Adaptive Insights vs IBM Cognos comparison

Workday and IBM are both solutions in the Reporting category. Workday is ranked #24, while IBM is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.3. Workday holds a 1.4% mindshare in RT, compared to IBM’s 3.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Workday users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Adaptive Insights

Read 18 Adaptive Insights reviews

2,452 Views
515 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM Cognos

Read 137 IBM Cognos reviews

5,922 Views
2,310 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Adaptive Insights

IBM Cognos

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

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: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Adaptive Insights vs. IBM Cognos

February 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 881,757 peers since 2012

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

24th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Performance Management (10th), Financial Performance and Strategy Management (4th), Data Visualization (20th), ESG Reporting Software (12th)

IBM Cognos

Ranking in Reporting

4th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

137

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (7th)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Adaptive Insights is 1.4%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Cognos is 3.2%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Reporting Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM Cognos	3.2%
Adaptive Insights	1.4%
Other	95.4%

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

Christine Wanjiru

Sr. Project Manager at GlaxoSmithKline

Reporting workflows have become faster and data-driven decisions are made confidently

The best features IBM Cognos offers include seamless data integration, AI-powered insights, and user-friendly dashboards that really make my job easier. The AI-powered insights help me automatically identify patterns and insights where they enhance analysis depth effortlessly, and this feature has been very instrumental in uncovering variable insights that might have otherwise gone unnoticed. When it comes to seamless data integration, I love the seamless and efficient data integration capability of IBM Cognos Analytics, where it allows us easy merging of data from various sources such as customer feedback and sales figures. The smooth integration process streamlines workflow efficiency and enhances overall data management practice. I also really love the user-friendly and intuitive dashboards where IBM Cognos Analytics enables quick creation of custom dashboards and an easy understanding of visual data presentation, allowing us to identify trends at a glance and enhance our analytical capabilities. IBM Cognos has positively impacted my organization since implementing this tool, as it has been very helpful with a particularly strong data analysis capability that helps us in business planning. Its strong data analysis capability helps us for business planning, and the great reporting capacity helps update all the leadership management about the business in one report. Auto-scheduling and report generation is a good feature that saves a significant amount of time. Specific outcomes that show how IBM Cognos has helped my organization include saving time, as we have been able to save forty to fifty percent of our time with its auto-scheduling and report generation functionality.

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

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

"It helps develop a more unified work format throughout the company."

"It's very stable."

"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."

"Automated reporting."

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

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

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

More Adaptive Insights pros

"A drag-and-drop interface for selecting creating ad hoc reports makes this product very easy to use."

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

"Cognos' most valuable features are the bundled studios, simple UI, and advanced features like the ability to create data modules."

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

"It is a stable product."

"In my opinion, IBM Cognos is very stable, and the benefits of choosing it, aside from cost savings, include having institutional knowledge for maintaining this infrastructure and a reliable solution that enhances developer productivity, given our team's extensive experience with IBM Cognos."

"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."

"Security administration tools are powerful and flexible."

More IBM Cognos pros

Cons

"Adaptive Insights has a limit of 1,00,000 rows for HTML reports. It should be improved because we will have multiple dimensions that need to be populated to enhance the image."

"Better user interface (UI)."

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

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

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

"It's a Workday product; they could do a little bit better to integrate a pure-play integration with Workday, which really doesn't do that."

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

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

More Adaptive Insights cons

"Need improvement towards Visualization."

"It would be better if it is was easier to implement without extensive training for it."

"Tableau and Power BI are faster than Cognos."

"It would be good if the solution had conditional formatting."

"I would like to see the introduction of mapbooks for supporting some geographical information."

"The data uploads that we do, such as Excel files, have a lot of restrictions. If we can make it a bit more user-friendly, allowing us to have more flexibility it would be a great help."

"I rate pricing as a four, meaning it is more expensive compared to other solutions."

"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."

More IBM Cognos cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

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

"Adaptive Insights' pricing is reasonable."

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

"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."

"It's affordable."

"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."

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

"The solution is affordable."

"It is quite pricy. I think Microsoft BI is cheaper. Tableau might also be cheaper, but it also depends on the usage. If you have very many users, Cognos can be a problem. It could be cheaper than Tableau but not for so many users. If you have a few thousand users, Tableau, which is generally quite expensive, can be cheaper than Cognos."

"There is some additional licensing that we needed to purchase because we were touching data outside of our core data platform. The cost was approximately $25,000 for the additional licenses, which were approximate 45 licenses. For the application itself, updates, and the core platform it was approximately $50,000. Giving a total cost of $75,000 annually for our usage of IBM Cognos."

"IBM Cognos price is on the higher side of the spectrum. However, with the features that it brings, such as correlation analysis, it's worth the money. They should look at the pricing more clearly because it's a little on the higher side."

"I don't know the exact cost, but I believe Cognos is quite expensive, especially when it comes to the support consultants and the procedures that need to be applied."

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

More IBM Cognos pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Reporting solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

881,757 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Comparison Review

it_user79932

Senior Manager - BI Head with 5,001-10,000 employees

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

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

11%

Healthcare Company

Real Estate/Law Firm

Financial Services Firm

13%

Insurance Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

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	34
Midsize Enterprise	23
Large Enterprise	88

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

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?

Since IBM Cognos is a futuristic platform with many robust features, it takes time to grasp all the features and how they work, so there is a learning curve. The more I use this platform, the more ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Infor dEPM vs Adaptive Insights

Compared 9% of the time

Planful vs Adaptive Insights

Compared 7% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Adaptive Insights

Compared 7% of the time

Qlik Sense vs Adaptive Insights

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Adaptive Insights

Compared 5% of the time

More Adaptive Insights Competitors

Microsoft Power BI vs IBM Cognos

Compared 11% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs IBM Cognos

Compared 8% of the time

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs IBM Cognos

Compared 6% of the time

Oracle Hyperion vs IBM Cognos

Compared 6% of the time

SQL Server vs IBM Cognos

Compared 4% of the time

More IBM Cognos Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Adaptive Insights

February 2026

Download Adaptive Insights product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cognos

January 2026

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

February 2026

Free Report: Adaptive Insights vs. IBM Cognos

Find out what your peers are saying about Adaptive Insights vs. IBM Cognos and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

881,757 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Adaptive Insights vs. IBM Cognos report.

See our list of best Reporting vendors.

We monitor all Reporting reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.