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IBM Cognos Dashboard vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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
28th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP BusinessObjects Busines...
Ranking in Data Visualization
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Data Visualization category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos Dashboard is 0.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence is 3.6%, up from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Visualization Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence3.6%
IBM Cognos Dashboard0.9%
Other95.5%
Data Visualization
 

Featured Reviews

Unes Ay - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Scientist at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Provides efficient data modules, but it could be more user-friendly
We use IBM Cognos Dashboard for data manufacturing, reporting, costing, quality check, etc The product helps us update the KPI automatically. We can access reports and analyze if a particular solution fits the requirements. The product's most valuable is the concept of data modules. IBM Cognos…
TarunKumar7 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Data Engineer at LTI LATAM and Toubro Improtech
Data insights have driven faster financial forecasts and improved role-based decision making
The best features SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform offers include cross-enterprise sharing, where sharing insights is easier and seamless across my organization, and creating role-based dashboards. The role-based dashboards help my team and organization by providing information to specific users, allowing them to make decisions more easily, anytime, anywhere, across any device. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to perform financial reporting to make decisions faster. Since we started using SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform, we have been able to make faster, data-driven business decisions based on actual data insights and data analysis, which has accelerated our ability to make better decisions for our business productivity.

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."
"It is a pretty stable solution."
"The main feature that is useful is the on-demand report generation through the dashboard."
"The tool's valuable features are that it is easy to use and stable."
"Enables us to present data with Smart Objects that can be embedded within presentations and which automatically update when the presentations are run."
"The most valuable function of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is the universe, so customers can build their own reports without programming skills."
"It integrates well with BW and HANA, which demonstrates strong data integration capabilities."
"What I find most valuable is that you can run the reports anytime and you can receive the report at a scheduled time."
"It can process big volumes of data fast."
"SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is definitely scalable."
"The return on investment from this solution is high, with the highest ROI observed."
"It's a reliable, stable, secure, and mature tool for business intelligence and other functions, like standard reports."
 

Cons

"The price point is one of the major areas to be improved."
"They should include proper documentation to learn more about the product."
"Visualization is an area where the product lacks."
"The scalability of the product's on-premises version is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"While I recommend the SAP Analytics Cloud version, I do not recommend the on-premises version."
"SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform can be improved by developing another module of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform to integrate with the existing system."
"There are areas of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform that need improvement, particularly in licensing, which can make it complex and expensive for users."
"The technical support has been a challenge when it comes to finding the correct support analyst who is familiar with how the various product components integrate."
"I don't like the fact that I have to use two tools. Web Intelligence is good for reporting and all kinds of stuff, but I would rather have one product. All the reporting features of Web Intelligence should be developed within Lumira. A lot of predictive abilities have been brought into the cloud version of SAP Analytics. It would be nice to see a lot of newer technologies and AI. Predictive capabilities are becoming a little more standard. Instead of having to get another model, we are just looking for one solution to deal with analytics including predictive."
"SAP only focuses on the sales side—only money is important for SAP, not the quality."
"BusinessObjects is not that user-friendly."
"The financial area in the solution has certain shortcomings that need improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing is based on individual usage, and it is more expensive than other providers."
"The product is expensive for small businesses compared to other vendors."
"It has an option of a Cloud Platform (SAP Analytics Cloud) which has a lower price than the on-premise platform, and you can buy individual licences per user.​"
"SAP is losing market to its competitors because of its costly user license and licensing model. They can do much better on the licensing side. That's what Microsoft has been doing, and that's why Power BI is gaining market share at the moment. SAP needs to relax a little bit on the licensing part. If Microsoft is giving people a solution that is half of the cost of SAP, people will definitely go with Power BI."
"The price and the pricing model are fine. We find the solution does not give us a lot of additional value."
"It is not a subscription model, but you must purchase a perpetual license for this."
"​It is not an expensive platform. The licensing is for a package of users starting at 10 users."
"I have always found SAP BI to be expensive. It is expensive even when you compare SAP BI Cloud with Microsoft Power BI. Power BI is probably around $9.99 per month, and the cheapest SAP BI is around $20, which is double. In terms of price, Power BI is definitely a lot better. If you have budget issues, you may want to go for Power BI."
"The product's pricing falls on the spectrum's cheaper side, excluding its licensing cost. The product's pricing is good compared to other tools in the market. My company makes payments towards the licensing costs of the product on a yearly basis."
"Just work with SAP to make sure you have enough licenses but don't go overboard."
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Comparison Review

it_user6663 - PeerSpot reviewer
BI Expert at a transportation company with 51-200 employees
May 25, 2013
SAP Business Objects vs. Microsoft BI
A quick look at the whole idea on another weblogs gives you a sense that all of them just talked about very brief things like report refresh feature in BO or cube feature in MS Analysis Service. I choose MS BI and I want to share my reasons and opinions on why I choose it and give you another quick…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Transportation Company
8%
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise67
 

Questions from the Community

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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...
Tableau vs. Business Objects - Which is a better solution for visualization and analysis?
Both tools have their positives and negatives. First, I should mention that I am relatively new to Tableau. I have been working on and off Tableau for about a year, but getting to work on it consta...
 

Also Known As

Cognos Dashboard
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform, SAP BusinessObjects, Business Objects, SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards, SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
SRAM, Kennametal, Fairfax Water, British American Tobacco, Velux, and FedEx.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Cognos Dashboard vs. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.