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IBM Cognos vs Sigma 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
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (6th)
Sigma
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
16th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 3.1%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sigma is 1.8%, up from 0.8% 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.
Russell Rothstein - PeerSpot reviewer
Modern dashboards and reports enhance decision-making and presentations
I would love to be able to create my own reports in Sigma, as I can do in Salesforce. Either we are not using it properly, or the software is too complicated. It would be great if there was a way for me to create reports without relying on a data analyst. I'm interested in the upcoming AI co-pilot to enable natural language generation of visualizations and reports. Also, the marketing materials did not match what I feel we've received. Regarding pricing, Sigma's pricing doesn't allow more people to have the ability to create their own reports. We have very few admin or report creator licenses, while everyone else is on a view-only mode.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"IBM Cognos is a robust governed platform with significant security features and provides excellent graphics and reporting."
"In terms of stability, I think that Cognos is more stable than Tableau and Power Bi because of its framework manager concept that allows us to import metadata and store it in the framework manager."
"The dashboarding offered by this solution is very valuable to us."
"Cognos' most valuable features are the bundled studios, simple UI, and advanced features like the ability to create data modules."
"The comprehensiveness or broadness of the software functions or business intelligence functions that it provides is valuable. It is also quite easy to use and user-friendly."
"It is a stable product."
"The initial setup is quite straightforward."
"The correlation analysis is excellent. It's one of the best that I have used to date."
"Sigma is a great software for non-technical business users. If someone's familiar with pivot tables or Excel or Google Sheets, they should be able to pick up Sigma pretty quickly. There is a very low bar for onboarding."
"Sigma has excellent features, such as lookup tables where you can easily bring data that are not interrelated or at different granularity."
"Sigma serves as the visualization and reporting front end."
"The most valuable feature of Sigma is the detailed reports."
"The tool's interface is easy to use. The functions listed as a part of the menu items are easy to use."
"I find the collaborative features, such as commenting, to be very valuable."
"The most valuable feature of Sigma is the detailed reports."
"The most valuable aspect for me is having real-time data."
 

Cons

"It would be nice to offer free online training on the tool for end-users."
"One key area for improvement is the need to improve the self-service nature and functionality of the product in terms of visual analytics."
"The data uploads that we do, such as Excel files, have a lot of restrictions. If we can make it a bit more user-friendly, allowing us to have more flexibility it would be a great help."
"The performance is a bottleneck and something that can be improved."
"There is room for improvement in self-service analytics and predictiveness."
"Data modeling needs to be improved. We use the ETL process, and when we get errors, we then need to identify which structural change is required. The error messaging should be better. They should be descriptive rather than semantic."
"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."
"Extending features on dashboards so it becomes a real dashboard building application, not only a data exploration tool."
"I would like to see better visualization options. That would allow me to build out more visually pleasing dashboarding in Sigma."
"Sigma could have better reports."
"The product's roadmap regarding introducing new features in the solution or new versions of the tool can be made better in the future."
"Either we are not using it properly, or the software is too complicated. It would be great if there was a way for me to create reports without relying on a data analyst."
"Sigma could have better reports."
"Sigma lacks a versioning feature to track changes. There is a need for better structuring, like a folder system, to organize diagrams efficiently."
"The only minor area for improvement lies in handling highly complex visualizations."
"The main improvement needed is in data modeling capabilities. If they add those features in the near future, it would be very helpful for us to implement the same or do the data cleansing part in the Sigma tool itself."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of this product is meant for medium to large-scale enterprises."
"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."
"Cognos is super expensive compared to Tableau ($70/month) and Power BI ($20/month) — I think Cognos is roughly $200 a month."
"The cost of IBM Cognos it's more or less the same as most of the other solutions on the market. They're very competitive with the rest of the market and it is not the most expensive product."
"IBM Cognos offers competitive pricing similar to other BI vendors in the market."
"It is averagely priced."
"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."
"The pricing and licensing policies are comparatively cheaper than other products in the market ."
"The retail price is set at one thousand dollars per creator per year."
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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
Financial Services Firm
15%
Insurance Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 do you like most about Sigma?
The tool's interface is easy to use. The functions listed as a part of the menu items are easy to use.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sigma?
The pricing of Sigma is a concern, as it restricts our ability to provide more users with report-creating capabilities due to the high cost of admin or report creator licenses. Most users have view...
What needs improvement with Sigma?
I would love to be able to create my own reports in Sigma, as I can do in Salesforce. Either we are not using it properly, or the software is too complicated. It would be great if there was a way f...
 

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.
Snowflake, Fivetran ,Autodesk, Flowspace, Super League Gaming, Zumper, Clover, Volta, Olivela
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Cognos vs. Sigma and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.