IBM Cognos vs Meraki Location Analytics comparison

IBM and Cisco are both solutions in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category. IBM is ranked #7 with an average rating of 7.9, while Cisco is ranked #22 with an average rating of 9.0. IBM holds a 3.3% mindshare in BIT, compared to Cisco’s 0.3% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Cisco users who would recommend it.

IBM Cognos

Read 134 IBM Cognos reviews

4,955 Views
2,740 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Meraki Location Analytics

Read 6 Meraki Location Analytics reviews

194 Views
149 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM Cognos

Meraki Location Analytics

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

IBM Cognos and Meraki Location Analytics compete in data analysis and location-based services. Meraki Location Analytics has the upper hand in location-based insights, while IBM Cognos is superior in reporting and analytics capabilities.

Features: IBM Cognos offers advanced data analytics, robust reporting capabilities, and strong data integration options. Meraki Location Analytics provides impactful location-based insights, real-time data visualization tools, and effective space optimization solutions.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Cognos requires complex deployment, often needing dedicated IT resources, which can be a challenge for smaller organizations. In contrast, Meraki Location Analytics features an easy-to-deploy cloud-based model, allowing quick implementation. Its customer service is known for being fast and reliable due to comprehensive cloud integration.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Cognos involves higher initial setup costs, leading to a longer ROI period, though its features may justify the cost for larger enterprises. Meraki Location Analytics offers a cost-effective setup, with a shorter ROI timeline, beneficial for businesses focusing on location-based strategies.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Cognos vs. Meraki Location Analytics Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cognos vs. Meraki Location Analytics

June 2025

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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 BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

7th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

134

Ranking in other categories

Reporting (3rd)

Meraki Location Analytics

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

22nd

Average Rating

9.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 3.3%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Meraki Location Analytics is 0.3%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Featured Reviews

AMOL JAJU

Senior BI-ETL Consultant at CMA Consulting Services

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.

Read full review

Mike Scofield

Director of Technology at a educational organization with 51-200 employees

Location analytics helps in finding rogue hotspots and locating missing devices

I use Location Analytics occasionally to identify a rogue hotspot or to find the last location of a missing device. In some cases, if there is an interference issue, I might be able to determine the location. However, such instances are unusual I use Location Analytics to identify rogue hotspots…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use the account statement report. When you use an account in HSBC, you receive various types of accounts, such as the stock market, fixed accounts, credit cards, and business accounts. We can create one consolidated report called CCS support, which includes all these accounts. In that statement, we are consolidating all those accounts."

"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."

"This solution allows you to input a wide range of file formats."

"It is a stable product."

"One of the strong suits of Cognos is its robust corporate reporting capability."

"IBM Cognos improves the effectiveness of the sales team."

"IBM Cognos is an excellent solution for tax, planning, budgeting, profit and loss statements and balance sheets."

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

More IBM Cognos pros

"The initial setup process is easy."

"In general, it is helpful because it allows administrators to see where the Wi-Fi and network services are being most used."

"I like Location Analytics' geofencing features for devices. You can manage thousands of devices with just a push of a button and deploy applications in seconds. For example, in schools, you can deploy an app update for thousands of iPads in just two clicks."

"The pricing and licensing for Meraki are good, and I would rate it as a nine out of ten."

"I use Location Analytics to identify rogue hotspots and find the last location of missing devices."

"The stability of the solution is excellent, and I would rate it a ten out of ten."

"Technical support has always been very good."

Cons

"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."

"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."

"It could have more options for themes."

"In terms of what could be improved, I would say, monitoring, monitoring, monitoring. Some improvements in monitoring would be helpful. I'd like to see more monitoring of specific reports and fields. The way the auditing is now is very limited, so I'd like to see more of that - of the monitoring."

"It would be good if the solution had conditional formatting."

"There is room for improvement in self-service analytics and predictiveness."

"I think the GIS pieces maybe not as good as we would like."

"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."

More IBM Cognos cons

"The biggest issue is negotiating the price with a client. That's the most complicated part, but the product is worth it."

"The pricing is a pain point for us. It's a bit expensive."

"The technical support before implementation could be better for premium partners."

"I would like to see all of the features included in a single package."

"There are no specific areas for improvement as everything is working very well."

"My biggest complaint with Meraki Location Analytics is the lack of visibility into the back end. Everything we do is through a customer GUI, and there's limited access to CLI functions."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing and licensing policies are comparatively cheaper than other products in the market ."

"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 pretty expensive."

"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 is priced reasonable. However, it is more expensive than Power BI and Tableau."

"My company uses IBM Cognos with another IBM product, so I think only one license is used."

"On a scale from one to ten where one is low pricing and ten is high pricing, I would rate this solution at eight."

More IBM Cognos pricing and cost advice

"They have different tiers of pricing including one-year, three-year, five-year, seven-year, and ten-year."

"The product is less expensive compared to other vendors for gold partners."

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Comparison Review

it_user79932

Senior Manager - BI Head at NVidia

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

35%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

No data available

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 Sense, Power BI, OBIEE, Tableau, etc. I have recently started using Cognos Enter...

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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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Cognos?

There is room for improvement in self-service analytics and predictiveness.

See all answers

What do you like most about Meraki Location Analytics?

The initial setup process is easy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Meraki Location Analytics?

The pricing for Meraki Location Analytics is comparable to other solutions in the market. When we moved to Meraki Location Analytics, we benefited from not needing to buy outdoor-rated AP enclosure...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Meraki Location Analytics?

My biggest complaint with Meraki Location Analytics ( /categories/location-intelligence-platforms ) is the lack of visibility into the back end. Everything we do is through a customer GUI, and ther...

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Comparisons

Microsoft Power BI vs IBM Cognos

Compared 12% of the time

Tableau vs IBM Cognos

Compared 10% of the time

Oracle Hyperion vs IBM Cognos

Compared 9% of the time

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs IBM Cognos

Compared 9% of the time

Qlik Sense vs IBM Cognos

Compared 5% of the time

More IBM Cognos Competitors

Microsoft Power BI vs Meraki Location Analytics

Compared 100% of the time

More Meraki Location Analytics Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cognos

June 2025

Download IBM Cognos product report

Buyer's Guide

Meraki Location Analytics

May 2025

Download Meraki Location Analytics product report

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics

No data available

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.”

IBM

Cisco Meraki's location analytics and engagement solution displays real-time location statistics to improve customer engagement and loyalty across sites. Data collected by intelligent Meraki APs is synced with the Meraki cloud, automatically reported in the dashboard, and exported to third-party applications via the Cisco Meraki Location Analytics API.

Cisco

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.

Ladbrokes, Neinver, Westwind School Division, The Salvation Army, Queensland Airports Limited

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cognos vs. Meraki Location Analytics

June 2025

Free Report: IBM Cognos vs. Meraki Location Analytics

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