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Domo vs IBM Cognos comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
5.7
Domo enhances efficiency, decision-making, and revenue growth, though some face limited returns due to high costs or underutilization.
Sentiment score
6.7
IBM Cognos offers mixed returns; some save significantly, others find it costly, but generally enhances insights and processes.
If you're actually using Domo at a very limited case and you're being charged $20,000, we've seen ROI there, but once it goes really high, you really need to check your metrics and check your profit.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.7
Domo's customer and technical support is generally praised but needs improvement in responsiveness, especially for complex issues.
Sentiment score
6.5
IBM Cognos support is responsive and expert but criticized for high costs, slow resolutions, and complexity in customer service.
No matter how complex the problem is, it can be taken care of by the support team.
They were quite professional and in around three to five working days, they had identified where they suspected there was an issue and I was able to fix it.
It's very easy to get technical support from Domo.
I rate technical support from IBM as eight out of ten, indicating a high quality of service.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.2
Domo supports large-scale data and user roles, but some users experience technical challenges with ETL processes and storage limits.
Sentiment score
7.5
IBM Cognos offers scalable solutions, supporting large deployments with proper server architecture, powerful hardware, and seamless software integration.
The fact that you're able to easily identify the pipelines or flows that have errors, and it notifies you when you're building a pipeline where you can run previews and tell where to fix issues, is helpful.
When fetching files larger than 100 MB from SFTP or any other portal, Domo becomes slow due to the heavy file size.
Everything comes under the same umbrella and it's pretty user-friendly.
It can be scaled out to other teams, but requires building cubes and implementing policies.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.6
Domo is praised for reliable data handling, minimal downtime, and efficiency, though some encounter occasional server connectivity issues.
Sentiment score
7.2
IBM Cognos is praised for stability and performance, surpassing competitors, with minor issues often due to server configuration.
In recent years, I haven't had such cases. It's quite stable and I don't have any reservations on its stability.
In terms of overall stability of the platform, it's very stable.
During that time, we faced issues from the project side as Domo was not visible in our portal.
I rate the stability of this solution as nine out of ten, indicating it is highly stable.
 

Room For Improvement

Domo users face data management and integration challenges, need better visualization, real-time processing, and improved UI and collaboration features.
IBM Cognos needs UI upgrades, better data visualization, improved performance, and advanced self-service features to compete with rivals.
End users require a license to run their own reports and dashboards, which are fairly expensive.
Some technical aspects such as Beast Mode calculation could be improved in Domo, as it would provide more clarity and help in giving insights to clients or customer business team requirements.
One of the areas where we've had frustrations with Domo is the aesthetics. The aesthetics are quite limited compared to other BI tools such as Tableau and Power BI.
There is room for improvement in self-service analytics and predictiveness.
 

Setup Cost

Domo's pricing is higher but seen as valuable for its features, with flexible models and negotiable terms encouraged.
IBM Cognos is costlier but offers extensive features, complex licensing, and competitive SaaS options for SMEs, emphasizing negotiation.
Domo's pricing is high compared to other BI tools, and it is costly.
For long-time users, it can become expensive, but the trade-off is access to the entire platform instead of licensing different components separately.
They quoted approximately one dollar per KB.
I rate pricing as a four, meaning it is more expensive compared to other solutions.
 

Valuable Features

Domo is praised for ease of use, data integration, real-time insights, and collaboration, enhancing data accessibility for non-technical users.
IBM Cognos offers powerful analytics, flexible reporting, strong visualization, and robust security with scalability and ease of use.
App Studio is valuable because it allows all the customization we needed; we can decode it, with the view and grid which are all I need, drill-downs, and everything can be done the way I need it.
None of the other tools provide the kind of support that enables chatting and working on the same item simultaneously.
I have been using it for four years and have been able to extract the information I need from it.
IBM Cognos is a robust governed platform with significant security features and provides excellent graphics and reporting.
 

Categories and Ranking

Domo
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
6th
Ranking in Reporting
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (24th), Business Performance Management (10th), Data Visualization (7th)
IBM Cognos
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
8th
Ranking in Reporting
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Domo is 3.9%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Cognos is 2.2%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Domo3.9%
IBM Cognos2.2%
Other93.9%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Dave Ramos - PeerSpot reviewer
Has enabled me to integrate AI workflows and drive self-service analytics across organizations
There's room for improvement in their focus on enterprise clients. As a small business owner, there's nothing as powerful as Domo available for smaller organizations. I understand it's a business focus for them as they're looking to expand in that direction, but there's an opportunity to capture the SMB market by creating more capabilities. It's not necessarily about technical capabilities, but rather pricing that's geared towards the small business market. Capability-wise, it's very robust. If I had to stretch, I would suggest more integrations to other common tools, such as Zapier and operational tools like Mailchimp, where you can build and extend ETL in a no-code environment. While there are capabilities you can build from Domo's open APIs, having more native integrations in a no-code, low-code environment would be beneficial. Domo has many native integrations, but better tools for the SMB operational pipeline would be valuable.
Robert Thorpe - PeerSpot reviewer
Robust platform delivers excellent reports and insights while needing improvement in self-service capabilities
Our clients utilize IBM Cognos mainly for static reporting, board packs, business reporting, and insights IBM Cognos is a robust governed platform with significant security features and provides excellent graphics and reporting. One of our customers can get a full company update on a Monday…
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872,778 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
University
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Insurance Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise20
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise83
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Domo?
All our client SLAs and daily and weekly dashboards are tracked on Domo.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Domo?
The pricing of Domo is too high. Six months ago, Domo increased their prices. We suffered because we could not maintain the old data in the old data set in Domo. We are creating multiple backups on...
What needs improvement with Domo?
The downsides of Domo are that we don't have a feature in the same column. When data comes in a time format, text format, and number format, we cannot segregate and create conditional formatting in...
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

 

Also Known As

corda
Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Capco, SABMiller, Stance, eBay, Sage North America, Goodwill Industries of Central Indiana, Telus, The Cliffs, OGIO International Inc., and many more!
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 Domo vs. IBM Cognos and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,778 professionals have used our research since 2012.