We performed a comparison between IBM Cognos and Microsoft BI based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Microsoft BI has a slight edge in this comparison. According to its reviewers, it is a more lightweight solution than IBM Cognos.
"I have worked on the features like dashboards and stories, and I do like them a lot."
"It has a very powerful edit feature which allows users to back out of changes (undo) without forcing them to recreate entire reports."
"The main difference that I like about Cognos compared to other solutions is its data splitting functionality. We have all our company data inside the Cognos environment and so we prefer to split the information Cognos itself. It's more efficient this way."
"If they want dashboarding, storytelling, and analyzing why KPIs are met or not, then Cognos is a better candidate than Qlik Sense."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"IBM Cognos is an excellent solution for tax, planning, budgeting, profit and loss statements and balance sheets."
"Cognos' most valuable features are the bundled studios, simple UI, and advanced features like the ability to create data modules."
"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."
"Power BI stands out because it provides considerable flexibility in creating reports, dashboards, and various types of analytics to meet those dynamic requirements. It is lightweight and easy to use with good support."
"The most interesting feature of Microsoft Power BI is that it's very user-friendly."
"It's a very easy-to-use solution."
"The dashboards of Microsoft BI are easy to use."
"The amount of customization that you can do is good, and it's relatively straightforward to do."
"Microsoft BI's initial setup is very straightforward."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is an easy-to-use tool."
"The solution is easy to use and flexible."
"I think the GIS pieces maybe not as good as we would like."
"I would like to see the introduction of mapbooks for supporting some geographical information."
"One thing that we really want is the ability to have data portrayed on an image. Cognos is not able to do it at the moment, and that's becoming a requirement from the business side: having an image and then plotting your dataset on top of the image as a map."
"The performance is a bottleneck and something that can be improved."
"Chart quality: many other competitors have charts and graphics that look much better and that provide dynamic effects. Cognos doesn't."
"We would like to see development of the product's UI function, to make it more of a UI tool that can be configured as required."
"It would be good if the solution had conditional formatting."
"There are many problems with the product's stability part, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The dashboard could be simplified."
"The solution could improve by simplifying the user interface and adding integration or compatibility with APA."
"The cost of the solution can get high."
"I'm not overly technical, and so I can't really speak to any shortcomings from a technical standpoint."
"I have to write scripts to query data for analyzing performance."
"Microsoft Power BI was born native on the cloud, however, it's quite difficult when it has to connect to on-premise data sources."
"Real-time updating needs improvement."
"I would like to see a change in the premium capacity."
IBM Cognos is ranked 4th in Reporting with 132 reviews while Microsoft Power BI is ranked 1st in Reporting with 297 reviews. IBM Cognos is rated 8.0, while Microsoft Power BI is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of IBM Cognos writes "Improved the quality of our KPIs, while reducing calls to the IT department". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Power BI writes "A complete ecosystem with an builtin ETL tool, good integrations with python and R, and support of DAX and Power Query (M languages)". IBM Cognos is most compared with Oracle OBIEE, Tableau, SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform, Oracle Hyperion and Amazon QuickSight, whereas Microsoft Power BI is most compared with Tableau, Amazon QuickSight, KNIME, Domo and SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform. See our IBM Cognos vs. Microsoft Power BI report.
See our list of best Reporting vendors and best BI (Business Intelligence) Tools vendors.
We monitor all Reporting reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.