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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
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (3rd)
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 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 Posit is 0.3%, up from 0.1% 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.
SUBRATADEY - PeerSpot reviewer
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."
"For planning, forecasting, in-boxing, modeling in general and for predicting numbers and doing work analysis, they are excellent."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The most valuable features of IBM Cognos are governance and enterprise reporting."
"The initial setup is quite straightforward."
"Mapbox integration for geospatial analytics down to longitude/latitude layers."
"When it comes to decision-making, the product is very useful and used in many departments since a lot of people prefer the reports to be generated by IBM Cognos."
"I have worked on the features like dashboards and stories, and I do like them a lot."
"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

"They were lacking in the initial phases of development in the area of big data, and they still need to improve that aspect of the product."
"Compared to Tableau and PowerBI, the IBM interface is easier to use. However, the drag-and-drop functionality isn't as straightforward. Formatting is also more challenging in the cloud than in other applications, like Power BI. Also, if you encounter an issue, it takes more time to resolve it on the formatting side."
"The solution's support could be better."
"Extending dynamic cubes aggregate awareness with calculated measures."
"Most of our company's customers want to be able to deploy IBM Cognos on a web application and use it as a desktop application, which is not possible currently."
"IBM Support can be slow at times, but they can usually deliver in a timely manner."
"Tableau and Power BI are faster than Cognos."
"It is a costly product; it is comparatively expensive."
"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

"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."
"It's more expensive than similar solutions like Tableau and Power BI."
"Cognos is super expensive compared to Tableau ($70/month) and Power BI ($20/month) — I think Cognos is roughly $200 a month."
"The solution is affordable."
"The pricing and licensing policies are comparatively cheaper than other products in the market ."
"IBM Cognos is priced reasonable. However, it is more expensive than Power BI and Tableau."
"Pricing should be improved."
"It is my understanding that the cost is very low. It's not very expensive."
Information not available
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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
35%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Insurance Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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?
There is room for improvement in self-service analytics and predictiveness.
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: June 2025.
857,585 professionals have used our research since 2012.