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."
"For planning, forecasting, in-boxing, modeling in general and for predicting numbers and doing work analysis, they are excellent."
"Integration with Office can enable the 'download' mode of storytelling."
"Cognos' most valuable features are the bundled studios, simple UI, and advanced features like the ability to create data modules."
"One of the strong suits of Cognos is its robust corporate reporting capability."
"Self-service is possible through the use of dashboards, which are also very intuitive. Stories can be used to pin snapshots, tell the story for meetings, etc."
"The correlation analysis is excellent. It's one of the best that I have used to date."
"This solution allows you to input a wide range of file formats."
"The reports are easy to create."
"I like having the ability to connect Excel files as data inputs."
"I've seen no issues with BI's stability."
"The visualization part and its inclusion in a cloud-based application are valuable features."
"Provides a full platform (database, ETL, reporting, analysis, and so on)"
"I also find connecting to different data sources is quite simple. Other solutions we were using before were complicated."
"It has provided customer purchase patterns and great visualization."
"There is continual improvement year-over-year."
"There are a lot of limitations with the out-of-the-box tool."
"The AI-based features could be further enhanced by the solution."
"The performance is a bottleneck and something that can be improved."
"The solution seems to slow down the servers."
"I would like to see is more easy building, movement in the reports, and dashboard functionality within reporting. Overall more simple elements within reports. If the elements are simple then you don't have to render a full page, but you can move separate parts in the page."
"It would be nice to offer free online training on the tool for end-users."
"It could have more options for themes."
"We need more predictive analytical functions, not only diagnostic or decryptic analytics."
"Integration with products that are not Microsoft could be more improved."
"Their technical support can be better. They normally take too long to escalate and resolve a case."
"Microsoft BI could improve by allowing large-size data sources. We have large data sources, and we have problems loading them in Microsoft BI."
"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."
"I feel the modeling page should be simplified."
"They can improve the user interface a little bit to make it more user-friendly. When creating a dashboard, it is not very user-friendly. You have to click on a certain style and use your keyboard keys to move it. You cannot drag and drop it."
"The Power Query feature needs to be improved to handle large amounts of data. This feature is also slow for large data transfers making it better to use some kind of script."
"One of the more difficult things to do is to export some of the data from Power BI to Excel."
IBM Cognos is ranked 4th in Reporting with 11 reviews while Microsoft Power BI is ranked 1st in Reporting with 22 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 "User friendly, easy to set up and great for analyzing data". IBM Cognos is most compared with Tableau, Oracle OBIEE, SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform, Oracle Hyperion and Amazon QuickSight, whereas Microsoft Power BI is most compared with Tableau, Amazon QuickSight, KNIME, Domo and Databricks. 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.