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IBM Cognos vs Microsoft Power BI vs TIBCO Jaspersoft comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 4.5%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 26.7%, up from 25.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TIBCO Jaspersoft is 2.6%, down from 2.7% 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.
James Balbach - PeerSpot reviewer
Robust system consistently elevates data visualization and seamlessly updates with user-driven advancements
Power BI is a general-use visualization system. I can express the performance of our network through high-level key performance indicators. It allows me to show detailed improvements in quality and safety and patient experience. I create improvement dashboards for task forces and work teams. I have built analytic dashboards that guide analytics, enabling research and dataset manipulation.
Chan Sambopol - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to use with a nice design and good connectivity
TIBCO Jaspersoft has two versions. Version one is the enterprise version, The other one is the community version, and which allows us to use it for free. In the free version, we have to support ourselves. For the enterprise version, you have technical support if you need it. I wish that we had more support while in the portal, at least for the community version, or if we could talk to someone regarding issues, like how to configure or fine-tune would be helpful. We'd like to have help on how to solve some problems when we use the product and have some error or limitation. They need to, at the very least, improve the community. The Enterprise Edition has support, and we can force some tickets through the portal and then have an engineer support us in some cases. However, in terms of the subscription price, it's a bit high. Therefore, we'd like to see the community version offer a little bit more support and better documentation and we'd like the enterprise edition to have better pricing.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The basic platform comes with several meta-modelling tools."
"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."
"Cognos is the best application with dashboards,batch reporting, jobs, events and ad-hoc reporting for business users."
"The comprehensiveness or broadness of the software functions or business intelligence functions that it provides is valuable. It is also quite easy to use and user-friendly."
"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."
"Dashboarding, reporting, and ad hoc reporting are the valuable features of IBM Cognos."
"Integration with Office can enable the 'download' mode of storytelling.​"
"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."
"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."
"The main feature I find valuable is the possibility to work with an extensive amount of data."
"There is also a chart store where we can download charts, which is extremely useful."
"It provides easy integration with Office tools."
"What I like about Power BI is how fast you are able to create dashboards and how fast you are able to fetch the data. You can connect to the database or data source, and then you can design your dashboards very easily."
"Power BI stands out because it provides considerable flexibility in creating reports, dashboards, and various types of analytics to meet those dynamic requirements. It is lightweight and easy to use with good support."
"I like how the Query Editor lets me manipulate the data, and the available visuals are good. You can do everything using the UI."
"It's a very easy-to-use solution."
"You can do quite a lot with it in terms of automated reports and dashboards."
"I give the stability of the solution a nine out of ten."
"With the online view, it's easier to create Ad Hoc reports. It has inbuilt reports so we can easily get data from the system and customize the fields."
"The end-user reporting is very handy and the standard reports that can be achieved by using Jaspersoft Studio are quite impressive."
"The designer is the most valuable feature."
"The growth time is the most valuable feature of TIBCO Jaspersoft."
"It offers high processing power for report generation and is cost-effective."
"We find the access restrictions on different user groups valuable."
 

Cons

"I would like to see the introduction of mapbooks for supporting some geographical information."
"There are a lot of limitations with the out-of-the-box tool."
"I think the GIS pieces maybe not as good as we would like."
"We need more predictive analytical functions, not only diagnostic or decryptic analytics."
"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."
"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."
"IBM Support can be slow at times, but they can usually deliver in a timely manner."
"I rate pricing as a four, meaning it is more expensive compared to other solutions."
"The mobile app is very poor."
"Sometimes while developing, the front end is not easily customizable and it has limitations. We cannot go and do any UI we want. We have to stick to the limitations of the product."
"Licensing could be improved."
"From any improvement perspective, I want the product to be made available to users free of cost...The stability and scalability of the product can be better."
"I have found that some issues exist, indicating room for improvement in scalability."
"The on-premises version lacks some technical features that are available with the Cloud version."
"When it comes to improvement, I would say there could be more tutorials for students in universities who are just learning it. And it wouldn't have to be just for students in universities. It might also be for the people who use it in the real world."
"When I create measures, sometimes the error messages aren't clear. It makes me spend more time searching for solutions. I need the error messages to be more specific. So, I would like clearer error messages when creating measures."
"Jaspersoft should focus on user interaction features, and one should not expect it to suit every niche."
"The stability of TIBCO Jaspersoft needs improvement."
"A better focus should be put on self-service reporting."
"The upgrades are not easy."
"Customization is an area with certain shortcomings in the solution that needs improvement."
"The Ad Hoc Report Writer does not include as many features as Tableau and needs to be improved to meet expectations."
"The reporting templates have room for improvement."
"I would like to see some analysis done prior to data extraction. The data extraction itself could also be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of this product is meant for medium to large-scale enterprises."
"IBM Cognos is priced reasonable. However, it is more expensive than Power BI and Tableau."
"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."
"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."
"IBM Cognos offers competitive pricing similar to other BI vendors in the market."
"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."
"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."
"It is my understanding that the cost is very low. It's not very expensive."
"I would rate them 4 out of 5 for their current pricing. There are no additional costs to the standard licensing fees."
"MS BI comes with all the tools and it is, to the best of my knowledge, the most affordable solution."
"You don't need a license for development, but if you want to publish to external users, you need a license. The licensing is very costly, but I think that since the advantages and benefits of Power BI are so high, people are willing to pay. I can't blame them."
"Price is the best feature of Power BI! You get a lot of value for the price. If you know how to use it, it's a great BI solution for your money."
"Remove the cost of a licence to show a dashboard within SharePoint. Why should readers of a dashboard have to pay to view? ​"
"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."
"The premium capacity is very costly in respect of the market in Egypt, amounting to $5,000 monthly."
"The solution's pricing is medium."
"I would rate the pricing as four out of five because it's expensive."
"I find the price to be reliable and not overly costly."
"Since I checked last time, only one annual license costs about $25,000."
"The solution is a little bit expensive."
"The pricing is cost effective because it is based on servers rather than users."
"I give the cost of the solution a five out of ten."
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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
52%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Insurance Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Educational Organization
39%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
5%
 

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 ...
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.
Seeking lightweight open source BI software
There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I wou...
Is Power BI a complete platform or only a visualization tool?
Power BI is an advanced visualization tool oriented to big data with a very complete set of widgets to visualize info...
How does Oracle OBIEE compare with Microsoft BI?
Oracle OBIEE is great in allowing design and creativity per the individual needs of the organization. Dashboards are ...
Seeking lightweight open source BI software
The best and open source (No cost involved) solution for all BI requirements is Jaspersoft Open Studio. Refer to raje...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TIBCO Jaspersoft?
I am sharing a scenario for pricing: for ten thousand users and a robust server, it may cost in the hundreds of thous...
 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI
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.
Accenture Adidas Aetna AIG Airbus Alibaba Allstate Amazon American Express Aon AT&T Audi Bank of America BASF Bayer Berkshire Hathaway Boeing Coca-Cola Comcast Cisco Coca-Cola Dell Disney Emirates Equinix FedEx Ford GE Google H&M Home Depot Honda IBM Intel JPMorgan Chase Kellogg's Kroger L'Oréal McDonald's Merck MetLife Microsoft Nike Oracle P&G PepsiCo Procter & Gamble Prudential Financial SAP Siemens Snapchat Spotify Starbucks Target Toyota T-Mobile Unilever Visa Walmart WeWork World Bank Xerox
Mosaic, Vander University, Telesoft, Entrust, Ericsson, BT, Groupon, John Hopkins, Puma
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Salesforce, Oracle and others in Reporting. Updated: May 2025.
851,371 professionals have used our research since 2012.