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

IBM Cognos vs Infor dEPM vs Microsoft Power BI 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
Business Performance Management
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

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.
Dietmar Müller - PeerSpot reviewer
Customizable features streamline installation and integration challenges remain
Our company is a partner of Infor in Germany. We mainly use Infor DEPM for finance solutions Infor DEPM has features that are well-prepared by Infor. I do not need to have my own tools; I only need to customize many elements. This makes it easier to install and work with. With the prepared…
Shoury Priyanshu - PeerSpot reviewer
Facilitates seamless data aggregation with some outdated visual elements hindering user appeal
Real-time data integration is an area for improvement. Although I've worked on several solutions involving real-time integration, it's not very user-friendly and often lags, especially with over a million data rows. This makes Power BI difficult to manage as loading times can reach one or two minutes, which is problematic today. There are challenges with scalability, requiring multiple pages in dashboards to manage these issues. Visualization could be improved as it appears outdated. Users, especially newcomers, find it unappealing and not user-friendly.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The initial setup is quite straightforward."
"The dashboarding offered by this solution is very valuable to us."
"IBM Cognos improves the effectiveness of the sales team."
"The tool can join data from different sources, write back to databases, generate alerts, and be customized to our preferences. It's an enterprise BI tool that's more powerful than just visualization tools like Power BI or Tableau."
"The most valuable features are Report Development (Functionality) and Information Distribution (Flexibility)."
"If they want dashboarding, storytelling, and analyzing why KPIs are met or not, then Cognos is a better candidate than Qlik Sense."
"It has a very powerful edit feature which allows users to back out of changes (undo) without forcing them to recreate entire reports."
"I do not need to have my own tools; I only need to customize many elements."
"You can get the data directly from the database with Excel formulas."
"Infor dEPM's got the best end-user reporting solution that keeps us motivated and moving forward with this solution only."
"The planning capability is the most valuable feature."
"Our customers have the solution deployed on the cloud or on-premises. The deployment took about a month."
"All our customers have experienced a return on investment, as they have been included on the list of calls."
"Our setup is very straight forward and can be done in a matter of hours."
"They find Power BI's data pull mechanism to be sufficient and cost-effective, especially considering the stability it provides. In comparison with other solutions, Power BI stands out as a fantastic choice. Therefore, I would definitely recommend sticking with the Pro license."
"The data can be accessed from anywhere."
"You can learn a lot of things quickly using resources like ChatGPT or Microsoft's own solutions, which are very helpful within the Microsoft ecosystem."
"The solution overall is very useful. The reports that are generated and the reporting functionality management are beneficial."
"We have plans to use the AI mechanisms and algorithms that Power BI uses to publish more easy-to-understand reports for our customers."
"The main feature I find valuable is the possibility to work with an extensive amount of data."
"It is stable enough. It has a lot of powerful functions. It can also be customized with the DAX language. It is also intuitive enough and incremental. You can start with something simple, and then step-by-step, you can increase the reports and dashboards according to your needs."
 

Cons

"We would like to see development of the product's UI function, to make it more of a UI tool that can be configured as required."
"I would like for the platform to become more standard. If we make a development on our report and our dashboard, it will not be used in another solution. That means there is no portability for the developers."
"The AI-based features could be further enhanced by the solution."
"I would like to see is more easy building, movement in the reports, and dashboard functionality within reporting. Overall more simple elements within reports. If the elements are simple then you don't have to render a full page, but you can move separate parts in the page."
"One thing that we really want is the ability to have data portrayed on an image. Cognos is not able to do it at the moment, and that's becoming a requirement from the business side: having an image and then plotting your dataset on top of the image as a map."
"They should provide improved visual reporting."
"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."
"I would like them to reinclude PowerPlay. One thing that I am missing in the current Cognos is what was formally named PowerPlay. They have basically removed PowerPlay from it, which is something that I fail to understand because it was the most wonderful tool for business intelligence that I've ever used. As far as I know, they don't provide this functionality anymore, so this is one thing that I dislike about Cognos."
"The initial setup from a user perspective can be cumbersome and has room for improvement."
"The latest version has been cloud-enabled, but it requires a deeper understanding of programming skills compared to the previous versions, which were more user-friendly."
"There are questions about how Infor DEPM can be used with other solutions and the difficulties in connecting it with other software solutions."
"The usability could be better."
"It's a very expensive solution."
"There are questions about how Infor DEPM can be used with other solutions and the difficulties in connecting it with other software solutions. Integration is a concern."
"I'm missing collaborations functionality to operate or to work connected with multiple people on a data source or on virtualization. There should be more collaborations functions, such as in Confluence. We haven't explored the solution sufficiently in this area, but at this time it doesn't look sufficient."
"Powerpoints are not available in the report server."
"It should have more report outputs. They should expand the report outputs. Its documentation should also be better."
"SSMS & SSRS."
"The solution could be quicker at rendering data."
"The initial setup is a little bit technical."
"In my opinion, the software is a little bit limited in terms of the flexibility it offers, with regard to the design of the visualization."
"​It needs more graphics and overlays."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's more expensive than similar solutions like Tableau and Power BI."
"There is some additional licensing that we needed to purchase because we were touching data outside of our core data platform. The cost was approximately $25,000 for the additional licenses, which were approximate 45 licenses. For the application itself, updates, and the core platform it was approximately $50,000. Giving a total cost of $75,000 annually for our usage of IBM Cognos."
"Pricing should be improved."
"IBM Cognos is priced reasonable. However, it is more expensive than Power BI and Tableau."
"It is quite pricy. I think Microsoft BI is cheaper. Tableau might also be cheaper, but it also depends on the usage. If you have very many users, Cognos can be a problem. It could be cheaper than Tableau but not for so many users. If you have a few thousand users, Tableau, which is generally quite expensive, can be cheaper than Cognos."
"Cognos is super expensive compared to Tableau ($70/month) and Power BI ($20/month) — I think Cognos is roughly $200 a month."
"I rate the product price as four or five on a scale from one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"It is averagely priced."
"It's a very expensive product, and I would rate it at nine out of ten, with ten being the most expensive. There are yearly licensing costs."
"The pricing is competitive."
"While the licensing cost of Infor dEPM may be costly, it is still more affordable than SAP BusinessObjects EPM, for example."
"Globally, we evaluated a number of products, including Salesforce's product, Microsoft won on the ground of simple functionally and cost."
"Paid for itself in the first month."
"Licensing is on a monthly basis, but I am not sure."
"The cost of this product is very low, at approximately $8 or $9 per month for a developer."
"I'm unsure about the exact cost, but the Pro license comes out to around $10 per user. There are also additional costs for custom visuals that you can pay for."
"Pricing, that's where Microsoft beats Tableau. It is priced much cheaper."
"Its pricing is great."
"It would be better if the price was cheaper."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which BI (Business Intelligence) Tools solutions are best for your needs.
865,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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%
Real Estate/Law Firm
15%
Non Profit
11%
Healthcare Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 ...
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 needs improvement with Infor dEPM?
From my perspective, I think Infor dEPM is a good solution for clients who want to deep dive into data analysis in fi...
What is your primary use case for Infor dEPM?
With Infor dEPM, I usually recommend it for finance, insurance companies, oil and gas companies, and hospitality indu...
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 wou...
Is Power BI a complete platform or only a visualization tool?
Power BI is an advanced visualization tool oriented to big data with a very complete set of widgets to visualize info...
How does Oracle OBIEE compare with Microsoft BI?
Oracle OBIEE is great in allowing design and creativity per the individual needs of the organization. Dashboards are ...
 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
Infor Dynamic Enterprise Performance Management, Infor PM
SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI
 

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.
DAB Group
Accenture Adidas Aetna AIG Airbus Alibaba Allstate Amazon American Express Aon AT&T Audi Bank of America BASF Bayer Berkshire Hathaway Boeing Coca-Cola Comcast Cisco Coca-Cola Dell Disney Emirates Equinix FedEx Ford GE Google H&M Home Depot Honda IBM Intel JPMorgan Chase Kellogg's Kroger L'Oréal McDonald's Merck MetLife Microsoft Nike Oracle P&G PepsiCo Procter & Gamble Prudential Financial SAP Siemens Snapchat Spotify Starbucks Target Toyota T-Mobile Unilever Visa Walmart WeWork World Bank Xerox
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Salesforce, SAP and others in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools. Updated: August 2025.
865,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.