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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
6.8
Domo's effectiveness varies widely, offering cost savings and efficiency for some, while others find it costly and inefficient.
Sentiment score
6.7
IBM Cognos offers mixed returns; some save significantly, others find it costly, but generally enhances insights and processes.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.9
Domo's customer service is responsive but faces communication delays and gaps between support teams, impacting smaller clients.
Sentiment score
6.5
IBM Cognos support is responsive and expert but criticized for high costs, slow resolutions, and complexity in customer service.
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.
The main benefits of using Domo are that the support is good, and comparing it with other BI tools, it has specific specialties.
While they eventually provide the correct answers, their support for smaller customers could be improved.
I rate technical support from IBM as eight out of ten, indicating a high quality of service.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.9
Domo efficiently scales with diverse user groups and data, though performance may vary with massive datasets, facing competition.
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.
We have escalated questions to Domo's technical support as we find some bugs in our daily routines.
Sigma, which is written for Snowflake, scales more easily than Domo.
It can be scaled out to other teams, but requires building cubes and implementing policies.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Domo is generally stable, handling large data efficiently, with minor data refresh issues and connectivity dependent on internet quality.
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.
The setup of Domo is challenging as the cache and serialization part still causes errors; since it's fully cloud-based, they need to improve the connectivity part.
I rate the stability of this solution as nine out of ten, indicating it is highly stable.
 

Room For Improvement

Domo users seek improved data integration, visualization, browser compatibility, cost-effectiveness, and support, while desiring enhanced collaboration and customization features.
IBM Cognos needs UI upgrades, better data visualization, improved performance, and advanced self-service features to compete with rivals.
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.
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.
End users require a license to run their own reports and dashboards, which are fairly expensive.
There is room for improvement in self-service analytics and predictiveness.
 

Setup Cost

Domo's pricing is higher but justified by robust features, flexible licensing, and included cloud infrastructure reducing IT needs.
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.
Domo is expensive compared to other solutions.
I rate pricing as a four, meaning it is more expensive compared to other solutions.
 

Valuable Features

Domo excels in ETL, data visualization, governance, and collaboration, offering user-friendly tools for handling complex data tasks.
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.
The most valuable feature of Domo is the fact that you can connect multiple inputs and you don't have to have a data warehouse.
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
11th
Ranking in Reporting
10th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (40th), Business Performance Management (12th), Data Visualization (11th)
IBM Cognos
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
8th
Ranking in Reporting
6th
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 September 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Domo is 4.4%, 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 (%)
IBM Cognos2.2%
Domo4.4%
Other93.4%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Denis Mwaniki - PeerSpot reviewer
Have built flexible data pipelines and shared actionable insights across departments
I have not used Domo's collaborative features extensively. Regarding Domo's AI-driven insights in uncovering trends and forecasting outcomes, the limiting factor is that you need to define all of your columns before you're able to do any AI or feature engineering. That's quite a lot of work, especially on our end, given that we have huge datasets and sometimes we don't have updated data dictionaries. My wish would be for Domo to learn on its own and figure out column types without necessarily having to build that data dictionary. 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. The aesthetic feel, especially when building dashboards or apps, needs improvement. While Domo Apps is almost a Domo dashboard with more features and a better feel, I would hope for an investment in the aesthetics area. Being able to swipe right or left, instead of just scrolling down would be beneficial, as most Domo dashboards only allow downward scrolling. Some of our stakeholders find the dashboards very long and wish they could scan through them more efficiently.
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.
report
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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
University
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Insurance Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise17
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 needs improvement with Domo?
Domo is the premium option of all the choices. It has fancy features including a built-in chat program with the Buzz feature that no one uses. When I arrived about a year ago, we had 12 different w...
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.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.