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IBM Cognos vs Workday Prism 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:
 

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 (5th)
Workday Prism Analytics
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
17th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 2.2%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Workday Prism Analytics is 1.6%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Cognos2.2%
Workday Prism Analytics1.6%
Other96.2%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Robert Thorpe - PeerSpot reviewer
Robust platform delivers excellent reports and insights while needing improvement in self-service capabilities
Our clients utilize IBM Cognos mainly for static reporting, board packs, business reporting, and insights IBM Cognos is a robust governed platform with significant security features and provides excellent graphics and reporting. One of our customers can get a full company update on a Monday…
Sarvesh Kumar Jha - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I have worked on the features like dashboards and stories, and I do like them a lot."
"We are able to generate quality reports easily which allows us to decrease response time."
"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."
"One of the strong suits of Cognos is its robust corporate reporting capability."
"The dashboarding offered by this solution is very valuable to us."
"The tool can join data from different sources, write back to databases, generate alerts, and be customized to our preferences. It's an enterprise BI tool that's more powerful than just visualization tools like Power BI or Tableau."
"The initial setup is quite straightforward."
"The product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report."
"The customer service and support are pretty good."
"Feature-wise, I feel that the solution's stability is good."
"The product is easier to use compared to other applications."
"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."
 

Cons

"The performance is a bottleneck and something that can be improved."
"The charts and graphics are weak."
"The tool needs to improve the connectivity since I see that, at times, there is a need to increase the memory in the database."
"I would like to have predictive and forecasting capabilities in Cognos. It's one thing to do reporting, and another thing to easily predict or forecast certain data points, which is very important for all the clients."
"I need improvements, particularly with the Framework Manager, which has an outdated user interface from older versions like IBM Cognos 10 or 8. Additionally, the Event Studio, which offered great flexibility in previous versions, is no longer available in IBM Cognos Analytics 12. These are areas that could be improved to enhance the product."
"It could have more options for themes."
"The technical support team’s response time is slow and needs to be improved."
"There is room for improvement in self-service analytics and predictiveness."
"The visualization techniques must be upgraded."
"One area for improvement in the solution is the ability to manually update individual rows or columns of data once it has been uploaded."
"When you create certain objects, a lot of the time, the fields are text. They’re not numeric, date, or any other field type"
"There is not much flexibility in how we can add external data within Workday Prisma Analytics."
"It is not a very scalable product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing should be improved."
"On a scale from one to ten where one is low pricing and ten is high pricing, I would rate this solution at eight."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"It is my understanding that the cost is very low. It's not very expensive."
"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."
"Based on whatever I have heard, Workday Prism Analytics is considered an expensive tool."
"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."
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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%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
8%
Insurance Company
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise83
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 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.
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...
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...
 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
Prism Analytics
 

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.
Denny's
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Cognos vs. Workday Prism Analytics and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
870,623 professionals have used our research since 2012.