IBM Cognos vs Looker comparison

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Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The most valuable feature of IBM Cognos is security. The solution has updated features that other competitors' solutions come out with long after IBM Cognos has had them.""For planning, forecasting, in-boxing, modeling in general and for predicting numbers and doing work analysis, they are excellent.""It is a stable product.""A positive feature is Report Studio, where we create beautiful, complex reports.""If they want dashboarding, storytelling, and analyzing why KPIs are met or not, then Cognos is a better candidate than Qlik Sense.""We are able to generate quality reports easily which allows us to decrease response time.""This solution allows you to input a wide range of file formats.""Cognos' most valuable features are the bundled studios, simple UI, and advanced features like the ability to create data modules."

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"The stability of Looker has been good since I have been using it. However, it depends on what components are being used.""It is a pretty stable solution because it is a cloud-based product.""We can centralize all our data models.""The product is easy to use.""From a developer's perspective, the way the functionality's being handled is great.""Looker allows you to generate the most optimal SQL queries in a DC through UI actions. We had signed a contract with Google Cloud to use BigQuery. That was the primary reason we adopted Looker. It works better with BigQuery than any other BI platform. We also like how this tool was developed. It was designed with an eye toward microservices architecture.""I would rate the stability a ten out of ten. I didn't face any issues with stability.""With Looker, I have experienced benefits in terms of usability and shareability."

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Cons
"I think the GIS pieces maybe not as good as we would like.""It would be better if it is was easier to implement without extensive training for it.""The AI-based features could be further enhanced by the solution.""Most of our company's customers want to be able to deploy IBM Cognos on a web application and use it as a desktop application, which is not possible currently.""It would be nice to offer free online training on the tool for end-users.""Extending dynamic cubes aggregate awareness with calculated measures.""The technical support team’s response time is slow and needs to be improved.""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."

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"The product does not have documented material.""The integration with different databases must be improved.""Stability needs improvement.""Looker doesn't connect to Excel, which is a huge disappointment because a lot of data is presented in Excel. Also, it can't consume data directly from REST APIs, which is necessary. Looker needs to expand its horizons when it comes to data sources. The inability to connect to different data sources is hampering our use cases. Currently, it only has an ODBC connection that connects to a database. It needs to connect to other data sources, such as Excel, APIs, and different platforms.""The visualization capability of the product is limited.""The main area of concern in Looker is probably related to blending the data from the different sources, including the data present internally in the company and on the cloud.""Integrations with other BI tools could be better.""It needs to be more user-friendly."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "There is need to assess the purchase license accordingly so as to avoid audit penalties."
  • "The pricing and licensing policies are comparatively cheaper than other products in the market ."
  • "IBM Cognos offers competitive pricing similar to other BI vendors in the market."
  • "Pricing should be improved."
  • "The pricing of this product is meant for medium to large-scale enterprises."
  • "It is my understanding that the cost is very low. It's not very expensive."
  • "Cognos is super expensive compared to Tableau ($70/month) and Power BI ($20/month) — I think Cognos is roughly $200 a month."
  • "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."
  • More IBM Cognos Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Looker is expensive and could be made better by reducing it."
  • "It's not cheap, but it's not expensive for big companies."
  • "The price of Looker usually depends on the solution's provider, but it is usually cheaper than the other products in the market. Looker is offered at different prices for different companies."
  • "It is cheap."
  • "I do not have to make any payments to use the solution."
  • More Looker Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Comparison Review
    Anonymous User
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer:We use IBM Cognos for enterprise analytics and reporting.
    Top Answer:The technical support team’s response time is slow and needs to be improved.
    Top Answer:With Looker, I have experienced benefits in terms of usability and shareability.
    Top Answer:I do not have to make any payments to use the solution. In the beginning, Looker may work fine for its users. If advanced users who have experience with BI tools use Looker, then they may find it to… more »
    Top Answer:The visualization capability of the product is limited. From an improvement perspective, the product should have more visualization capability. I can't clean data in Looker, and if I try to do it… more »
    Ranking
    3rd
    out of 3 in Legacy BI Tools
    Views
    2,086
    Comparisons
    1,221
    Reviews
    11
    Average Words per Review
    433
    Rating
    8.2
    4th
    out of 31 in Embedded BI
    Views
    2,246
    Comparisons
    1,776
    Reviews
    11
    Average Words per Review
    608
    Rating
    7.9
    Comparisons
    Amazon QuickSight logo
    Compared 23% of the time.
    Tableau logo
    Compared 17% of the time.
    Google Data Studio logo
    Compared 11% of the time.
    Qlik Sense logo
    Compared 7% of the time.
    Domo logo
    Compared 3% of the time.
    Also Known As
    Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
    Learn More
    Overview

    IBM Cognos Business Intelligence provides a wide range of tools to help you analyze your organization's data. IBM Cognos BI allows businesses to monitor events and metrics, create and view business reports, and analyze data to help them make effective business decisions.

    IBM Cognos applies techniques to describe, summarize, and compare data, and draw conclusions. This allows users to see trends and discover anomalies or variances that may not be evident by simply reading data. Data sources that contain information from different areas of a business can be stored in separate packages. Users can see only information that they have been granted access to, based on their group or role.

    IBM Cognos BI consolidates the following business intelligence functions into a single web-based solution:

    • IBM Cognos Insight: Create personal and managed workspaces for data analysis. Using these interactive workspaces, you can share insight results with managers. Cognos Insight supports write-back, and you can also use these workspaces to capture and integrate management goals, commitments, and forecasts.

    • IBM Cognos Workspace: With IBM Cognos Workspace, you can create rich, interactive workspaces using IBM Cognos content as well as data from external sources. You can view and open your favorite workspaces and reports, edit content in your workspaces, and share your workspaces via email.

    • IBM Cognos Analytics: IBM Cognos Analytics utilizes built-in AI and intuitive searches which helps users to quickly create the visualizations and a wide range of reports. Cognos Analytics provides cognitive and managed self-service, enabling you to gain insights from controlled and trusted data.

    • IBM Cognos Report Studio and IBM Cognos Query Studio: Easily create structured and query reports. IBM Cognos allows users to create application and report templates. In addition, report authors can reuse report objects to apply filters, fields, and styles to reports. Users can set the language of the user interface and report content according to the user's native language.

    • IBM Cognos Event Studio: Receive notifications of events that occur within your organization in real time. Event Studio enables the creation of agents that detect the occurrence of business events, failures, or anomalies, based on the change of specific events or data conditions. Notification can be sent via email, publication in the portal, or by triggering reports.

    • IBM Cognos Connection: This is the Web portal for IBM Cognos BI and is the central area for accessing all the IBM Cognos functions. In the web portal, users can schedule and distribute reports, create tasks, administer the server and the access permissions, and more.

    Reviews from Real Users

    IBM Cognos stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its powerful analysis tool and its reporting capabilities.

    Prasad B., a senior software engineer at a financial services firm, notes, “The product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report. We can receive automated reports as well. They are easy to schedule on a weekly or monthly basis. It is very fast. I mean in means of report output, it's very fast compared to the actual clients involved.”

    Looker is a powerful data analytics platform that empowers businesses to explore and analyze their data in real time. 

    With its intuitive interface and robust features, Looker enables users to easily create and share interactive dashboards, reports, and visualizations. 

    The product's advanced data modeling capabilities and seamless integration with popular data sources make it a top choice for organizations looking to gain valuable insights from their data.

    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.
    Yahoo!, Etsy, Kohler, Hipcamp, Hubspot, Kickstarter, Venmo, Dollar Shave Club, 600+ customer
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm15%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Insurance Company9%
    Healthcare Company9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization57%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Computer Software Company5%
    Government5%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company25%
    Financial Services Firm17%
    Retailer8%
    Recruiting/Hr Firm8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization33%
    Computer Software Company10%
    Financial Services Firm10%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business24%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise61%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business8%
    Midsize Enterprise61%
    Large Enterprise31%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business26%
    Midsize Enterprise42%
    Large Enterprise32%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business14%
    Midsize Enterprise40%
    Large Enterprise46%

    IBM Cognos is ranked 3rd in Legacy BI Tools with 129 reviews while Looker is ranked 4th in Embedded BI with 19 reviews. IBM Cognos is rated 8.0, while Looker is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of IBM Cognos writes "Improved the quality of our KPIs, while reducing calls to the IT department". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Looker writes "The APIs are exposed at every level, so it's highly modular". IBM Cognos is most compared with Microsoft Power BI, Tableau, Oracle OBIEE, SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform and SAS Visual Analytics, whereas Looker is most compared with Amazon QuickSight, Tableau, Google Data Studio, Qlik Sense and Domo.

    We monitor all Legacy BI Tools reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.