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.
"We are able to generate quality reports easily which allows us to decrease response time."
"The initial setup is very straightforward."
"One of the strong suits of Cognos is its robust corporate reporting capability."
"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."
"The Report Studio that is aimed at professional report writers."
"The most valuable feature is developing reports from different data sources, making it a reliable data source."
"Report Studio: This is the most powerful and sophisticated tool for professional reporting."
"The most valuable features are Report Development (Functionality) and Information Distribution (Flexibility)."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Power BI is the drill-through feature that takes you to a details page the users want to see."
"I also find connecting to different data sources is quite simple. Other solutions we were using before were complicated."
"It offers a lot of information and is very flexible and interactive."
"The flexibility of the program is valuable. We are able to add other information to the reporting information and expand upon it."
"The use of graphics to show and view the data indicators is the most valuable feature. It is also very stable."
"Its visualizations and dashboards are most valuable. Power BI is great in terms of visualizations and dashboards. The reports that we previously had were not very nice in terms of visualization. It also provides the ability to play with the data."
"It's a pretty scalable product."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"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."
"Chart quality: many other competitors have charts and graphics that look much better and that provide dynamic effects. Cognos doesn't."
"The high cost of a license makes it hard to scale up on a budget."
"IBM Support can be slow at times, but they can usually deliver in a timely manner."
"The charts and graphics are weak."
"I think the GIS pieces maybe not as good as we would like."
"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."
"Extending features on dashboards so it becomes a real dashboard building application, not only a data exploration tool."
"I have to write scripts to query data for analyzing performance."
"The reporting needs to be improved."
"In Microsoft Excel, you are able to have tabs. However, in Microsoft BI you do not have this flexibility."
"I would like for the next release to have better desktop performance, especially for big databases. Additionally, I would like to have more integrations with programs like Salesforce in order to get more live data coming in."
"Adding paginated reports to this tool could be of great help for users who want to move away from SSRS."
"The dashboard could be simplified."
"I would like to see integration with Excel."
"The reporting part of Microsoft BI is rather limited compared to other reporting tools."
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.