Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

IBM Cognos Dashboard vs Qlik Sense 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Cognos Dashboard
Ranking in Data Visualization
16th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Qlik Sense
Ranking in Data Visualization
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Embedded BI (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Data Visualization category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos Dashboard is 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qlik Sense is 7.4%, down from 9.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Visualization
 

Featured Reviews

Leslie Mavonyani - PeerSpot reviewer
An easy-to-use and stable tool useful for its functionalities like analytics and AI
It is a scalable solution, and to provide its scalability a rating, I would say that it would depend on how much data we push at it. There are five users of IBM Cognos Dashboard in my company. Though it is extensively used in my company, we do not plan to increase its usage.
Vishal_Goyal - PeerSpot reviewer
In-memory data storage boosts performance
The advantages compared to other BI tools show architectural differences. The main feature is that it keeps all the data in memory. It doesn't retrieve the data from data sources when I need it on the dashboard; instead, it quickly provides the desired data, making it very fast compared to other BI tools. The ROI is very high using Qlik Sense. It offers many benefits of BI. It is flexible from a developer's point of view, allowing me to accomplish many tasks compared to other BI tools. From an end-user perspective, it's convenient and performance-oriented, providing something meaningful from all the organization's data.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product helps us update the KPI automatically."
"The tool's valuable features are that it is easy to use and stable."
"It is a pretty stable solution."
"The main feature that is useful is the on-demand report generation through the dashboard."
"The Qlik Sense cloud insights advisor helps our business users to get the answers to their data questions so that they do not have to rely on IT/BI resources every time they have some data request."
"The most valuable features of Qlik Sense are the integration and panel for reports. The integration is very fast even though we process a lot of information."
"It has allowed us to manage our staff more effectively and frees up time for our analysts to analyze new problems and opportunities."
"The time it takes to deliver a dashboard is real quick."
"Qlik Sense provides features to manage and govern data, ensuring data security, accuracy, and regulation compliance."
"The flexibility of Qlik Sense and the addition of 3rd party extensions allow us to extend the use of Qlik Sense beyond analytics and bring the platform to the core of our digital workplace, augmenting analytics with workflow, and team collaboration."
"The tool's data analysis is useful to help out the teams across the globe and to track their work."
"Showing a miniature version of the chart if the case chart is bigger than the screen resolution allows us to have full context at all times."
 

Cons

"Visualization is an area where the product lacks."
"They should include proper documentation to learn more about the product."
"The price point is one of the major areas to be improved."
"The scalability of the product's on-premises version is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"Performing data transformations required a lot of programming, which is something that should be made easier."
"The only thing I would like to see is the ability to create a master app that opens when a user creates a new app that has all the master items, colors, logos, etc., that my organization uses. This would help with keeping master items the same across the apps and would make development a little quicker."
"Possibly offering some more basic, simpler templates."
"Mostly when it comes to the loading of the data and reload times of the reports, it could be better."
"One area of improvement is that it doesn't offer an API for accessing processed data stored in the QED files."
"Better searching capabilities would be a nice addition."
"Error handling is an area that needs to be improved."
"We need more types of visualizations."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive for small businesses compared to other vendors."
"Licensing is based on individual usage, and it is more expensive than other providers."
"Licensing is quite good, easy, but slightly expensive."
"The product is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"For on-premise enterprise users, a number of additional features come at a premium cost."
"Qlik Sense is pretty good in terms of price."
"It is a little expensive for the Italian market. Normally, Qlik Sense has two types and costs. The medium cost is around 700 euros per year."
"Licensing can start to get expensive, but compared to other tools in this space it is about average."
"Start small with tokens. You can always buy more."
"You will spend more time on educating your staff than licensing the product."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Visualization solutions are best for your needs.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Educational Organization
60%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Cognos Dashboard?
The product is expensive for small businesses compared to other vendors. Its pricing is fixed and depends on the number of licenses.
What needs improvement with IBM Cognos Dashboard?
The tool is good enough to serve the purpose of what it is meant in our company. The scalability of the product's on-premises version is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are req...
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...
Seeking lightweight open source BI software
There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I would recommend as follows: 1) If you have legacies of SAP, Oracle - look for SAP...
What do you like most about Qlik Sense?
The most valuable features of Qlik Sense are its speed and seamless development of web technologies.
 

Also Known As

Cognos Dashboard
QlikSense
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Abbvie, Airbus, Barclays, BT Openreach, BMW, Daimler AG, HSBC, IKEA, Nationwide Building Society, Royal Mail Group, Sanofi, Siemens, Wendy'', Vodafone, Volvo
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Cognos Dashboard vs. Qlik Sense and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.