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IBM Cognos vs Oracle Analytics Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 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 BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (5th)
Oracle Analytics Cloud
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 2.2%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Analytics Cloud is 2.0%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Cognos2.2%
Oracle Analytics Cloud2.0%
Other95.8%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Robert Thorpe - PeerSpot reviewer
Robust platform delivers excellent reports and insights while needing improvement in self-service capabilities
Our clients utilize IBM Cognos mainly for static reporting, board packs, business reporting, and insights IBM Cognos is a robust governed platform with significant security features and provides excellent graphics and reporting. One of our customers can get a full company update on a Monday…
Vaclav-Biba - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced analytics through metadata-driven reporting with enterprise-level visualizations enables competitive advantage
In my opinion, what can be better in Oracle Analytics Cloud these days is primarily about pricing. I am from the Czech Republic, which is our main market. The situation here in the Czech Republic is that Power BI rules the world. There are two main reasons for this. First, speaking about the Czech Republic specifically, and second, the Power BI pricing model appears cheaper compared to Oracle Analytics Cloud. The pricing model in Microsoft is more straightforward. With Oracle, you have the data visualization and enterprise lines, and to put it simply, both appear as more expensive options for customers trying to get oriented in the segment.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Comparing IBM Cognos to other applications, once a person is trained on it or they have developed a skill set to operate the application, it is best in its category."
"The most valuable features are Report Development (Functionality) and Information Distribution (Flexibility)."
"Cognos is the best application with dashboards,batch reporting, jobs, events and ad-hoc reporting for business users."
"IBM Cognos is an excellent solution for tax, planning, budgeting, profit and loss statements and balance sheets."
"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."
"Cognos' most valuable features are the bundled studios, simple UI, and advanced features like the ability to create data modules."
"Using custom controls, it is possible to extend the application with even more functionality and make the application intuitive and attractive."
"For planning, forecasting, in-boxing, modeling in general and for predicting numbers and doing work analysis, they are excellent."
"It's great for consolidation and creating one source of truth."
"It's valuable feature is that it is user-friendly and doesn't require much time for understanding. The solution is stable. The initial setup was straightforward."
"The features that I find to be the most valuable are the BAS (Business Analytics), the Narrate feature, and the auto-visualization."
"Mobility is the most valuable feature for us. All employees can access it from anywhere. It is a big advantage for us."
"Oracle Analytics Cloud is not very user-friendly, however, it is robust and capable of performing a wide range of tasks."
"The solution is user-friendly."
"This is a stable and scalable solution."
"The solution can scale."
 

Cons

"The high cost of a license makes it hard to scale up on a budget."
"There are many problems with the product's stability part, making it an area where improvements are required."
"I would like to see the introduction of mapbooks for supporting some geographical information."
"I rate pricing as a four, meaning it is more expensive compared to other solutions."
"It is a costly product; it is comparatively expensive."
"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."
"Cognos charts are not as fast as those of the other tools, even with DQM (dynamic query mode)."
"The solution seems to slow down the servers."
"Sharing dataflows is not possible at this time, and the custom chart functionality is not available."
"When we have, for example, a table with low performance, we have several issues with drawing some graphics in the Oracle cloud."
"The interfaces could be improved and some in-memory operations could be built in."
"At this time, dataflows cannot be shared, but I think that this should be enhanced."
"They could improve the ease of developing the dashboard and interacting with it."
"The product should improve its user interface. It should be welcoming and modern. Developers should also find it easier to build data models. Oracle Analytics Cloud needs to have better visualizations and more options in the marketplace."
"The pricing model in Microsoft is more straightforward. With Oracle, you have the data visualization and enterprise lines, and to put it simply, both appear as more expensive options for customers trying to get oriented in the segment."
"The scalability has room for improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"IBM Cognos is priced reasonable. However, it is more expensive than Power BI and Tableau."
"On a scale from one to ten where one is low pricing and ten is high pricing, I would rate this solution at eight."
"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 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."
"It is pretty expensive."
"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 my understanding that the cost is very low. It's not very expensive."
"It's more expensive than similar solutions like Tableau and Power BI."
"The tool's pricing is not unreasonable or non-competitive."
"Bottom line, the cost is really, really cheap compared to other solutions. Oracle has made a huge effort on the pricing."
"The product’s pricing is expensive. However, feature-wise, it fits the requirements of enterprise customers."
"I rate the product's pricing a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"We pay on a monthly basis and it is $10 per user each month."
"I would rate it a five out of five in terms of the value received for the price charge."
"A highly cost-effective solution"
"The price is reasonable; it's quite a bit lower than Tableau and Spotfire."
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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
14%
Insurance Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise83
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise11
 

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.
Which Oracle product is better - OBIEE or Analytics Cloud?
Oracle OBIEE is designed to be relatively easy to set up and has a helpful customer support staff at the ready to assist customers. These are two attributes that make this system quite valuable. OB...
What do you like most about Oracle Analytics Cloud?
The ability to quickly search for and access relevant data is crucial.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Analytics Cloud?
The pricing of Oracle Analytics Cloud is quite expensive, fitting for a premium tool. However, the cost raises expectations for partner support that are not met, especially for smaller companies wh...
 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
Oracle Analytics Cloud Service, OAC, Oracle Data Visualization, Oracle Data Visualization Cloud Service, ODV
 

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.
Sejong Hospital
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Cognos vs. Oracle Analytics Cloud and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,655 professionals have used our research since 2012.