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IBM Cognos vs Oracle Hyperion 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.4
IBM Cognos offers enhanced decision-making, cost savings, and productivity, reporting over $650k annual savings through efficient, user-friendly systems.
Sentiment score
6.0
Users report varying ROI with Oracle Hyperion, highlighting process improvements, accuracy, reduced task time, and enhanced decision-making.
I have seen a return on investment, as I mentioned earlier about time saving and productivity gains, with a consistent governed data model that reduces the risk of errors.
Sr. Project Manager at GlaxoSmithKline
I have seen a return on investment through improved decision making, as automated distribution and uptime, along with scheduled report delivery and bursting, have eliminated various manual emailing and delays, thereby saving time and cost.
Senior Project Manager at BD
Management can now drill down and view executive summaries for new products and fraud analytics quickly, resulting in less red tape during the decision-making process.
Vice President at a logistics company with 51-200 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.4
IBM Cognos customer service is mixed, with good technical support and resources, yet varying speed and consistency.
Sentiment score
5.4
Oracle's customer service feedback is mixed, citing delays and coordination issues, though high-priority issues get faster responses.
Our systems team, operating on a lot of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and maintaining long-term relations with IBM, benefits from good support coverage.
EDW Manager at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
The customer support has been proactive, solution-oriented, and helpful whenever I have needed to reach out.
Senior Project Manager at BD
I rate technical support from IBM as eight out of ten, indicating a high quality of service.
head of commercial at Assimil8 Ltd.
Support is generally fast for Sev1 or Sev2 tickets but slower for lower-severity tickets.
Associate Consultant at a construction company with 10,001+ employees
I rate Oracle's technical support as very good, giving it a score of 8 to 9 out of 10.
Product Support Engineer at JSW
The response time is not that good.
Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
IBM Cognos handles large-scale data needs efficiently, though performance can vary with hardware, integration, configuration, and user training.
Sentiment score
7.0
Oracle Hyperion is scalable and suitable for large organizations, though some users face performance challenges during expansion.
The scalability of IBM Cognos is very good, as it has continued growing with my organization's needs, allowing us to analyze and store a significant amount of data and handle our organization's growth efficiently.
Sr. Project Manager at GlaxoSmithKline
It can be scaled out to other teams, but requires building cubes and implementing policies.
head of commercial at Assimil8 Ltd.
I rate the scalability of Oracle Hyperion as an 8 out of 10 because it remains a top choice in the market.
Product Support Engineer at JSW
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
IBM Cognos is stable and reliable, though issues can arise with server capacity, configurations, and during peak usage.
Sentiment score
7.0
Oracle Hyperion is stable with occasional bugs, reliable performance on-premises, and robust cloud versions when best practices are followed.
I rate the stability of this solution as nine out of ten, indicating it is highly stable.
head of commercial at Assimil8 Ltd.
In my experience, IBM Cognos is stable, as I have not experienced any downtime or lagging issues.
Senior Project Manager at BD
Cloud configurations have not exhibited issues like crashing or slowing down for significant data volumes.
Associate Consultant at a construction company with 10,001+ employees
We sometimes encounter bugs and need to connect with Oracle Support.
Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

IBM Cognos needs UI and mobile enhancements, better data visualization, improved support, and cost efficiency for user satisfaction.
Oracle Hyperion requires user interface, reporting, integration, documentation, pricing, and support improvements for enhanced usability and advanced functionality.
Integration with Azure login makes trouble.
Sr. Project Manager at GlaxoSmithKline
IBM Cognos can be improved by addressing its limited real-time data connectivity, as well as enhancing the endpoint experience and mobility, which currently is not satisfactory due to limited data blending.
Senior Project Manager at BD
IBM Cognos could improve by introducing different role types, such as viewer roles, user roles, and admin roles, along with assigning minor modules to specific individuals.
Vice President at a logistics company with 51-200 employees
After moving to PBCS and EPBCS, the per-user license fees can be reduced, particularly for bulk users.
Associate Consultant at a construction company with 10,001+ employees
It is user-friendly and offers several advantages in financial reporting and consolidation.
Product Support Engineer at JSW
The pricing model could be more flexible as it's more expensive than its competitors.
Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

IBM Cognos is costly compared to competitors but offers extensive features, with complex licensing and potential discounts available.
Oracle Hyperion's pricing includes high setup costs and complex licensing, challenging for medium-sized firms due to user-based expenses.
Our central team negotiated a different price because multiple teams within our organization use IBM Cognos, bringing the price down to around $10 to $11 per user per month.
Vice President at a logistics company with 51-200 employees
I rate pricing as a four, meaning it is more expensive compared to other solutions.
head of commercial at Assimil8 Ltd.
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is positive, as the price is relatively competitive and affordable.
Senior Project Manager at BD
The pricing model is on the higher side compared to its competitors.
Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

IBM Cognos provides AI-powered insights, intuitive dashboards, and advanced reporting tools, enhancing automation, scalability, and comprehensive business intelligence.
Oracle Hyperion offers intuitive interfaces, data security, and efficient planning, streamlining global finance management with comprehensive insights.
The AI features in IBM Cognos helped me gain deeper insights into our business processes, enabling me to make data-driven decisions easily and understand which points need our attention and which areas of our business are performing well.
Senior Data Engineer at LTI LATAM and Toubro Improtech
I love the seamless and efficient data integration capability of IBM Cognos Analytics, where it allows us easy merging of data from various sources such as customer feedback and sales figures.
Sr. Project Manager at GlaxoSmithKline
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.
Senior Project Manager at BD
It enables me to input data directly based on my security and business lines, with an inbuilt calculation engine for data aggregation and reporting.
Associate Consultant at a construction company with 10,001+ employees
The feature that allows automation of the budgeting and forecasting process is extremely valuable, especially when compared to Excel.
Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Anaplan allows for quick module changes, where adjustments in one module reflect throughout the user experience.
Product Support Engineer at JSW
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Cognos
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
139
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (7th), Reporting (4th)
Oracle Hyperion
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
Business Performance Management (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM Cognos is designed for BI (Business Intelligence) Tools and holds a mindshare of 1.3%, down 3.8% compared to last year.
Oracle Hyperion, on the other hand, focuses on Business Performance Management, holds 4.9% mindshare, down 11.9% since last year.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Cognos1.3%
Microsoft Power BI8.9%
Tableau Enterprise6.2%
Other83.6%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
Business Performance Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Oracle Hyperion4.9%
Anaplan6.9%
CCH Tagetik5.1%
Other83.1%
Business Performance 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.
SC
Product Support Engineer at JSW
Empower financial planning with user-friendly and robust features
The best features of Oracle Hyperion revolve around their cloud-based technology, which is gradually moving to cloud solutions such as EPMCSG, while Anaplan uses two engines for calculations, the classic engine and the Essbase engine. Anaplan allows for quick module changes, where adjustments in one module reflect throughout the user experience. In contrast, Oracle Hyperion relies on Essbase as a database with calculation scripts and business rules, and it incorporates Smart View technology for Excel connections, providing a familiar interface for users. Oracle Hyperion is fundamentally a good technology and does not require significant improvements compared to other technologies because it is user-friendly and offers several advantages in financial reporting and consolidation. However, I have observed that Anaplan has built-in UX pages for report preparation, unlike Oracle Hyperion, which often relies on third-party tools such as Hyperion Financial Reporting and Power BI for reporting.
report
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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
14%
Insurance Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business35
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise89
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise38
 

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?
Since IBM Cognos is a futuristic platform with many robust features, it takes time to grasp all the features and how they work, so there is a learning curve. The more I use this platform, the more ...
What do you like most about Oracle Hyperion?
We can collect data from various sources, which is very useful for budgeting and planning.
What needs improvement with Oracle Hyperion?
We are going to re-implement the Oracle Hyperion system due to changes in our chart of account process and some other factors. We were analyzing whether to move to a cloud system, EPM Cloud. We hav...
What is your primary use case for Oracle Hyperion?
We are using Oracle Financials and Oracle Hyperion. Oracle Hyperion is used for budget and MIS reporting, while Financials is used for financial accounting, payables, receivables, and general ledge...
 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
Hyperion
 

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.
ITNL, Aditya Birla Nuvo Ltd., Zaklady Farmaceutyczne Polpharma S.A., Daelim Industrial Co. Ltd., Barco N.V., SITA, McGregor Fashion Group B.V., PCCW Ltd.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Salesforce, Domo and others in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools. Updated: February 2026.
882,207 professionals have used our research since 2012.