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.
"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."
"It has a very powerful edit feature which allows users to back out of changes (undo) without forcing them to recreate entire reports."
"Integration with Office can enable the 'download' mode of storytelling."
"The solution's initial setup process is easy."
"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."
"We are able to generate quality reports easily which allows us to decrease response time."
"This solution allows you to input a wide range of file formats."
"Constant collaboration is the most valuable. I can build a dashboard, and several co-workers can access this dashboard. We can share information that is important for decision-making. It is a very easy-to-deploy solution. It is compatible with a lot of data sources. It is also very stable and scalable. There is also a very good forum and a lot of help and online training."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"It is low-cost and easy to deploy. It is fully-featured."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft BI are its intuitiveness and ease to use."
"With Power BI, you're able to store your data within spreadsheets and SharePoints, and then have Power BI pull the data out and report on it. So we actually saved a ton of money not needing to load the data into databases, which is a big prerequisite for many other reporting tools."
"Most of the clients I am interacting with are looking towards Power BI because of the cost and simplicities. It provides an entire feature set and a complete solution. It has tight integration with Office 365, Dynamics 365, Microsoft Technology Stack, and datatypes like R and Python."
"The best feature of this solution is the way you can plan, communicate, and visualize all the knowledge you extract from the data for the customers. I like the way you can show or visualize the information a client needs to answer a business question."
"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."
"In terms of what could be improved, I would say, monitoring, monitoring, monitoring. Some improvements in monitoring would be helpful. I'd like to see more monitoring of specific reports and fields. The way the auditing is now is very limited, so I'd like to see more of that - of the monitoring."
"The performance is a bottleneck and something that can be improved."
"Cognos is quite slow - it's missing the performance of the PowerPlay cubes."
"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."
"Chart quality: many other competitors have charts and graphics that look much better and that provide dynamic effects. Cognos doesn't."
"I would like them to reinclude PowerPlay. One thing that I am missing in the current Cognos is what was formally named PowerPlay. They have basically removed PowerPlay from it, which is something that I fail to understand because it was the most wonderful tool for business intelligence that I've ever used. As far as I know, they don't provide this functionality anymore, so this is one thing that I dislike about Cognos."
"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 solution could use a faster speed on certain interactions and a refresh of the dashboards."
"It needs an AI which can choose the appropriate connection strings and provide options for connections."
"Maybe they can enhance the UI a bit. Right now, it's very basic, I would say, compared to the MicroStrategy or Qlik."
"There are some other visuals that are available in the Microsoft marketplace, however, you need to use them via trial and error. There needs to be a write-up about how to use them with a quick guide describing the visual."
"They can improve it in terms of rule-based security. Currently, it has very limited rules."
"It is easy enough. I don't see any real substantial improvements that are needed. It is great as it is, but its interface could be a bit modern."
"There are some problems with the functionality of this solution. The dashboard is not very user friendly and is quite complicated."
"If you have to pull multiple data sources performance is somewhat lacking."
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.