consultant at CMA Consulting Services

Offers ad hoc analysis reports and good for operational dashboarding

There used to be many valuable features, but in the last three or four years, whatever IBM is doing with enhancements, it has taken a lot of time to build and develop. But the best usage of Cognos is the ad hoc analysis reports. I really like that. Our customers also like that. But now the usage of Cognos and OBIE is reduced by various business users because people and business users are now more focused on analytics, slice and dice, and the dashboard, and the widgets.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's very stable."

"Changes to corporate structure, account codes are updated in all versions including prior years, hence "one-version of truth" as claimed."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its dashboard."

"Reports are allowed to be edited for aesthetic purposes, which is lacking in a lot of other dashboard tools."

"The biggest feature is the source of truth for all of our budget and forecast versions."

"We utilize planning on a daily basis, therefore we find it to be the most valuable product for our organization."

"It's very simple to create a new version and do some more modeling based on your need for planning things like headcount, other expenses, and revenue, everything is configurable within Workday."

"Forecasting changes that instantly flow through all financial statements."

More Adaptive Insights pros

"IBM Cognos is an excellent solution for tax, planning, budgeting, profit and loss statements and balance sheets."

"One of the strong suits of Cognos is its robust corporate reporting capability."

"The product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report."

"A positive feature is Report Studio, where we create beautiful, complex reports."

"It's enabled us to report directly from our main application systems. We're removing islands of data and we're removing inefficiencies, where people or small divisions had their own store of information."

"We are able to generate quality reports easily which allows us to decrease response time."

"Even while a user is using a cube for reporting, there will not be a situation as ' Cube file locked; unable to build or deploy'."

"I have worked on the features like dashboards and stories, and I do like them a lot."

More IBM Cognos pros

Cons

"Their customer support team is slow to respond and not extremely confident."

"The product's configuration process could be faster."

"Better user interface (UI)."

"The upload feature exists, but isn't terribly useful."

"Discovery (the data visualization module): Needs to catch up with BI leaders, such as MS and Tableau. E.g., sorting by amounts in column charts and page slicers to control all visuals."

"Adaptive Insights could improve the data designer interface to make integrations easier to set up."

"The integrations could be simpler. It takes quite a bit of internal and IT know-how to set up."

"Users continue to become more advanced and are looking for more advanced solutions."

More Adaptive Insights cons

"This product could use improvement in terms of usability for those with less technical know how."

"There is room for improvement in self-service analytics and predictiveness."

"The charts and graphics are weak."

"I would like to have predictive and forecasting capabilities in Cognos. It's one thing to do reporting, and another thing to easily predict or forecast certain data points, which is very important for all the clients."

"One thing that we really want is the ability to have data portrayed on an image. Cognos is not able to do it at the moment, and that's becoming a requirement from the business side: having an image and then plotting your dataset on top of the image as a map."

"There are some small features that are missing. It would be nice if the graphics were better. You can use external sources for charts, but it's quite complex to use and not easy to implement. If you want a new chart, you can download it from multiple tools and implement it into IBM Cognos."

"The tool needs to improve the connectivity since I see that, at times, there is a need to increase the memory in the database."

"The visualization aspect needs to be improved and I believe, this is being resolved in upcoming versions."

More IBM Cognos cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Adaptive Insights' pricing is reasonable."

"Ensure that you have the proper pricing plan in place."

"Everything is negotiable, but this solution is low cost compared to others."

"Pricing is in line with other cloud-based EPM tools. It is a subscription-based model based upon the number of users and site type if it's an admin or end-user type thing."

"Adaptive Insights' pricing is relative to its peer competitors. It's certainly competitive compared to a spreadsheet template that you build in Excel. It can be expensive if you need to have 100-500 budget holders giving input and building financial plans. However, in that case, it becomes an extremely good bargain. Compared to its competitors, it offers an excellent value."

"Licensing seems to be worth the cost considering the efficiency Adaptive brings."

"Prior to purchasing licenses, make sure you understand which users will only need planning and which users will need both planning and OfficeConnect."

"It's affordable."

"IBM Cognos is priced reasonable. However, it is more expensive than Power BI and Tableau."

"The licensing costs are a little bit higher for IBM Cognos. I don't think there is any additional cost apart from the licensing charges."

"My company uses IBM Cognos with another IBM product, so I think only one license is used."

"The cost of IBM Cognos it's more or less the same as most of the other solutions on the market. They're very competitive with the rest of the market and it is not the most expensive product."

"The pricing and licensing policies are comparatively cheaper than other products in the market ."

"The solution is affordable."

"Cognos is super expensive compared to Tableau ($70/month) and Power BI ($20/month) — I think Cognos is roughly $200 a month."

"It's more expensive than similar solutions like Tableau and Power BI."

More IBM Cognos pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user79932

Senior Manager - BI Head at NVidia

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Healthcare Company

Non Profit

Financial Services Firm

15%

Insurance Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	10

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	33
Midsize Enterprise	23
Large Enterprise	83

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Adaptive Insights?

It's very simple to create a new version and do some more modeling based on your need for planning things like headcount, other expenses, and revenue, everything is configurable within Workday.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Adaptive Insights?

12 years ago, it was very affordable. Workday has definitely increased its price since it acquired Adaptive a few years ago. So, it's affordable. But there are other more affordable solutions that ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Adaptive Insights?

The integrations could be simpler. It takes quite a bit of internal and IT know-how to set up. So, there could be room for just improving the integrations, making it easier to integrate outside sys...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Cognos?

There is room for improvement in self-service analytics and predictiveness.

See all answers

Comparisons

Planful vs Adaptive Insights

Compared 10% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Adaptive Insights

Compared 10% of the time

Oracle Hyperion vs Adaptive Insights

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Adaptive Insights

Compared 8% of the time

IBM Planning Analytics vs Adaptive Insights

Compared 8% of the time

More Adaptive Insights Competitors

Microsoft Power BI vs IBM Cognos

Compared 12% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs IBM Cognos

Compared 9% of the time

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs IBM Cognos

Compared 8% of the time

Oracle Hyperion vs IBM Cognos

Compared 8% of the time

IBM Planning Analytics vs IBM Cognos

Compared 5% of the time

More IBM Cognos Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Adaptive Insights

September 2025

Download Adaptive Insights product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cognos

September 2025

Download IBM Cognos product report

Also Known As

Workday Adaptive Planning, Adaptive Discovery , Workday Adaptive Planning

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics

Overview

Adaptive Insights is a cloud-based financial planning and analysis software that helps businesses streamline their budgeting, forecasting, and reporting processes.

With its intuitive interface and powerful analytics, it enables organizations to make data-driven decisions and drive business performance.

Workday

IBM Cognos Business Intelligence provides a wide range of tools to help you analyze your organization's data. IBM Cognos BI allows businesses to monitor events and metrics, create and view business reports, and analyze data to help them make effective business decisions.

IBM Cognos applies techniques to describe, summarize, and compare data, and draw conclusions. This allows users to see trends and discover anomalies or variances that may not be evident by simply reading data. Data sources that contain information from different areas of a business can be stored in separate packages. Users can see only information that they have been granted access to, based on their group or role.

IBM Cognos BI consolidates the following business intelligence functions into a single web-based solution:

IBM Cognos Insight: Create personal and managed workspaces for data analysis. Using these interactive workspaces, you can share insight results with managers. Cognos Insight supports write-back, and you can also use these workspaces to capture and integrate management goals, commitments, and forecasts.
IBM Cognos Workspace: With IBM Cognos Workspace, you can create rich, interactive workspaces using IBM Cognos content as well as data from external sources. You can view and open your favorite workspaces and reports, edit content in your workspaces, and share your workspaces via email.
IBM Cognos Analytics: IBM Cognos Analytics utilizes built-in AI and intuitive searches which helps users to quickly create the visualizations and a wide range of reports. Cognos Analytics provides cognitive and managed self-service, enabling you to gain insights from controlled and trusted data.
IBM Cognos Report Studio and IBM Cognos Query Studio: Easily create structured and query reports. IBM Cognos allows users to create application and report templates. In addition, report authors can reuse report objects to apply filters, fields, and styles to reports. Users can set the language of the user interface and report content according to the user's native language.
IBM Cognos Event Studio: Receive notifications of events that occur within your organization in real time. Event Studio enables the creation of agents that detect the occurrence of business events, failures, or anomalies, based on the change of specific events or data conditions. Notification can be sent via email, publication in the portal, or by triggering reports.
IBM Cognos Connection: This is the Web portal for IBM Cognos BI and is the central area for accessing all the IBM Cognos functions. In the web portal, users can schedule and distribute reports, create tasks, administer the server and the access permissions, and more.

Reviews from Real Users

IBM Cognos stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its powerful analysis tool and its reporting capabilities.

Prasad B., a senior software engineer at a financial services firm, notes, “The product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report. We can receive automated reports as well. They are easy to schedule on a weekly or monthly basis. It is very fast. I mean in means of report output, it's very fast compared to the actual clients involved.”

IBM

Sample Customers

1. Cisco Systems 2. Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated 3. Deloitte 4. DocuSign 5. Dropbox 6. Electronic Arts 7. Fender Musical Instruments Corporation 8. Fitbit 9. Fossil Group 10. Groupon 11. Hilton Worldwide 12. HP Inc. 13. Intuit 14. Johnson & Johnson 15. LinkedIn 16. Lyft 17. McAfee 18. Medtronic 19. Netflix 20. Oracle 21. Pandora 22. PayPal 23. Pinterest 24. Red Hat 25. Salesforce 26. ServiceNow 27. Slack Technologies 28. Spotify 29. Symantec 30. Tableau Software 31. Twitter 32. Workday

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.

Buyer's Guide

Adaptive Insights vs. IBM Cognos

September 2025

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