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IBM Cognos vs Oracle Essbase comparison

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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Cognos
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
140
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (12th), Reporting (6th)
Oracle Essbase
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
4.6
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Database Development and Management (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

IBM Cognos and Oracle Essbase aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. IBM Cognos is designed for BI (Business Intelligence) Tools and holds a mindshare of 1.3%, down 2.2% compared to last year.
Oracle Essbase, on the other hand, focuses on Database Development and Management, holds 1.5% mindshare, up 0.8% since last year.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Cognos1.3%
Microsoft Power BI7.1%
Tableau Enterprise5.8%
Other85.8%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
Database Development and Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Oracle Essbase1.5%
Oracle Enterprise Manager4.0%
Redgate SQL Toolbelt Essentials3.8%
Other90.7%
Database Development and Management
 

Featured Reviews

RL
Senior Project Manager at BD
Data insights have transformed reporting speed and support faster, informed decisions
IBM Cognos makes it simple to create visually appealing products, and we are able to run about 1,000 reports on a daily basis while another 1,000 are run through the scheduler built into IBM Cognos Analytics. It offers triggering through the scheduler, which we use to confirm the completion of other processes needed to be available before the job is scheduled to run, allowing us to make data-driven decisions easily. Some of the best features that IBM Cognos offers are enterprise reporting, which enables us to create, customize, and run reports on sales trends, consumer sentiment, and many more; dashboard creation; and data exploration and analysis. We are able to use the drag and drop feature to create ad-hoc visualizations. Additionally, I find the AI-powered natural language query feature for data analysis and dashboard input to be very useful for a non-technical person to put queries around the spreadsheets data to get a quick answer. Building insights for accurate decision-making has been great. Moreover, we can package reports with data-backed insights for stakeholders in PDF and Excel format to support business ad-hoc cases, forecasting, and strategic recommendations on relevant tasks. Of all those features, the visual graphs, predictive analytics, and data cleansing feature makes the biggest difference for my team. IBM Cognos is deployed in my organization using a hybrid cloud setup with Amazon Web Services as our cloud provider.
Bhavya N - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior System Engineer at Infosys
Ensuring efficient data analysis and reporting while identifying areas for calculation and export improvements
The features of Oracle Essbase are valuable, such as its multi-dimensional database used for dynamic calculations and reporting purposes. These features are valuable because they support multi-dimensional data views, allowing users to analyze relationships across various data categories and establish a comprehensive perspective on business operations. Moreover, dynamic calculations allow real-time data analysis, significantly improving the accuracy and depth of financial insights. I have utilized Essbase's data aggregation capabilities. The Oracle Essbase interface provides a good user experience, allowing users to easily navigate and analyze data with fast query performance, effective data visualization tools such as charts, graphs, and tables, and flexibility for customizable analysis and reporting, including the ability to create ad hoc reports. The benefits of the interface include improving productivity and enhancing decision-making.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Integration with Office can enable the 'download' mode of storytelling.​"
"IBM Cognos is a robust governed platform with significant security features and provides excellent graphics and reporting."
"We use it for financial purposes, and simple reporting."
"We are able to rapidly communicate financial reporting and statements for reconciliation purposes."
"This BI tool helped automate and centralize production reports."
"Self-service is possible through the use of dashboards, which are also very intuitive. Stories can be used to pin snapshots, tell the story for meetings, etc."
"The solution connects to all data sources easily."
"The product’s most valuable feature is the open environment where we can build from scratch without too many constraints on calculations because that allows us to have extensive customization."
"It is my opinion, it is more comfortable in Oracle rather than a SQL server."
"The solution is quite scalable, which is the most useful aspect for us."
"Oracle Essbase is a web integration system that integrates with other data systems."
"The solution can handle a large volume of data."
"Essbase is extremely stable and low-maintenance."
"Essbase is a multidimensional database (MOLAP) is undoubtedly leading in that space."
"With Oracle Essbase, everything is centralized in a comprehensive financial statement analysis, allowing for complete management of budget, actuals analysis, and forecast."
"Oracle's capability to define custom hierarchies and dimensions has helped my organization in performing nuanced data exploration and advanced modeling because we use Oracle Essbase for dimension definition and also to define the properties of these members, such as dynamic members, stored members, shared members."
 

Cons

"Dashboards are slow compared to other tools currently on the market."
"The performance is a bottleneck and something that can be improved."
"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."
"The Cognos Analysis Studio and Cognos Query Studio user interface has room for improvement in the area of user experience."
"What we have noticed is that it's lacking a few things which we want, especially on the visualization side of things."
"This product could use improvement in terms of usability for those with less technical know how."
"I would like them to reinclude PowerPlay. One thing that I am missing in the current Cognos is what was formally named PowerPlay."
"I would like to improve calculations by optimizing performance and reducing processing time."
"The solution could be cheaper. It is costly, and the initial setup could be simplified."
"The initial setup is pretty complex."
"When it comes to scalability, I note that the on-premise solution of Oracle Essbase is not very scalable. In the cloud solution, I think it is easier, because that is the point; however, in the on-premise solution, there is no scalability, so if the server goes down, Oracle Essbase is not reachable."
"The licensing costs are too high."
"The reporting tool of Essbase needs improvement."
"The ability to drive external reporting out for development could be improved."
"Sometimes, the current program is slow. They may have to consider the storage and the RAM, increasing the speed and performing the queries at a faster speed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"The pricing and licensing policies are comparatively cheaper than other products in the market ."
"The solution is affordable."
"It is my understanding that the cost is very low. It's not very expensive."
"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."
"The licensing costs are a little bit higher for IBM Cognos. I don't think there is any additional cost apart from the licensing charges."
"It is a costly solution."
"I believe the licensing is on a monthly base."
"The solution is expensive."
"Essbase is competitively priced."
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Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager - BI Head with 5,001-10,000 employees
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
13%
Insurance Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise92
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise14
 

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 needs improvement with IBM Cognos?
Regarding improvements for IBM Cognos, I think nothing yet about functionality, but I find the costs to be quite high for the enterprise system. However, since we need it, we continue to renew our ...
What is your primary use case for IBM Cognos?
My main use case for IBM Cognos at my place of work is primarily for business intelligence (BI), mostly for serving, and we appreciate it because it covers the full BI stack, including dashboards, ...
What needs improvement with Oracle Essbase?
A significant area for improvement in Oracle Essbase is that financial statement analysis, CAPEX and OPEX analysis, and financial consolidation must be done manually, as Oracle Essbase doesn't incl...
What is your primary use case for Oracle Essbase?
The initial setup of Oracle Essbase is dependent on whether you select BSO or ASO cubes. First, you need to set up the type of information and once the type of cubes is defined, you need to define ...
What advice do you have for others considering Oracle Essbase?
The pricing functionality in Oracle Essbase is handled through the model you develop, where each cube can be customized with members and dimensions for pricing and entities. You can implement any f...
 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
Essbase
 

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.
CHU de Rennes, Bellco Credit Union, Akindo Sushiro Co. Ltd, Deutsche Telekom AG, Samarco MineraÊo S.A., PCCW Ltd., QDQ media S.A.U., Boiron Italia, Specialized Bicycle Components Inc., Akindo Sushiro Co. Ltd., Air Canada, Daelim Industrial Co. Ltd.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Salesforce, SAP and others in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools. Updated: September 2026.
912,006 professionals have used our research since 2012.