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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
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (3rd)
Oracle Analytics Cloud
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (7th)
 

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 Oracle Analytics Cloud is 2.5%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

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.
Enrique Pacheco Salinas - PeerSpot reviewer
Advanced analytics facilitate strategy development but demand specialized expertise and better support
Oracle Analytics Cloud is not very user-friendly, however, it is robust and capable of performing a wide range of tasks. However, skilled personnel are needed to operate it effectively due to its complexity. In addition, the brand name carries significant value as many large companies and banks are familiar with Oracle.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"A positive feature is Report Studio, where we create beautiful, complex reports."
"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."
"It is a stable product."
"We are able to generate quality reports easily which allows us to decrease response time."
"IBM Cognos is a robust governed platform with significant security features and provides excellent graphics and reporting."
"Using custom controls, it is possible to extend the application with even more functionality and make the application intuitive and attractive."
"The basic platform comes with several meta-modelling tools."
"IBM Cognos improves the effectiveness of the sales team."
"Oracle Analytics Cloud's most valuable feature is its visualization."
"The most valuable features of the solution are dashboarding and data visualization."
"It plays a crucial role in facilitating decision-making for various organizational stakeholders."
"The technical support is excellent, and they respond quickly."
"Oracle Analytics Cloud is not very user-friendly, however, it is robust and capable of performing a wide range of tasks."
"This is a stable and scalable solution."
"Analytics Cloud allows you to merge various data types and structure data from multiple sources."
"Data preparation is fantastic and fast. We were able to use multiple data sources and prepare the data quickly."
 

Cons

"Cognos charts are not as fast as those of the other tools, even with DQM (dynamic query mode)."
"It is a costly product; it is comparatively expensive."
"I think the GIS pieces maybe not as good as we would like."
"We would like to see development of the product's UI function, to make it more of a UI tool that can be configured as required."
"Need improvement towards Visualization."
"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."
"It would be good if the solution had conditional formatting."
"There are a lot of limitations with the out-of-the-box tool."
"When we have, for example, a table with low performance, we have several issues with drawing some graphics in the Oracle cloud."
"One of the major issues is that Oracle Analytics Cloud is not user-friendly, requiring skilled people with proper certifications to work with it successfully."
"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."
"It should simplify data connectivity and modeling, making data extraction more streamlined and adaptable for diverse use cases."
"One area of improvement is associated with more connectors needing to be added such as Microsoft OneDrive, Teradata and a few others. I think the list is limited to the top ones now."
"When you implement the product on a small scale, it doesn't generate any ROI."
"Oracle Analytics Cloud is lacking in charts. They should add more charts to it."
"Sharing dataflows is not possible at this time, and the custom chart functionality is not available."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is need to assess the purchase license accordingly so as to avoid audit penalties."
"Cognos is super expensive compared to Tableau ($70/month) and Power BI ($20/month) — I think Cognos is roughly $200 a month."
"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 averagely priced."
"The solution is affordable."
"It is my understanding that the cost is very low. It's not very expensive."
"My company uses IBM Cognos with another IBM product, so I think only one license is used."
"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."
"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."
"It is an expensive platform."
"A highly cost-effective solution"
"I rate the product's pricing a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"Oracle Analytics Cloud's pricing is generally higher than that of other vendors."
"I don't know the exact cost, but its pricing was good. Its pricing was competitive. I would rate it a three out of five in terms of pricing."
"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
Educational Organization
37%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Insurance Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

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...
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: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.