IBM Cognos vs Workday Prism Analytics comparison

IBM and Workday are both solutions in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category. IBM is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.3, while Workday is ranked #16 with an average rating of 9.0. IBM holds a 1.3% mindshare in BIT, compared to Workday’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Workday users who would recommend it.

IBM Cognos

Read 138 IBM Cognos reviews

5,536 Views
2,879 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Workday Prism Analytics

Read 5 Workday Prism Analytics reviews

1,699 Views
1,427 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM Cognos

Workday Prism Analytics

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

IBM Cognos and Workday Prism Analytics compete in analytics and business intelligence. IBM Cognos holds an edge with its flexibility and customization, while Workday Prism Analytics excels in integration with Workday applications, making it more appealing for Workday users despite some limitations in data source integrations.

Features: IBM Cognos provides advanced reporting, customization options, and strong integration with multiple data sources. Workday Prism Analytics offers seamless integration with Workday, simplified data management, and advanced analytics capabilities.

Room for Improvement: IBM Cognos could improve its complex deployment process and required technical resources. It may also benefit from providing faster training for users. Workday Prism Analytics could enhance its data source integration, expand its reporting capabilities, and improve user navigation options to make it more intuitive outside of the Workday environment.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Cognos has a complex deployment model that necessitates significant IT involvement. Workday Prism Analytics, in contrast, offers simpler deployment within Workday ecosystems, with streamlined support and training resources tailored for Workday customers.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Cognos generally involves a higher setup cost due to its robust customization capabilities, but it promises significant ROI through comprehensive analytics over time. Workday Prism Analytics offers a more affordable entry point for existing Workday customers, delivering immediate value, though its ROI strongly relies on existing Workday ecosystem use.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Cognos vs. Workday Prism Analytics Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cognos vs. Workday Prism Analytics

February 2026

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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

138

Ranking in other categories

Reporting (5th)

Workday Prism Analytics

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

16th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 1.3%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Workday Prism Analytics is 1.2%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM Cognos	1.3%
Workday Prism Analytics	1.2%
Other	97.5%

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Featured Reviews

Christine Wanjiru

Sr. Project Manager at GlaxoSmithKline

Reporting workflows have become faster and data-driven decisions are made confidently

The best features IBM Cognos offers include seamless data integration, AI-powered insights, and user-friendly dashboards that really make my job easier. The AI-powered insights help me automatically identify patterns and insights where they enhance analysis depth effortlessly, and this feature has been very instrumental in uncovering variable insights that might have otherwise gone unnoticed. When it comes to seamless data integration, 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. The smooth integration process streamlines workflow efficiency and enhances overall data management practice. I also really love the user-friendly and intuitive dashboards where IBM Cognos Analytics enables quick creation of custom dashboards and an easy understanding of visual data presentation, allowing us to identify trends at a glance and enhance our analytical capabilities. IBM Cognos has positively impacted my organization since implementing this tool, as it has been very helpful with a particularly strong data analysis capability that helps us in business planning. Its strong data analysis capability helps us for business planning, and the great reporting capacity helps update all the leadership management about the business in one report. Auto-scheduling and report generation is a good feature that saves a significant amount of time. Specific outcomes that show how IBM Cognos has helped my organization include saving time, as we have been able to save forty to fifty percent of our time with its auto-scheduling and report generation functionality.

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Sarvesh Kumar Jha

Senior Technology Consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers

Provides great flexibility in terms of data transformation

I really like the flexibility the solution provides in terms of data transformation. Workday introduced Prism Analytics mainly because many clients wanted to merge data from different systems and then work with it to get some insights out of it. For that, they previously used tools like Power BI. Workday Prism Analytics gives you the power to do all the data transformations within Workday itself without taking out crucial data to a third system. I really like the way Workday has enabled Prism Analytics to be that one solution where you can bring everything. It also provides you the flexibility that things like the security model of Workday are still in place. You don't have to redo your security configuration if you do the data transformation outside Workday.

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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."

"Precisely, we have been able to save about 60% of our time from IBM Cognos Analytics, which helps us to make data decisions easily while also saving a lot of time."

"Security administration tools are powerful and flexible."

"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."

"Comparing IBM Cognos to other applications, once a person is trained on it or they have developed a skill set to operate the application, it is best in its category."

"Previously, we were doing static reporting. Management would request a report, and it would take staff a week or more to provide it. With Cognos, we have dynamic reporting, and it has reduced both reporting and decision making times significantly. With the solution's dashboard, the company's management team has updated records at their fingertips. This means that they can directly access the data they need to make decisions."

"We are able to generate quality reports easily which allows us to decrease response time."

"The most valuable feature is developing reports from different data sources, making it a reliable data source."

More IBM Cognos pros

"Feature-wise, I feel that the solution's stability is good."

"The solution is stable and reliable, with minimal issues affecting its performance."

"I really like the flexibility the solution provides in terms of data transformation."

"The product is easier to use compared to other applications."

"The customer service and support are pretty good."

Cons

"IBM Cognos's error messages seem to be a bit ambiguous. An error will be encountered and a message will be sent out very ambiguous and after investigating the error message it could be any number of issues. There was never a direct answer to the question or a direct answer to the error messages. Sometimes it would be a generic error message for 21 different solutions. It wasn't very specific, which required a lot of digging around and trial and error trying to fix the problem. The messaging in their error messaging is something needing improvement."

"There are some problems with how Cognos handles huge data sets and when connecting with multiple sources and searching the data."

"The high cost of a license makes it hard to scale up on a budget."

"There is room for improvement in self-service analytics and predictiveness."

"One area where IBM Cognos falls short is that sometimes the application breaks for no reason many times and is fixed on restart."

"It would be nice to offer free online training on the tool for end-users."

"There are some small features that are missing. It would be nice if the graphics were better. You can use external sources for charts, but it's quite complex to use and not easy to implement. If you want a new chart, you can download it from multiple tools and implement it into IBM Cognos."

"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."

More IBM Cognos cons

"When you create certain objects, a lot of the time, the fields are text. They’re not numeric, date, or any other field type"

"It is not a very scalable product."

"The visualization techniques must be upgraded."

"There is not much flexibility in how we can add external data within Workday Prisma Analytics."

"One area for improvement in the solution is the ability to manually update individual rows or columns of data once it has been uploaded."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"On a scale from one to ten where one is low pricing and ten is high pricing, I would rate this solution at eight."

"It is averagely priced."

"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."

"IBM Cognos price is on the higher side of the spectrum. However, with the features that it brings, such as correlation analysis, it's worth the money. They should look at the pricing more clearly because it's a little on the higher side."

"My company uses IBM Cognos with another IBM product, so I think only one license is used."

"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."

"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."

"There is a standard license required to use this solution. There are some additional tools but I am not sure if they are an extra cost."

More IBM Cognos pricing and cost advice

"The solution is very expensive."

"I do not know of the licensing cost, but there are additional costs like 5,00,000 for recruitment modules."

"Based on whatever I have heard, Workday Prism Analytics is considered an expensive tool."

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Comparison Review

it_user79932

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Insurance Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

11%

Healthcare Company

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	34
Midsize Enterprise	23
Large Enterprise	88

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...

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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.

See all answers

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 ...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Workday Prism Analytics?

Based on whatever I have heard, Workday Prism Analytics is considered an expensive tool. In fact, that has been one of the hindrance factors for Workday in making Prism Analytics more sellable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Workday Prism Analytics?

I think there are still some gaps in the solution. There is not much flexibility in how we can add external data within Workday Prisma Analytics. For now, Workday has enabled the SFTP server and Am...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Workday Prism Analytics?

As a consultant, I use Prism Analytics to implement my client systems. I first have design sessions with them, where we discuss their business gaps and then understand how Workday Prism Analytics c...

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Power BI vs IBM Cognos

Compared 11% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs IBM Cognos

Compared 8% of the time

Oracle Hyperion vs IBM Cognos

Compared 6% of the time

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs IBM Cognos

Compared 5% of the time

SQL Server vs IBM Cognos

Compared 5% of the time

More IBM Cognos Competitors

Microsoft Power BI vs Workday Prism Analytics

Compared 42% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Workday Prism Analytics

Compared 19% of the time

Databricks vs Workday Prism Analytics

Compared 12% of the time

Oracle OBIEE vs Workday Prism Analytics

Compared 7% of the time

SAP Analytics Cloud vs Workday Prism Analytics

Compared 5% of the time

More Workday Prism Analytics Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cognos

January 2026

Download IBM Cognos product report

Buyer's Guide

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

January 2026

Download Workday Prism Analytics product report

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics

Prism Analytics

Overview

IBM Cognos Business Intelligence provides a wide range of tools to help you analyze your organization's data. IBM Cognos BI allows businesses to monitor events and metrics, create and view business reports, and analyze data to help them make effective business decisions.

IBM Cognos applies techniques to describe, summarize, and compare data, and draw conclusions. This allows users to see trends and discover anomalies or variances that may not be evident by simply reading data. Data sources that contain information from different areas of a business can be stored in separate packages. Users can see only information that they have been granted access to, based on their group or role.

IBM Cognos BI consolidates the following business intelligence functions into a single web-based solution:

IBM Cognos Insight: Create personal and managed workspaces for data analysis. Using these interactive workspaces, you can share insight results with managers. Cognos Insight supports write-back, and you can also use these workspaces to capture and integrate management goals, commitments, and forecasts.
IBM Cognos Workspace: With IBM Cognos Workspace, you can create rich, interactive workspaces using IBM Cognos content as well as data from external sources. You can view and open your favorite workspaces and reports, edit content in your workspaces, and share your workspaces via email.
IBM Cognos Analytics: IBM Cognos Analytics utilizes built-in AI and intuitive searches which helps users to quickly create the visualizations and a wide range of reports. Cognos Analytics provides cognitive and managed self-service, enabling you to gain insights from controlled and trusted data.
IBM Cognos Report Studio and IBM Cognos Query Studio: Easily create structured and query reports. IBM Cognos allows users to create application and report templates. In addition, report authors can reuse report objects to apply filters, fields, and styles to reports. Users can set the language of the user interface and report content according to the user's native language.
IBM Cognos Event Studio: Receive notifications of events that occur within your organization in real time. Event Studio enables the creation of agents that detect the occurrence of business events, failures, or anomalies, based on the change of specific events or data conditions. Notification can be sent via email, publication in the portal, or by triggering reports.
IBM Cognos Connection: This is the Web portal for IBM Cognos BI and is the central area for accessing all the IBM Cognos functions. In the web portal, users can schedule and distribute reports, create tasks, administer the server and the access permissions, and more.

Reviews from Real Users

IBM Cognos stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its powerful analysis tool and its reporting capabilities.

Prasad B., a senior software engineer at a financial services firm, notes, “The product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report. We can receive automated reports as well. They are easy to schedule on a weekly or monthly basis. It is very fast. I mean in means of report output, it's very fast compared to the actual clients involved.”

IBM

With Workday Prism Analytics, you can bring data in at scale from any source and prepare, analyze, and securely share it with your organization. The result? You gain all the insights you need to drive better business outcomes.

Workday

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.

Denny's

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cognos vs. Workday Prism Analytics

February 2026

Free Report: IBM Cognos vs. Workday Prism Analytics

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