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.
"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 initial setup is very straightforward."
"Cognos' most valuable features are the bundled studios, simple UI, and advanced features like the ability to create data modules."
"I have worked on the features like dashboards and stories, and I do like them a lot."
"IBM Cognos offers tools so that you can design and develop your own test queries and reporting solutions."
"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."
"A drag-and-drop interface for selecting creating ad hoc reports makes this product very easy to use."
"If they want dashboarding, storytelling, and analyzing why KPIs are met or not, then Cognos is a better candidate than Qlik Sense."
"Considering that it's Microsoft, it can be integrated with the Power Platform, which is also Microsoft-based, like SharePoint, Power apps, Power Automate, and Power BI, which is the most user-friendly."
"It is a little easier at buildings charts and graphs than Tableau."
"What Power BI is, is a whole collection of templates of small amounts of data that can be used to do something for a real world project, that can be easily set up and become the business intelligence environment or a data warehouse for a large amount of data, for a real world customer. That's what is remarkable."
"It's the analytic engine in terms of the interface on the Power BI environment, as opposed to pivot tables, and it's a mobile solution."
"The most valuable feature would be the abundance of connectors. It is also easy to use."
"Microsoft BI is scalable."
"It allows individuals to do the analysis themselves."
"The virtualization of Microsoft BI is very good."
"We would like to see development of the product's UI function, to make it more of a UI tool that can be configured as required."
"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."
"This product could use improvement in terms of usability for those with less technical know how."
"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."
"Extending features on dashboards so it becomes a real dashboard building application, not only a data exploration tool."
"The tool needs to improve the connectivity since I see that, at times, there is a need to increase the memory in the database."
"Data modeling needs to be improved. We use the ETL process, and when we get errors, we then need to identify which structural change is required. The error messaging should be better. They should be descriptive rather than semantic."
"Chart quality: many other competitors have charts and graphics that look much better and that provide dynamic effects. Cognos doesn't."
"Microsoft BI's visualization could be better. Though Power BI's visualization has steadily improved over the years, it's not on the level tools like Tableau and SAS or some of the more expensive products on the market."
"We have used other solutions and the reporting functionality should be user-friendly and have a drag and drop feature should be available, but Microsoft BI doesn't have these features. When you are creating reports and you can't change as a user. Every time you need one developer or one technical person to make the changes."
"If you need data in real-time, it's not an ideal solution."
"Defining a relationship was very confusing. There were circular directions for which I had to do a lot of adjustments in the data. They can do something to make it easier."
"The look and feel should be updated in terms of the types of dashboards and graphs that you can produce. They aren't as visual as some of its competitors."
"The maps in Power BI could be improved. You deal with many maps over the years, like maps of America and Saudi Arabia. The maps aren't detailed enough, and there aren't enough visualization tools. Whenever I want to use a map, I struggle with choosing the right visualization."
"Microsoft BI lacks integration capabilities, so it needs to consider increasing its integration capabilities."
"Areas of Power BI that could be improved are the learning curve for developers who come from non-technical backgrounds."
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.