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 initial setup process is easy."
"We use the account statement report. When you use an account in HSBC, you receive various types of accounts, such as the stock market, fixed accounts, credit cards, and business accounts. We can create one consolidated report called CCS support, which includes all these accounts. In that statement, we are consolidating all those accounts."
"Cognos is the best application with dashboards,batch reporting, jobs, events and ad-hoc reporting for business users."
"Security administration tools are powerful and flexible."
"The most valuable feature is developing reports from different data sources, making it a reliable data source."
"Integration with Office can enable the 'download' mode of storytelling."
"Using custom controls, it is possible to extend the application with even more functionality and make the application intuitive and attractive."
"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."
"Easy to use and the visualization is valuable."
"It's a pretty scalable product."
"Provides data feeds for enterprise KPI reporting."
"What I like most is that I can do everything in Power BI that I can do in Excel."
"In the early stage of an implementation, it not only helps decision making, but it allows people to have insight into problems with data so that they can go and get it corrected."
"When we are introducing Microsoft BI to our clients, if they're familiar with Excel, the transition phase will be much easier for them. They can easily switch from Microsoft Excel to Microsoft BI. The core foundation or the base technology is the same in both tools. There are a few limitations in Microsoft Excel, and this is where Microsoft BI comes in."
"The solution is easy to use and flexible."
"We find the solution offers good stability."
"Extending dynamic cubes aggregate awareness with calculated measures."
"The tool needs to improve the connectivity since I see that, at times, there is a need to increase the memory in the database."
"I would like for the platform to become more standard. If we make a development on our report and our dashboard, it will not be used in another solution. That means there is no portability for the developers."
"The visualization aspect needs to be improved and I believe, this is being resolved in upcoming versions."
"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."
"The technical support team’s response time is slow and needs to be improved."
"Chart quality: many other competitors have charts and graphics that look much better and that provide dynamic effects. Cognos doesn't."
"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."
"Real-time updating needs improvement."
"I think that they can add more types of charts because the selection on the desktop version is limited."
"In my opinion, the software is a little bit limited in terms of the flexibility it offers, with regard to the design of the visualization."
"The integration with other solutions could be improved for reporting aspects."
"The smart phone application could be improved, along with better graphics and faster updating."
"I would like to see some AI incorporated into this solution in the future."
"It is getting better but still, there are opportunity areas in some aspects, especially the Windows OS dependency."
"The solution could use a faster speed on certain interactions and a refresh of the dashboards."
IBM Cognos is ranked 4th in Reporting with 131 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.