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IBM Cognos vs Pyramid Analytics 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.8
IBM Cognos boosts efficiency, saves over $650k annually, improving data insights and operational performance, with varied ROI based on implementation.
Sentiment score
8.0
Finance teams achieve high ROI with Pyramid Analytics, achieving 80% forecast accuracy, benefiting resource planning and data investments.
There is a positive return on the data investment for my clients using Pyramid Analytics.
CEO & Principal Consultant at Pyramid Analytics & Consulting
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.4
IBM Cognos support quality varies, with competent tech support; costs and partner reliance are noted; ratings mostly 6-9.
Sentiment score
8.0
Pyramid Analytics offers highly rated support with quick issue resolution, though some users desire more training materials.
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
I rate technical support from IBM as eight out of ten, indicating a high quality of service.
head of commercial at Assimil8 Ltd.
The one time we had an issue related to something with the logins, they addressed it that morning.
CEO & Principal Consultant at Pyramid Analytics & Consulting
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
IBM Cognos is generally scalable, handling thousands of users, though some face configuration challenges in distributed systems.
Sentiment score
7.1
Pyramid Analytics excels in scalability, supporting diverse data sizes and user numbers, with users rating its integration and performance highly.
It can be scaled out to other teams, but requires building cubes and implementing policies.
head of commercial at Assimil8 Ltd.
Regarding Pyramid Analytics' scalability from what I have seen, with the right people managing it, it can handle growing amounts of data and users well.
CEO & Principal Consultant at Pyramid Analytics & Consulting
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
IBM Cognos is generally stable, with occasional issues due to external factors, poor design, or large queries.
Sentiment score
6.3
Pyramid Analytics' stability varies by user, improving with infrastructure upgrades, with occasional bugs not severely impacting operations.
I rate the stability of this solution as nine out of ten, indicating it is highly stable.
head of commercial at Assimil8 Ltd.
Pyramid Analytics is stable in my experience; there have not really been issues with downtime or bugs.
CEO & Principal Consultant at Pyramid Analytics & Consulting
 

Room For Improvement

IBM Cognos needs better data visualization, simplified database connections, enhanced interface, and improved performance to compete with Tableau.
Pyramid Analytics requires enhancements in data management, user interface, documentation, graphic capabilities, and offers limited training resources.
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.
Senior Data Engineer at LTI LATAM and Toubro Improtech
There is room for improvement in self-service analytics and predictiveness.
head of commercial at Assimil8 Ltd.
We are generally satisfied, but I am not certain if IBM Cognos meets every feature request from users since we only provide IBM Cognos as our standard and do not maintain infrastructure for other tools.
EDW Manager at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
Any advanced user wants to implement an idea that they have, and while the whole idea of a platform is not necessarily to give a custom solution, I would not mind if they had more in terms of AutoML or that sort of capability.
CEO & Principal Consultant at Pyramid Analytics & Consulting
 

Setup Cost

IBM Cognos is costly but valued for features; negotiate near fiscal year-end for discounts, especially through partners.
Pyramid Analytics offers reasonable licensing costs, cost-effective for mid-sized or larger organizations, but may incur additional consulting fees.
I rate pricing as a four, meaning it is more expensive compared to other solutions.
head of commercial at Assimil8 Ltd.
 

Valuable Features

IBM Cognos offers flexible reporting, interactive dashboards, AI insights, and comprehensive BI functions for enhanced decision-making and scalability.
Pyramid Analytics enhances data analysis with advanced features, supporting complex datasets for comprehensive financial reporting and data-driven decisions.
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
IBM Cognos is evaluated and complies fully with all our security standards.
EDW Manager at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
IBM Cognos is a robust governed platform with significant security features and provides excellent graphics and reporting.
head of commercial at Assimil8 Ltd.
After implementing Pyramid Analytics for my clients, I have seen measurable outcomes and specific improvements, such as having a single platform that gets them from the raw data to the endpoint reporting.
CEO & Principal Consultant at Pyramid Analytics & Consulting
 

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)
Pyramid Analytics
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
21st
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (15th)
 

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 Pyramid Analytics is 1.0%, up from 0.7% 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%
Pyramid Analytics1.0%
Other97.7%
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.
Ynazif Nazif - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO & Principal Consultant at Pyramid Analytics & Consulting
Unified data workflows have improved reporting quality and now support better decisions
The best features Pyramid Analytics offers include a broad range of features, which I think is one of the advantages of it. It has a lot of connectors and a lot of different capabilities. I would say end-to-end capabilities is one of the nice features of it. Regarding the end-to-end capabilities and lots of connectors, I found the connectors most valuable. If you are trying to do Snowflake, SQL server, or any of the normal database platforms that you see in the cloud or on-premises, it has those connectors built in. You don't have to worry about writing custom drivers. That is a nice feature to have. Pyramid Analytics has impacted my organization positively in that I use it for my clients' organizations. For my organization, it is great because it gives me a technology platform that clients enjoy using and I am proficient with. For my clients, it is about delivering on their aspirations in terms of what they want to do with their data and where they want to head in their organization. This is definitely a tool that we can use in order to get there. After implementing Pyramid Analytics for my clients, I have seen measurable outcomes and specific improvements, such as having a single platform that gets them from the raw data to the endpoint reporting. I think that streamlining has a positive effect on the quality of the outputs. The quality of the outputs definitely leads to better decision making.
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%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
11%
Insurance Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise86
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise1
 

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 experience regarding pricing and costs for Pyramid Analytics?
Regarding my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Pyramid Analytics, I have to be honest, I did not observe any of it. They already had the platform in place when I got there. Fro...
What needs improvement with Pyramid Analytics?
As for how Pyramid Analytics can be improved, I wish that there was a greater degree of customization available. Any advanced user wants to implement an idea that they have, and while the whole ide...
What is your primary use case for Pyramid Analytics?
I have used Pyramid Analytics at a few different projects. I used it at the VA, at the Department of Health and Human Services, and on a couple smaller projects for some smaller customers that were...
 

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.
US Department of Veterans Affair, Volkswagen, Siemens, Blackboard, Hallmark, Orange, CDW, LA Fitness, Atelier GS, Memorial Healthcare, Acadia Insurance, BancoBic, Advanced Learning, Microsoft, Drake University
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Cognos vs. Pyramid Analytics and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
880,954 professionals have used our research since 2012.