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Anaconda vs IBM Cognos comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Anaconda
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Data Science Platforms (12th)
IBM Cognos
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (7th), Reporting (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Anaconda is designed for Data Science Platforms and holds a mindshare of 2.1%, up 2.1% compared to last year.
IBM Cognos, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 3.4% mindshare, down 4.3% since last year.
Data Science Platforms
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Rohan Sharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides all the frameworks and makes it easy to create environments for multiple projects
The best thing is that it provides all the frameworks and makes it easy to create environments for multiple projects using Anaconda. It is easy for a beginner to learn to use Anaconda. Comparatively, it is easier than using virtual environments or other environments because of the Conda environment. However, there are many things in Anaconda that people need to be aware of, so it can be challenging.
AMOL JAJU - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It provides a unified platform where you can install Jupyter, Python Spider, and other related tools without needing separate installations."
"With Anaconda Navigator, we have been able to use multiple IDEs such as JupyterLab, Jupyter Notebook, Spyder, Visual Studio Code, and RStudio in one place. The platform-agnostic package manager, "Conda", makes life easy when it comes to managing and installing packages."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its cloud-based nature, allowing accessibility from anywhere. Additionally, using Jupyter Notebook makes it easy to handle bugs and errors."
"The notebook feature is an improvement over RStudio."
"It has a lot of functionality available, supports many libraries, and the developers are continually improving it."
"It helped us find find the optimal area for where our warehouse should be located."
"The product is responsive, sleek and has a beautiful interface that is pleasant to use. It helps users to easily share code."
"The most valuable feature is the set of libraries that are used to support the functionality that we require."
"A drag-and-drop interface for selecting creating ad hoc reports makes this product very easy to use."
"The most valuable feature of IBM Cognos is security. The solution has updated features that other competitors' solutions come out with long after IBM Cognos has had them."
"The most valuable feature is developing reports from different data sources, making it a reliable data source."
"The dashboarding offered by this solution is very valuable to us."
"Dashboarding, reporting, and ad hoc reporting are the valuable features of IBM Cognos."
"IBM Cognos is a robust governed platform with significant security features and provides excellent graphics and reporting."
"The comprehensiveness or broadness of the software functions or business intelligence functions that it provides is valuable. It is also quite easy to use and user-friendly."
"IBM Cognos improves the effectiveness of the sales team."
 

Cons

"I think better documentation or a step-by-step guide for installation would help, especially for on-premise users."
"Having a small guide or video on the tool would help learn how to use it and what the features are."
"I think that the framework can be improved to make it easier for people to discover and use things on their own."
"A lot of people and companies are investing in creating automated data cleaning and processing environments. Anaconda is a bit behind in that area."
"Anaconda can't handle heavy workloads."
"It also takes up a lot of space."
"Anaconda consumes a significant amount of processing memory when working on it."
"Anaconda should be optimized for RAM consumption."
"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."
"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."
"We need more predictive analytical functions, not only diagnostic or decryptic analytics."
"The charts and graphics are weak."
"Cognos charts are not as fast as those of the other tools, even with DQM (dynamic query mode)."
"I would like to see is more easy building, movement in the reports, and dashboard functionality within reporting. Overall more simple elements within reports. If the elements are simple then you don't have to render a full page, but you can move separate parts in the page."
"In terms of what could be improved, I would say, monitoring, monitoring, monitoring. Some improvements in monitoring would be helpful. I'd like to see more monitoring of specific reports and fields. The way the auditing is now is very limited, so I'd like to see more of that - of the monitoring."
"The high cost of a license makes it hard to scale up on a budget."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"My company uses the free version of the tool. There is also a paid version of the tool available."
"The product is open-source and free to use."
"The licensing costs for Anaconda are reasonable."
"Anaconda is free to use, but in terms of hardware costs, you might need heavy GPUs to run CUDA and other demanding tasks."
"The tool is open-source."
"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."
"The pricing of this product is meant for medium to large-scale enterprises."
"It is averagely priced."
"The solution is affordable."
"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."
"IBM Cognos is priced reasonable. However, it is more expensive than Power BI and Tableau."
"IBM Cognos offers competitive pricing similar to other BI vendors in the market."
"I rate the product price as four or five on a scale from one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
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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
20%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
50%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Insurance Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Anaconda?
The tool's most valuable feature is its cloud-based nature, allowing accessibility from anywhere. Additionally, using Jupyter Notebook makes it easy to handle bugs and errors.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Anaconda?
Anaconda is an open-source tool, so I do not pay anything for it. It is compatible with every tool, regardless of whether it is open source or a paid package.
What needs improvement with Anaconda?
There is room for improvement, especially regarding deployment. The process could be streamlined as the number of actions needed to deploy is quite large compared to other tools.
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...
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.
What needs improvement with IBM Cognos?
There is room for improvement in self-service analytics and predictiveness.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

LinkedIn, NASA, Boeing, JP Morgan, Recursion Pharmaceuticals, DARPA, Microsoft, Amazon, HP, Cisco, Thomson Reuters, IBM, Bridgestone
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.
Find out what your peers are saying about Databricks, Knime, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in Data Science Platforms. Updated: May 2025.
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