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 solution's most valuable feature is its ease of use, which makes it easily compatible with other tools."
"IBM Cognos improves the effectiveness of the sales team."
"The initial setup is very straightforward."
"When it comes to decision-making, the product is very useful and used in many departments since a lot of people prefer the reports to be generated by IBM Cognos."
"The three IBM Cognos features I find the most valuable are Dynamic Cubes, PowerPlay, and Watson."
"Cognos' most valuable features are the bundled studios, simple UI, and advanced features like the ability to create data modules."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"It's enabled us to report directly from our main application systems. We're removing islands of data and we're removing inefficiencies, where people or small divisions had their own store of information."
"The stability is good."
"My favorite feature is the power query editor, where it can do the data transformations."
"MS SQL & SQL Server Analysis Services."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft BI is its visualization and its ease of use."
"I have found the most valuable feature of this solution is the Natural Language tool."
"Being able to transfer data with the Power Query feature is great for teaching with about one to two hundred rows of data. I am also able to see the relationship between multiple tables and create various sheets and dashboards."
"Like all Microsoft products, it is very easy to set up initially."
"Management reporting solution that's very stable and scalable."
"The solution's support could be better."
"Most of our company's customers want to be able to deploy IBM Cognos on a web application and use it as a desktop application, which is not possible currently."
"They were lacking in the initial phases of development in the area of big data, and they still need to improve that aspect of the product."
"Compared to Tableau and PowerBI, the IBM interface is easier to use. However, the drag-and-drop functionality isn't as straightforward. Formatting is also more challenging in the cloud than in other applications, like Power BI. Also, if you encounter an issue, it takes more time to resolve it on the formatting side."
"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."
"It would be better if it is was easier to implement without extensive training for it."
"There are a lot of limitations with the out-of-the-box tool."
"The reporting could be a bit better."
"Actionable insights could be better."
"There is no column-level security in Microsoft BI, and this is a feature that most of our customers are looking for. That is something that should be implemented."
"In Microsoft Excel, you are able to have tabs. However, in Microsoft BI you do not have this flexibility."
"The default parameters of the prompt could be improved by including a dynamic option."
"The UI is the main improvement that could be made. Specifically, there is something called DAX, in Power BI, which is complicated compared to calculated fields used in Tableau."
"If you have to pull multiple data sources performance is somewhat lacking."
"The look is simple, and could be a little more professional."
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.