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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
17th
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 July 2025, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 4.4%, down from 5.7% 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

"IBM Cognos offers tools so that you can design and develop your own test queries and reporting solutions."
"A drag-and-drop interface for selecting creating ad hoc reports makes this product very easy to use."
"One of the strong suits of Cognos is its robust corporate reporting capability."
"The Report Studio that is aimed at professional report writers."
"IBM Cognos is a robust governed platform with significant security features and provides excellent graphics and reporting."
"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."
"The most valuable features are Report Development (Functionality) and Information Distribution (Flexibility)."
"Self-service is possible through the use of dashboards, which are also very intuitive. Stories can be used to pin snapshots, tell the story for meetings, etc."
"The email traffic analysis feature is very useful."
"We can use the dashboard to see which Exchange servers are currently having issues, their health, and other details. The GUI is very good."
 

Cons

"The solution seems to slow down the servers."
"I rate pricing as a four, meaning it is more expensive compared to other solutions."
"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."
"The solution's support could be better."
"There are many problems with the product's stability part, making it an area where improvements are required."
"We need more predictive analytical functions, not only diagnostic or decryptic analytics."
"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."
"I don't like that when we use Colab packages, we get less functionality. For example, you can make groups of data with Excel or with the data sets from the packages, but when you use the Colab packages directly, you can only group the data when you analyze it with Analysis Studio. I think Cognos needs to improve more on this functionality."
"I am primarily interested in reporting and automation improvements."
"There is room for improvement in the reporting, maybe having more customizable reports would be good."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is affordable."
"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."
"The cost of IBM Cognos it's more or less the same as most of the other solutions on the market. They're very competitive with the rest of the market and it is not the most expensive product."
"My company uses IBM Cognos with another IBM product, so I think only one license is used."
"Cognos is super expensive compared to Tableau ($70/month) and Power BI ($20/month) — I think Cognos is roughly $200 a month."
"It is averagely priced."
"IBM Cognos is priced reasonable. However, it is more expensive than Power BI and Tableau."
"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."
"I would rate the pricing a four out of ten, where one is low price and ten is high price. It is affordable."
"The pricing of Exchange Reporter Plus is very reasonable."
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
Educational Organization
24%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Insurance Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
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

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.
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: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.