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IBM Cognos vs Posit 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
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
136
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (5th)
Posit
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
27th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 1.3%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Posit is 0.7%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Cognos1.3%
Posit0.7%
Other98.0%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2648136 - PeerSpot reviewer
EDW Manager at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
Centralized reporting has supported university-wide regulatory dashboards and secure data access
From my experience, we use regular dashboarding with IBM Cognos for producing scheduled reports and for mandatory regulatory reporting. All our departments use IBM Cognos, with each department developing their own reports while our corporate IT team provides the data. Some people use the interactive dashboards feature of IBM Cognos, and there are also other tools in use. I think some users utilize Power BI and Tableau, but our IT organization only provides IBM Cognos as an enterprise business intelligence and reporting tool. IBM Cognos is evaluated and complies fully with all our security standards. In my opinion, IBM Cognos is very stable. It has been around for many years and many users are familiar with it, ensuring it performs well in its intended capacity. The benefits of choosing IBM Cognos, aside from cost savings, include having institutional knowledge for maintaining this infrastructure and a reliable solution that enhances developer productivity, given our team's extensive experience with IBM Cognos.
SUBRATADEY - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Data Enigeneer at Oracle
Addressing installation challenges to utilize interactive dashboards effectively
Posit is valuable because many geo-scientists I work with are more comfortable writing R scripts and using R Shiny, making it a suited choice for them. On top of that, it integrates with the application and database, creating interactive dashboards. While there's a need to manage a significant portion manually, the performance overall is stable.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"This solution allows you to input a wide range of file formats."
"Integration with Office can enable the 'download' mode of storytelling.​"
"It is a stable product."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"If they want dashboarding, storytelling, and analyzing why KPIs are met or not, then Cognos is a better candidate than Qlik Sense."
"For planning, forecasting, in-boxing, modeling in general and for predicting numbers and doing work analysis, they are excellent."
"IBM Cognos is a very comprehensive analytics tool that dissolves the challenge of turning complex and large data sets into clear, actionable insights by providing an intuitive platform for data visualization and reporting."
"I have found Posit’s integration with R, such as the autocomplete feature and the help panel, to be invaluable."
"Overall, I think Posit is a stable product."
"The most valuable feature of Posit is that it allows users to host different models in one place, making it easy to share with colleagues and teammates."
 

Cons

"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)."
"They should provide improved visual reporting."
"There are some problems with how Cognos handles huge data sets and when connecting with multiple sources and searching the data."
"The technical support team’s response time is slow and needs to be improved."
"It could have more options for themes."
"The charts and graphics are weak."
"I would like for the platform to become more standard. If we make a development on our report and our dashboard, it will not be used in another solution. That means there is no portability for the developers."
"I would like to see improvements in SSH capabilities."
"Posit lacks a smooth solution for the build and release pipeline, requiring duplicate effort for production transitions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is affordable."
"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."
"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 averagely priced."
"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."
"Pricing should be improved."
"It is quite pricy. I think Microsoft BI is cheaper. Tableau might also be cheaper, but it also depends on the usage. If you have very many users, Cognos can be a problem. It could be cheaper than Tableau but not for so many users. If you have a few thousand users, Tableau, which is generally quite expensive, can be cheaper than Cognos."
"The pricing and licensing policies are comparatively cheaper than other products in the market ."
Information not available
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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%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise86
No data available
 

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 is your primary use case for Posit?
I use Posit for both Posit Connect and Posit Workbench. The Workbench is used for development, as there are many packages not supported by RStudio because I didn't have RStudio Pro. Posit Connect i...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Posit?
RStudio Pro and Workbench are quite expensive. Workbench is especially costly because it supports multiple sessions, so there's a strategy to use it only during full-phase development, then switch ...
What needs improvement with Posit?
Posit lacks a smooth solution for the build and release pipeline. Its documentation is weak, which can make installation cumbersome for someone without terminal experience. Additionally, there are ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
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.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Cognos vs. Posit and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
880,954 professionals have used our research since 2012.