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IBM Cognos vs ManageEngine Exchange Reporter Plus comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 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
Ranking in Reporting
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (8th)
ManageEngine Exchange Repor...
Ranking in Reporting
15th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.2
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 4.5%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ManageEngine Exchange Reporter Plus is 0.2%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Reporting
 

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.
reviewer2017023 - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficiently keeps track of how many mailboxes are created, how many are deleted, and things like that
We can keep track of how many mailboxes are created, how many are deleted, and things like that. It's a necessity for auditing to use a tool to monitor email tracking. So, it helps a lot with compliance. We can use the dashboard to see which Exchange servers are currently having issues, their health, and other details. The GUI is very good.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The Report Studio that is aimed at professional report writers."
"The initial setup is very straightforward."
"This solution allows you to input a wide range of file formats."
"Mapbox integration for geospatial analytics down to longitude/latitude layers."
"In terms of stability, I think that Cognos is more stable than Tableau and Power Bi because of its framework manager concept that allows us to import metadata and store it in the framework manager."
"IBM Cognos is an excellent solution for tax, planning, budgeting, profit and loss statements and balance sheets."
"Previously, we were doing static reporting. Management would request a report, and it would take staff a week or more to provide it. With Cognos, we have dynamic reporting, and it has reduced both reporting and decision making times significantly. With the solution's dashboard, the company's management team has updated records at their fingertips. This means that they can directly access the data they need to make decisions."
"It is a stable product."
"We can use the dashboard to see which Exchange servers are currently having issues, their health, and other details. The GUI is very good."
"The email traffic analysis feature is very useful."
 

Cons

"Cognos is quite slow - it's missing the performance of the PowerPlay cubes."
"There are some small features that are missing. It would be nice if the graphics were better. You can use external sources for charts, but it's quite complex to use and not easy to implement. If you want a new chart, you can download it from multiple tools and implement it into IBM Cognos."
"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."
"They were lacking in the initial phases of development in the area of big data, and they still need to improve that aspect of the product."
"The tool needs to improve the connectivity since I see that, at times, there is a need to increase the memory in the database."
"They should provide improved visual reporting."
"The data uploads that we do, such as Excel files, have a lot of restrictions. If we can make it a bit more user-friendly, allowing us to have more flexibility it would be a great help."
"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."
"There is room for improvement in the reporting, maybe having more customizable reports would be good."
"I am primarily interested in reporting and automation improvements."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"There is need to assess the purchase license accordingly so as to avoid audit penalties."
"It is pretty expensive."
"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."
"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."
"IBM Cognos price is on the higher side of the spectrum. However, with the features that it brings, such as correlation analysis, it's worth the money. They should look at the pricing more clearly because it's a little on the higher side."
"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."
"The pricing of Exchange Reporter Plus is very reasonable."
"I would rate the pricing a four out of ten, where one is low price and ten is high price. It is affordable."
report
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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 do you like most about ManageEngine Exchange Reporter Plus?
We can use the dashboard to see which Exchange servers are currently having issues, their health, and other details. The GUI is very good.
What needs improvement with ManageEngine Exchange Reporter Plus?
There is room for improvement in the reporting, maybe having more customizable reports would be good. ManageEngine ERP could do custom reporting.
 

Comparisons

 

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.
Sunbelt Rentals, Inc, Life Management Center, IBTS 
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Cognos vs. ManageEngine Exchange Reporter Plus and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,484 professionals have used our research since 2012.