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CA Deliver vs IBM Cognos comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

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

CA Deliver
Ranking in Reporting
44th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
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 July 2025, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of CA Deliver is 0.1%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Cognos is 4.4%, down from 5.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Reporting
 

Featured Reviews

it_user837525 - PeerSpot reviewer
Gives us one repository for various output formats and retention periods
A common theme with all CA products is they state compatibility with new technologies when it has not yet been proven. Much like other technology companies that have fallen into this trap, let feature and compatibly releases be controlled by the technical group, instead of the marketing and/or management people. I cite the example that CA mainframe products were deemed to be compatible with Extended Address Volumes (EAV) - larger sized disk volumes - when they were not. I have been doing this for 37 years and see it all too often, sometimes to the detriment of the company itself (Storage Technology Corp. and its Iceberg array comes to mind).
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

"Having one repository for various output formats and retention periods. Provides the flexibility to establish hundreds of different retention entries, based upon business need, and then group the like retention period outputs together on the same media. It is very efficient."
"Flexibility of report configuration; allows for quick and simple amendments to definitions."
"IBM Cognos is a robust governed platform with significant security features and provides excellent graphics and reporting."
"One of the strong suits of Cognos is its robust corporate reporting capability."
"IBM Cognos is an excellent solution for tax, planning, budgeting, profit and loss statements and balance sheets."
"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'."
"The three IBM Cognos features I find the most valuable are Dynamic Cubes, PowerPlay, and Watson."
"IBM Cognos offers tools so that you can design and develop your own test queries and reporting solutions."
"Cognos' most valuable features are the bundled studios, simple UI, and advanced features like the ability to create data modules."
"Security administration tools are powerful and flexible."
 

Cons

"Needs ability to allow export to xls/pdf, etc. (Note: this is available in add-on product CA – OM Web Viewer)."
"A common theme with all CA products is they state compatibility with new technologies when it has not yet been proven. I cite the example that CA mainframe products were deemed to be compatible with Extended Address Volumes (EAV) - larger sized disk volumes - when they were not."
"The solution seems to slow down the servers."
"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."
"This product could use improvement in terms of usability for those with less technical know how."
"It would be good if the solution had conditional formatting."
"Cognos is quite slow - it's missing the performance of the PowerPlay cubes."
"The technical support team’s response time is slow and needs to be improved."
"The AI-based features could be further enhanced by the solution."
"I would like them to reinclude PowerPlay. One thing that I am missing in the current Cognos is what was formally named PowerPlay. They have basically removed PowerPlay from it, which is something that I fail to understand because it was the most wonderful tool for business intelligence that I've ever used. As far as I know, they don't provide this functionality anymore, so this is one thing that I dislike about Cognos."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"​Pricing is reasonable, licensing model suitable for large enterprises."
"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."
"There is need to assess the purchase license accordingly so as to avoid audit penalties."
"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."
"It is my understanding that the cost is very low. It's not very expensive."
"Cognos is super expensive compared to Tableau ($70/month) and Power BI ($20/month) — I think Cognos is roughly $200 a month."
"The pricing and licensing policies are comparatively cheaper than other products in the market ."
"It is averagely priced."
"The solution is affordable."
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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
No data available
Educational Organization
24%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Insurance Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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...
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.
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

Also Known As

No data available
Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ERGO
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 CA Deliver vs. IBM Cognos and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.