IBM Planning Analytics vs IBM Watson Explorer vs Microsoft Power BI comparison

The compared IBM Planning Analytics and IBM Watson Explorer solutions aren't in the same category. IBM Planning Analytics is ranked #4 in BPM , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 6.4% mindshare in the category. IBM Watson Explorer is ranked #11 in DM , and holds a 2.1% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of IBM Planning Analytics users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of IBM Watson Explorer users who would recommend it.

IBM Planning Analytics

Read 25 IBM Planning Analytics reviews

3,292 Views
1,317 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

IBM Watson Explorer

Read 10 IBM Watson Explorer reviews

565 Views
90 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Power BI

Read 326 Microsoft Power BI reviews

23,400 Views
14,274 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

IBM Planning Analytics

IBM Watson Explorer

Microsoft Power BI

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM Planning Analytics, IBM Watson Explorer, and Microsoft Power BI based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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To learn more, read our detailed Business Performance Management Report (Updated: September 2025).

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Business Performance Management

September 2025

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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:

Mindshare comparison

Business Performance Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM Planning Analytics	6.4%
Anaplan	10.3%
Oracle Hyperion	8.1%
Other	75.19999999999999%

Business Performance Management

Data Mining Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM Watson Explorer	2.1%
KNIME Business Hub	22.1%
IBM SPSS Modeler	15.7%
Other	60.099999999999994%

Data Mining

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Power BI	14.5%
Tableau Enterprise	11.0%
Amazon QuickSight	4.9%
Other	69.6%

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Featured Reviews

Gnanavel-Chakkarapani

Junior Consultant at CMA CGM

Can easily create dashboards and helps businesses improve forecasting accuracy

The product has improved our company's forecasting accuracy since it serves as a very useful tool for our sales and controller teams as they easily get to enter the inputs using views in TM1, which gets loaded into our main database. If there are sales team members in different parts of the world, like in Hong Kong and Singapore, they may prefer to use IBM Planning Analytics, which is easy to use when compared to the Excel tool. Speaking about planning analytics and data analysis, I would say that our company used to use IBM Cognos Analytics for reporting, where we used to use Cognos Dynamic Cubes so that users can easily use its drag and drop features while getting to see the data for which the users had to wait for two to three minutes prior to its use. In our company, tons of data are loaded into the memory, and users can use Cognos Dynamic Cubes to analyze data and understand it. The AI capabilities of IBM have benefited our planning strategy as they are very useful for business. The tool allows the easy creation of dashboard reports using AI capabilities. No technical knowledge is required for business use cases. It is possible to integrate the product in scenarios where some new integrations are available. I remember that my company used Azure Data Factory to connect Azure, Oracle, and IBM WebSphere Application Server. When it comes to IBM Planning Analytics, it is complex to integrate it with LDAP and or any other authentication tool offered by Microsoft. In our company, some users like to integrate IBM Planning Analytics with the common LDAP or Microsoft AD, which we currently use for all our applications. The authentication part is difficult to configure with IBM Planning Analytics. The maintenance of the product is easy. My company has scheduled maintenance on the product every week, especially during forecast times, so that memories automatically lapse and users can freely access their servers. The use of the tool has had an impact on collaboration within our company's planning team since everyone knows how to easily access the data and publish the results. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

Read full review

it_user1319820

Lead Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

A data analysis tool that is scalable and includes keyword search functionality

The solution is used for a government company for data collection and analysis I have found the auto-generated document very useful as well as the main keywords that are highlighted, which are used for the search functionality within IBM Watson Explorer. I have been using the solution for five…

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Shoury Priyanshu

Senior Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd

Facilitates seamless data aggregation with some outdated visual elements hindering user appeal

Real-time data integration is an area for improvement. Although I've worked on several solutions involving real-time integration, it's not very user-friendly and often lags, especially with over a million data rows. This makes Power BI difficult to manage as loading times can reach one or two minutes, which is problematic today. There are challenges with scalability, requiring multiple pages in dashboards to manage these issues. Visualization could be improved as it appears outdated. Users, especially newcomers, find it unappealing and not user-friendly.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of IBM Planning Analytics for streamlining planning processes include a unified database where all data are centralized."

"The flexibility of IBM Planning Analytics is a great feature of this solution. The design flexibility with data rules and defining calculations The ability to combine online and offline calculations are a benefit. Additionally, the forecasting features and predictive analytics is very good."

"The ease of use is valuable. The fact that it's plugged into Excel spreadsheets is also valuable. It provides additional functionality where you can slice and dice the information in a way that you can't do with spreadsheets"

"The tool is flexible."

"The product's stability is good."

"It's a very stable, robust product."

"IBM Planning Analytics can help us build scenarios through a sandbox environment, allowing us to test multiple variables and assess their impact on our budget and planning."

"This level of stability is crucial for a product like Cognos TM1, as using an unstable platform would result in loss of time."

More IBM Planning Analytics pros

"The valuable feature of Watson Explorer for us is data entities, and to see the hidden insights from within unstructured data."

"For me, as a user, the most valuable feature is the ability to ingest and then retrieve information from a range of separate sources; the ability to dissect questions in context and actually answer them."

"I have found the auto-generated document very useful as well as the main keywords that are highlighted, which are used for the search functionality within IBM Watson Explorer."

"The ability to easily pull together lots of different pieces of information and drill down in a smarter way than has been possible with other analytics tools is key. Watson is all based on a set of AI and deep learning, machine-learning capabilities, and it is looking behind the scenes at some relationships that you likely would not have spotted on your own. It's pulling things together, categorizing some things, that are not something that you might have seen on your own."

"Ease of use is pretty good as is the standardization of not actually having to have my own natural learning algorithms, just to use the Watson APIs."

"We take natural language that was happening in our repositories and our application and then feed it to the Watson APIs. We receive JSON payloads as an API response to get cognitive feedback from the repository data."

"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten."

"Premium features that used to cost $5,000 per company per month recently became a lot more accessible. Microsoft recently implemented a per user feature in Power BI Premium; it's $20 per month."

"It is easy to use. It has got a desktop where people can develop their own dashboards. Basically, we have figured out how to connect finance contracts and all programs for the government agency. So, they can see everything in a dashboard. So, it is very easy to use from a technical standpoint of view."

"Good CS and administration."

"You can learn a lot of things quickly using resources like ChatGPT or Microsoft's own solutions, which are very helpful within the Microsoft ecosystem."

"The way data is presented is very valuable. The amount of information that we can get at a glance is also valuable. You can then drill-down and see data from many different angles in the same chart by selecting certain things. Based on the selection, everything changes automatically. If we have four parameters in a particular item, when you select a parameter, the remaining charts on that page automatically change for that particular parameter."

"The visuals are great and make everything look very professional. We can change the look and feel or manipulate the data according to our requirements. It's extremely flexible."

"Very intuitive and easy to use."

More Microsoft Power BI pros

Cons

"Adding predefined templates could be beneficial."

"The tool's transport layer could be improved when promoting development between environments."

"It is a bit expensive, but it does the job."

"If we talk only about the TM1 engine, it's quite rich and possibly too rich, making it complex to perform simple tasks."

"The dashboard is very poor and needs a lot of improvement."

"Extracting data is a little slow."

"The local authentication part is difficult to manage in the product, making it an area where improvements are required."

"The workspace API should be improved and documented so we know better which objects are used."

More IBM Planning Analytics cons

"Much of IBM operates this way, where they have sets of tools that are in the middleware space, and it becomes the customer's responsibility or the business partner's responsibility to develop full solutions that take advantage of that middleware. I think IBM's finding itself in that spot with Watson-related technologies as well, where the capabilities to do really interesting and useful things for customers is there, but somebody still has to build it. Is that going to be the customer? Are they going to be willing to take on that responsibility themselves"

"Stability is actually one of the areas that could use improvement. Setting it up is always tough. Setting Explorer requires experts, but also the underlying platform is not that stable. So it really needs a good expert to keep it running."

"I would say, give some kind of a community edition, a free edition. A lot of companies do, even Amazon gives you some kind of trial and error opportunities. If they could provide something like that, it would be good."

"The solution is expensive."

"More cognitive feedback would be good. The natural language analysis is great, the sentiment analyzers are great. But I would just like to see more... innovation done with the Watson platform."

"Small businesses will probably have a little harder time getting into it, just because of the amount of resources that they have available, both financial and time, but it really is a solution that should work for them."

"It is a little bit tricky to get used to the workflow of knowing how to train Watson, what can be provided, what can't be, how to provide it, how to import, export, and what it means every time you have to add a new dictionary"

"It needs better language support, to include some other languages. Also, they should improve the user interface."

"The issue with the data refresh frequency in Microsoft Power BI is that it's not frequent enough."

"The solution struggles with large amounts of data."

"There are some limitations in Power BI; you have to work in the Power BI base. However, if you want something not out-of-the-box and you want something custom, you have to do a lot of work."

"Its setup and support should be improved. We would like to see more material for developers that provides clear explanations about how we can do data mining by using Microsoft BI. It would also be good if we can connect a feature to other customized machine learning solutions."

"It is not yet ready for enterprises. For a big enterprise data model, it is not so stable, and it also doesn't scale so well."

"SSMS & SSRS."

"This solution needs integration with SAS and more deep analysis functionality."

"It is getting better but still, there are opportunity areas in some aspects, especially the Windows OS dependency."

More Microsoft Power BI cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license of this solution is paid annually. Most of my customers choose a license that includes support."

"IBM Planning Analytics is priced well, and licensing costs are yearly."

"IBM Planning Analytics is not the cheapest solution, but it's priced per the market standard for this type of solution. I rate the price at seven out of ten."

"Our licensing cost is approximately $50,000.00 per year."

"It is a bit expensive, but you get what you are paying for."

"I would rate the tool's pricing a nine out of ten since it's expensive."

"Compared with the other tools in the market, IBM Planning Analytics is a bit expensive."

"The solution is expensive."

"We have enterprise licenses and some of the other tools or features come as a package and others you have to purchase separately."

"Paid for itself in the first month."

"Microsoft BI is considered to be competitively priced when compared to other similar solutions in the market."

"I think it's a good price, from what I've heard. I know it's competitive with other Power BI tools."

"We are end-users, and we don't take care of the prices and accounting. We get a product and pay the fee to our internal service provider, but its price should be reasonable. Otherwise, they wouldn't have bought it."

"The only other cost, besides the licensing fee, would be to cover support."

"There is a license for this solution and we purchase them annually."

"Its licensing cost is very high. It is $20 per user, which is very high, but it is a good product, so you pay for it."

More Microsoft Power BI pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user79932

Senior Manager - BI Head at NVidia

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

16%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Retailer

Computer Software Company

Educational Organization

14%

Performing Arts

12%

University

10%

Recreational Facilities/Services Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	7

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	7

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	134
Midsize Enterprise	57
Large Enterprise	165

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Planning Analytics?

The most valuable features of IBM Planning Analytics for streamlining planning processes include a unified database w...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Planning Analytics?

While IBM's solutions were costly before, the introduction of SaaS models has reduced prices significantly. Comparati...

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What needs improvement with IBM Planning Analytics?

IBM is behind competitors like Tableau ( /products/tableau-reviews ) and Power BI in terms of visualization. Their vi...

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Seeking lightweight open source BI software

There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I wou...

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Is Power BI a complete platform or only a visualization tool?

Power BI is an advanced visualization tool oriented to big data with a very complete set of widgets to visualize info...

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How does Oracle OBIEE compare with Microsoft BI?

Oracle OBIEE is great in allowing design and creativity per the individual needs of the organization. Dashboards are ...

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Comparisons

SAP Analytics Cloud vs IBM Planning Analytics

Compared 17% of the time

Anaplan vs IBM Planning Analytics

Compared 10% of the time

Jedox vs IBM Planning Analytics

Compared 7% of the time

IBM Cognos vs IBM Planning Analytics

Compared 7% of the time

Oracle Hyperion vs IBM Planning Analytics

Compared 7% of the time

More IBM Planning Analytics Competitors

Tableau Enterprise vs IBM Watson Explorer

Compared 31% of the time

Salesforce Einstein Analytics vs IBM Watson Explorer

Compared 25% of the time

Izenda vs IBM Watson Explorer

Compared 13% of the time

More IBM Watson Explorer Competitors

Tableau Enterprise vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 13% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 10% of the time

Databricks vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 7% of the time

Domo vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 7% of the time

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Power BI Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Planning Analytics

September 2025

Download IBM Planning Analytics product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Watson Explorer

September 2025

Download IBM Watson Explorer product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI

September 2025

Download Microsoft Power BI product report

Also Known As

Cognos TM1, IBM Cognos TM1

IBM WEX

SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI

Overview

IBM Planning Analytics is an integrated planning solution that uses AI to automate planning, budgeting, and forecasting and drive more intelligent workflows.

Built on TM1, IBM’s powerful calculation engine, this enterprise performance management tool allows you to transcend the limits of manual planning and become the Analytics Hero your business needs. Quickly and easily drive faster, more accurate plans for FP&A, sales, supply chain and beyond.

IBM

IBM Watson Explorer is a cognitive exploration and content analysis platform that lets you listen to your data for advice. Explore and analyze structured, unstructured, internal, external and public content to uncover trends and patterns that improve decision-making, customer service and ROI. Leverage built-in cognitive capabilities powered by machine learning models, natural language processing and next-generation APIs to unlock hidden value in all your data. Gain a secure 360-degree view of customers, in context, to deliver better experiences for your clients.

IBM

Microsoft Power BI is a powerful tool for data analysis and visualization. This tool stands out for its ability to merge and analyze data from various sources. Widely adopted across different industries and departments, Power BI is instrumental in creating visually appealing dashboards and generating insightful business intelligence reports. Its intuitive interface, robust visualization capabilities, and seamless integration with other Microsoft applications empower users to easily create interactive reports and gain valuable insights.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

ManpowerGroup, Convergys, AIG, Orchard Brands, Citibank, InterGen, Northwestern University, EF Education First, Ironside, Bazan Group, CSOB Insurance, Macquarie Group, Charles Stanley, SATO, Government of Sint Maarten, BMW Financial Services

RIMAC, Westpac New Zealand, Toyota Financial Services, Swiss Re, Akershus University Hospital, Korean Air Lines, Mizuho Bank, Honda

Accenture Adidas Aetna AIG Airbus Alibaba Allstate Amazon American Express Aon AT&T Audi Bank of America BASF Bayer Berkshire Hathaway Boeing Coca-Cola Comcast Cisco Coca-Cola Dell Disney Emirates Equinix FedEx Ford GE Google H&M Home Depot Honda IBM Intel JPMorgan Chase Kellogg's Kroger L'Oréal McDonald's Merck MetLife Microsoft Nike Oracle P&G PepsiCo Procter & Gamble Prudential Financial SAP Siemens Snapchat Spotify Starbucks Target Toyota T-Mobile Unilever Visa Walmart WeWork World Bank Xerox

Buyer's Guide

Business Performance Management

September 2025

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