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IBM Cognos vs IBM Controller comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (8th), Reporting (6th)
IBM Controller
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Business Performance Management (16th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM Cognos is designed for BI (Business Intelligence) Tools and holds a mindshare of 3.1%, down 4.3% compared to last year.
IBM Controller, on the other hand, focuses on Business Performance Management, holds 0.3% mindshare, down 0.4% since last year.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
Business Performance Management
 

Featured Reviews

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.
TL
User support and consolidation capabilities have strengthened financial reporting
We primarily use IBM Controller for the consolidation of all our company results and yearly reporting IBM Controller appeals significantly to our user group led by the Chief Financial Officer and the team under them. The strong user support and capability in consolidation are standout features.…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"A drag-and-drop interface for selecting creating ad hoc reports makes this product very easy to use."
"IBM Cognos improves the effectiveness of the sales team."
"The solution's initial setup process is easy."
"The Report Studio that is aimed at professional report writers."
"This solution allows you to input a wide range of file formats."
"The most valuable features are Report Development (Functionality) and Information Distribution (Flexibility)."
"The main difference that I like about Cognos compared to other solutions is its data splitting functionality. We have all our company data inside the Cognos environment and so we prefer to split the information Cognos itself. It's more efficient this way."
"For planning, forecasting, in-boxing, modeling in general and for predicting numbers and doing work analysis, they are excellent."
"The strong user support and capability in consolidation are standout features."
"IBM Controller appeals significantly to our user group led by the Chief Financial Officer and the team under them."
 

Cons

"Tableau and Power BI are faster than Cognos."
"IBM Cognos's error messages seem to be a bit ambiguous. An error will be encountered and a message will be sent out very ambiguous and after investigating the error message it could be any number of issues. There was never a direct answer to the question or a direct answer to the error messages. Sometimes it would be a generic error message for 21 different solutions. It wasn't very specific, which required a lot of digging around and trial and error trying to fix the problem. The messaging in their error messaging is something needing improvement."
"The performance is a bottleneck and something that can be improved."
"There are some problems with how Cognos handles huge data sets and when connecting with multiple sources and searching the data."
"The solution's support could be better."
"I need improvements, particularly with the Framework Manager, which has an outdated user interface from older versions like IBM Cognos 10 or 8. Additionally, the Event Studio, which offered great flexibility in previous versions, is no longer available in IBM Cognos Analytics 12. These are areas that could be improved to enhance the product."
"The visualization aspect needs to be improved and I believe, this is being resolved in upcoming versions."
"The AI-based features could be further enhanced by the solution."
"I am uncertain about the delivery model of IBM Controller and the direction it is headed."
"I am uncertain about the delivery model of IBM Controller and the direction it is headed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's more expensive than similar solutions like Tableau and Power BI."
"The pricing of this product is meant for medium to large-scale enterprises."
"On a scale from one to ten where one is low pricing and ten is high pricing, I would rate this solution at eight."
"The pricing and licensing policies are comparatively cheaper than other products in the market ."
"IBM Cognos is priced reasonable. However, it is more expensive than Power BI and Tableau."
"I don't know the exact cost, but I believe Cognos is quite expensive, especially when it comes to the support consultants and the procedures that need to be applied."
"My company uses IBM Cognos with another IBM product, so I think only one license is used."
"There is a standard license required to use this solution. There are some additional tools but I am not sure if they are an extra cost."
Information not available
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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
Financial Services Firm
15%
Insurance Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Controller?
I haven't provided a definitive opinion on pricing. However, knowing our CFO's cost-conscious nature, the pricing is likely very competitive and has never been an issue.
What needs improvement with IBM Controller?
I am uncertain about the delivery model of IBM Controller and the direction it is headed. While the delivery model includes both cloud and on-premises options, it causes confusion. A more straightf...
What is your primary use case for IBM Controller?
We primarily use IBM Controller for the consolidation of all our company results and yearly reporting.
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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.
California Franchise Tax Board, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., Kelsey-Seybold Clinic, Mirle Automation Corp., Radware
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Salesforce, SAP and others in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools. Updated: July 2025.
864,155 professionals have used our research since 2012.