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.
"Report Studio: This is the most powerful and sophisticated tool for professional reporting."
"We are able to generate quality reports easily which allows us to decrease response time."
"The most valuable feature of IBM Cognos is security. The solution has updated features that other competitors' solutions come out with long after IBM Cognos has had them."
"The initial setup is very straightforward."
"The product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report."
"IBM Cognos is an excellent solution for tax, planning, budgeting, profit and loss statements and balance sheets."
"A drag-and-drop interface for selecting creating ad hoc reports makes this product very easy to use."
"The comprehensiveness or broadness of the software functions or business intelligence functions that it provides is valuable. It is also quite easy to use and user-friendly."
"The Microsoft Power BI app is very good. It's also very flexible."
"The fact that you can visualize items is great."
"Premium features that used to cost $5,000 per company per month recently became a lot more accessible. Microsoft recently implemented a per user feature in Power BI Premium; it's $20 per month."
"It seems stable. I haven't heard of any difficulties from my clients that utilize Power BI."
"It gives us, the ability to do a lot of analysis quickly, similar to ad hoc analysis."
"Microsoft BI's most valuable features are the user interface, which is easy to use and light."
"The way data is presented is very valuable. The amount of information that we can get at a glance is also valuable. You can then drill-down and see data from many different angles in the same chart by selecting certain things. Based on the selection, everything changes automatically. If we have four parameters in a particular item, when you select a parameter, the remaining charts on that page automatically change for that particular parameter."
"Reports, dashboards, and visualizations are most valuable."
"The charts and graphics are weak."
"The performance is a bottleneck and something that can be improved."
"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 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."
"The visualization aspect needs to be improved and I believe, this is being resolved in upcoming versions."
"The high cost of a license makes it hard to scale up on a budget."
"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."
"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."
"We would like to have better SQL support for queries."
"The look is simple, and could be a little more professional."
"The initial installation is difficult."
"The solution could be more customizable and you do not have too much freedom on the code."
"It should be easier to use when there are multiple system sources."
"Microsoft BI lacks integration capabilities, so it needs to consider increasing its integration capabilities."
"I would like to see the product offer more graphics to impact different audiences."
"They asked you to pay if you want to synchronize more than eight times, you would have to go to a Power BI enterprise license, which is much more costly."
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.