IBM Cognos vs Microsoft BI comparison

Cancel
You must select at least 2 products to compare!
IBM Logo
15,790 views|10,523 comparisons
Microsoft Logo
51,582 views|41,308 comparisons
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Jul 10, 2022

We performed a comparison between IBM Cognos and Microsoft BI based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

  • Ease of Deployment: Most users of both solutions report that their initial setup and deployment is straightforward.
  • Features: Reviewers of both products are happy with their stability and scalability. IBM Cognos users praise its reporting tools and say it has excellent analysis features. Several users mention that its performance is a bit slow. Microsoft BI users say it is user friendly, flexible, and has good querying capabilities. Several users mention that the UI could be enhanced.
  • Pricing: Each of these products received mixed reviews in the pricing category. Some users of each solution feel that the price is too high.
  • ROI: Reviewers of both products report seeing an ROI.
  • Service and Support: Most reviewers of both solutions report being satisfied with the level of support they receive.

Comparison Results: Microsoft BI has a slight edge in this comparison. According to its reviewers, it is a more lightweight solution than IBM Cognos.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Cognos vs. Microsoft BI Report (Updated: May 2023).
708,830 professionals have used our research since 2012.
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 features of IBM Cognos are governance and enterprise reporting.""The main difference that I like about Cognos compared to other solutions is its data splitting functionality. We have all our company data inside the Cognos environment and so we prefer to split the information Cognos itself. It's more efficient this way.""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 initial setup is very straightforward.""The three IBM Cognos features I find the most valuable are Dynamic Cubes, PowerPlay, and Watson.""If they want dashboarding, storytelling, and analyzing why KPIs are met or not, then Cognos is a better candidate than Qlik Sense.""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.""I have worked on the features like dashboards and stories, and I do like them a lot."

More IBM Cognos Pros →

"The solution is easy to set up and implement.""The visualization and reporting are the most valuable features of this solution.""It works well with SSAS, which we use to generate all different kinds of trending and analytics reports. Sometimes we use Power Query and DAX to build some aggregations on the Power BI side as well.""It's a straightforward setup.""It is really flexible. The charts and reports are really nice. You have the flexibility of self-service.""Many of my customers already use Microsoft products like Office 365, so I often propose Microsoft Power BI because it integrates well with all the standard Microsoft business tools. And it's the quickest tool to implement and start using daily.""It is a little easier at buildings charts and graphs than Tableau.""This product has a lot of features and most of them are user-friendly."

More Microsoft BI Pros →

Cons
"The high cost of a license makes it hard to scale up on a budget.""Data modeling needs to be improved. We use the ETL process, and when we get errors, we then need to identify which structural change is required. The error messaging should be better. They should be descriptive rather than semantic.""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.""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 should provide improved visual reporting.""It would be good if the solution had conditional formatting.""I would like to have predictive and forecasting capabilities in Cognos. It's one thing to do reporting, and another thing to easily predict or forecast certain data points, which is very important for all the clients."

More IBM Cognos Cons →

"Microsoft BI lacks some of the scheme features. It would be beneficial if there were a way to show how we move values in a different way.""My main complaint is that the error messages need to be made more clear. Currently, they are either too generic or outright misleading, and finding the real problem is like searching for a needle in a haystack.""The orchestration module for refreshing data flows is something that is missing and we have to do it manually.""Technical support could be a bit better.""We haven't used it that long and I haven't come across anything that's stood out as needing to be fixed.""In the future, Microsoft BI can be better by increasing user-friendliness""The biggest thing with Microsoft right now is better support. There should be more timely support. We can do 90% of it ourselves by the same token. When we're into the 10%, we do not get timely support via Microsoft's support team.""The solution could improve by providing more free visuals. A lot of them are very nice but you have to purchase them."

More Microsoft BI Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "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."
  • "It's more expensive than similar solutions like Tableau and Power BI."
  • "There is a standard license required to use this solution. There are some additional tools but I am not sure if they are an extra cost."
  • "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."
  • "It is pretty expensive."
  • "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."
  • "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."
  • More IBM Cognos Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The solution is priced well for what they offer. However, the premium version is very expensive."
  • "I used a two months free trial to see if it had what I needed."
  • "The cost of the solution is more flexible for us because the desktop is free and we pay as we use it in the cloud."
  • "Power BI is cheaper than Tableau and Cognos."
  • "The price for this solution is reasonable. However, there is an additional cost if you want to publish the dashboard privately."
  • "It would be better if the price was cheaper."
  • "We have a professional license for Microsoft BI and the price is fair."
  • "The solution is less expensive than other PowerBI tools, which is why most people go with it, although it does cost more than MSBI tools."
  • More Microsoft BI Pricing and Cost Advice →

    report
    Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Reporting Tools solutions are best for your needs.
    708,830 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    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:The solution's support needs improvement. Also, they should add better administrative tools.
    Top Answer:There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I would recommend as follows:  1) If you have legacies of SAP, Oracle  - look for SAP… more »
    Top Answer:Power BI is an advanced visualization tool oriented to big data with a very complete set of widgets to visualize information, control users accessing information, the configuration of governance… more »
    Top Answer:Oracle OBIEE is great in allowing design and creativity per the individual needs of the organization. Dashboards are fully customizable and very user-friendly. This solution is very stable. Oracle… more »
    Ranking
    4th
    out of 50 in Reporting Tools
    Views
    15,790
    Comparisons
    10,523
    Reviews
    17
    Average Words per Review
    532
    Rating
    8.1
    1st
    out of 50 in Reporting Tools
    Views
    51,582
    Comparisons
    41,308
    Reviews
    126
    Average Words per Review
    508
    Rating
    8.0
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
    SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Power BI, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI
    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.”

    Microsoft BI is a business intelligence solution that connects to all your data sources and turns your data into insightful and useful business information that is relevant to all levels of the business, ensuring data accuracy, consistency, and security.

    Microsoft BI combines familiar Microsoft tools - Office, SharePoint, and SQL server - with extra features for end-users, such as Power View and Power Pivot. This powerful product gives businesses a competitive advantage by allowing end users to better analyze their data, collaborate, and better present their data.

    The BI platform empowers members of your organization to make data-driven decisions that drive strategic actions quickly by allowing them to work together easily on the same data, share insights, and collaborate on reports using other Microsoft Office applications.

    Microsoft BI Benefits

    Some of the benefits of using Microsoft BI include: 

    • Scalability: Easily scale the Microsoft BI platform to help reduce costs and minimize the security risks and complexities that arise as a result of maintaining multiple systems.
    • Secure analytics: Protect your data with sophisticated data security features, including sensitivity labeling, end-to-end encryption, and real-time access monitoring. View and share meaningful AI-based insights enriched by data visualizations.
    • Regular user-driven innovative updates: Get weekly and monthly updates that improve the capabilities of Power BI based on thousands of ideas submitted each year from a community of over 500,000 members worldwide.
    • Seamless integration with Microsoft products: Microsoft BI connects with Microsoft 365, allowing you to create Excel queries, data models, and reports for the Power BI dashboards. These integrations make it easy to collect, analyze, publish, and share Excel business data.
    • Access Microsoft BI from any location: BI can be accessed at any time from anywhere using its mobile app, allowing ease of access to distributed teams or businesses across many locations. The business intelligence platform also enables teams to work on any file at the same time.
    • User-friendly dashboard: View and manage your data in a user-friendly and intuitive customized dashboard. The Microsoft BI platform enables teams to work independently while exchanging analytics between different departments and users. With Microsoft BI, you can easily create personalized dashboards that combine on-premises and cloud data into a single view, allowing you to monitor enterprise data from multiple business applications.
    • Easy installation: Install the platform in minutes just by creating an API key and inputting it into the software.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Microsoft BI stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its integration options and its data analytics capabilities.

    Tariq R., an operations & BI analyst at American Hospital Dubai, writes, “Power BI is a complete ecosystem. It has an integrated ETL tool and good connectivity with applications such as Office 365 and SQL. Power BI supports the DAX and Power Query M languages. These languages are making Power BI very strong in data analytics, and you can do many types of analysis. ”

    Offer
    Learn more about IBM Cognos
    Learn more about Microsoft BI
    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.
    Konica Minolta, Klout, Mahindra Satyam, The Weather Channel, Argus, Credit Suisse, NCR, and Sysmex.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Insurance Company9%
    Healthcare Company9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization36%
    Financial Services Firm10%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Government6%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm14%
    Manufacturing Company13%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Government9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization21%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Government7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business23%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise61%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business12%
    Midsize Enterprise41%
    Large Enterprise47%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business38%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise45%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business15%
    Midsize Enterprise28%
    Large Enterprise57%
    Buyer's Guide
    IBM Cognos vs. Microsoft BI
    May 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Cognos vs. Microsoft BI and other solutions. Updated: May 2023.
    708,830 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    IBM Cognos is ranked 4th in Reporting Tools with 18 reviews while Microsoft BI is ranked 1st in Reporting Tools with 130 reviews. IBM Cognos is rated 8.2, while Microsoft BI is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of IBM Cognos writes "Helpful online community, highly reliable, and secure". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft BI writes "User friendly, easy to set up and great for analyzing data". IBM Cognos is most compared with Tableau, Oracle Hyperion, SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform, MicroStrategy and SQL Server, whereas Microsoft BI is most compared with Amazon QuickSight, Tableau, KNIME, Domo and MicroStrategy. See our IBM Cognos vs. Microsoft BI report.

    See our list of best Reporting Tools vendors and best BI (Business Intelligence) Tools vendors.

    We monitor all Reporting 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.