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

IBM Cognos Dashboard vs Tableau 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
Tableau
Ranking in Data Visualization
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
303
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (2nd), Reporting (2nd), Embedded BI (1st)
 

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 Tableau is 25.0%, down from 31.3% 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.
Nattawat Choosuwan - PeerSpot reviewer
Real-time data connection enhances workflow and decision-making process
An area for improvement in Tableau is the Explorer license type. It is not as useful, and the product owner should enhance its benefits or clarify its role. Additionally, the frequent updates with many versions available for download can be confusing and could affect stability. They should avoid providing access to older versions on their website.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The main feature that is useful is the on-demand report generation through the dashboard."
"The product helps us update the KPI automatically."
"It is a pretty stable solution."
"The tool's valuable features are that it is easy to use and stable."
"The feature that is currently most valuable is the import feature where I can link to an Excel data source. I'm not using it with any other data source, such as SQL Server. I directly link it to an Excel sheet, and if I change anything in that Excel sheet, the changed data immediately gets reflected in the virtualization. This is something that is very convenient for me as of now."
"I have found Tableau easy to use and the features are superb."
"The customer service and support for Tableau in Thailand are excellent."
"From the data science point of view, we use it for model building purposes. For example, if we are using it for a bank and we want to understand how much loan the bank can provide, we can use visualization to show the educational qualification, salary, gender, and city of a customer, and by using this information, we can arrive at the loan amount that this person is eligible for. I can also use it to view all prospective customers, so essentially, this is going to help me in model building as well as in understanding and segmenting customers and doing forecasting and predictive analytics. We use model widgets, and we can create thousands of visualizations, such as motion charts and bubble charts. We can also create animated versions of the graphs and view the data from multiple dimensions. These are the features that we typically use and like."
"It's intuitive and highly mature"
"It has been the best tool to work with from a self-service point of view."
"The most valuable feature is that we can integrate with our own database, and it will displays the KPIs. This is highly required from the business side."
"It's a very good, flexible product, and it's easy to learn."
 

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."
"It needs more ETL capabilities, to be able to address the end-to-end BI need."
"It needs a little bit more advanced modeling. I would like to see functionality like Cognos has in the Framework Manager."
"In the next release, I would like to be able to have the option to see more raw data that I'm converting on the dashboard."
"Tableau could be improved by introducing a data manipulation layer within the tool itself. Currently, data manipulations require using additional tools like Alteryx. If Tableau included these capabilities, it would reduce the need for external dependencies. The tool gets slower when we feed huge amounts of data."
"An area needing improvement involves the complexity of the product should you need to alter a lot of parameters. If you have technical servers, much interface, different providers and more serious processes, that will be time consuming."
"Tableau could be more intuitive. It has all the features, but it is difficult to find them."
"Lacks machine learning algorithms that you can implement using R, SPSS Modeler, and Python."
"When there are millions of records, scaling up is quite difficult."
 

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."
"The solution is expensive but it depends on the customer's needs which will determine the cost of the licensing."
"If they want to be competitive in the market, the price must be improved."
"The price is definitely a point because smaller firms don't use Tableau as it's an expensive tool."
"In general, if someone is new and wants to learn Tableau, it's around $70 per month."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"The pricing of Tableau should be better to remain competitive in the market, especially when compared to alternatives."
"Pricing could be better. I believe they should offer better pricing for deployment in small to mid-sized companies."
"For the use and the capability of the software, it's $70 per month, and that is quite inexpensive."
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.
 

Comparison Review

it_user6330 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 2, 2013
MicroStrategy vs. Tableau
After a recent presentation, several attendees asked me about the applications of Visual Insights and Tableau. Many companies are investing in both tools and are trying to figure out the right tool for specific applications Tableau has found its sweet-spot as an agile discovery tool that analysts…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Educational Organization
43%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

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...
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...
Which would you choose - Tableau or SAP Analytics Cloud?
Tableau is easy to set up and maintain. In about a day it is possible for the entire platform to be deployed for use. This relatively short amount of time can make all the difference for companies ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Cognos Dashboard
Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Accenture, Adobe, Amazon.com, Bank of America, Charles Schwab Corp, Citigroup, Coca-Cola Company, Cornell University, Dell, Deloitte, Duke University, eBay, Exxon Mobil, Fannie Mae, Ferrari, French Red Cross, Goldman Sachs, Google, Government of Canada, HP, Intel, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Macy's, Merck, The New York Times, PayPal, Pfizer, US Army, US Air Force, Skype, and Walmart.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Cognos Dashboard vs. Tableau and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.