We performed a comparison between IBM Cognos and Tableau based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: In this comparison, IBM Cognos comes out on top. Users are happier with the support than Tableau users are, and IBM Cognos users also report an ROI.
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"Even while a user is using a cube for reporting, there will not be a situation as ' Cube file locked; unable to build or deploy'."
"We are able to generate quality reports easily which allows us to decrease response time."
"Previously, we were doing static reporting. Management would request a report, and it would take staff a week or more to provide it. With Cognos, we have dynamic reporting, and it has reduced both reporting and decision making times significantly. With the solution's dashboard, the company's management team has updated records at their fingertips. This means that they can directly access the data they need to make decisions."
"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 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."
"The dashboarding offered by this solution is very valuable to us."
"Our customers love the visual capabilities on top of it and the ability to explain and get the required data. There is no other product like Tableau in the business intelligence and analytics space."
"The ability of filtering and segmentation of the data makes it very flexible compared to other tools."
"The most valuable feature is the 3D charting."
"Tableau has greatly enhanced our organization's data-driven decision-making processes by enabling us to create visually compelling reports and dashboards."
"Tableau has data relationships that can be applied to a data source which helps build out a directory which is helpful. Data blending has also been valuable to us."
"It is a stable solution."
"Very user friendly."
"The use of a storyboard helps the flow of the data visualisation."
"The visualization aspect needs to be improved and I believe, this is being resolved in upcoming versions."
"Extending features on dashboards so it becomes a real dashboard building application, not only a data exploration tool."
"It would be nice to offer free online training on the tool for end-users."
"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."
"I would like to see the introduction of mapbooks for supporting some geographical information."
"Extending dynamic cubes aggregate awareness with calculated measures."
"I would like them to reinclude PowerPlay. One thing that I am missing in the current Cognos is what was formally named PowerPlay. They have basically removed PowerPlay from it, which is something that I fail to understand because it was the most wonderful tool for business intelligence that I've ever used. As far as I know, they don't provide this functionality anymore, so this is one thing that I dislike about Cognos."
"The charts and graphics are weak."
"Tableau is an end-to-end analytics platform, and it is doing a pretty good job in terms of connecting to the data and analyzing it. It can, however, do better in terms of data management and the ETL features, which are not on the advanced analytics or machine learning side. Tableau Prep is where users would want to see more advancements. They can improve Tableau Prep, which is an analytic platform tool for data cleansing. People who work with data spend most of their time curating the data. Cleaning up the data and getting it ready for analysis is what takes the most time. If Tableau can invest more time in improving the Tableau Prep platform, it would be great. Previously, Tableau didn't have the functionality for writing to a database. So, you couldn't really alter the database tables and write to your database, but they fixed that in one of the very recent releases. However, it isn't really advanced and should be improved."
"Improvements in schema security and row/column security need to be made."
"Lacks customization in some areas."
"More integration with Python or something related to machine learning would be a good improvement."
"The product needs to allow for better ways to drill down more effectively on the information at hand."
"It needs a little bit more advanced modeling. I would like to see functionality like Cognos has in the Framework Manager."
"Could have more integrations with different platforms."
"The interface can be improved, in part because there is no indication that something is running or that it's processing."
IBM Cognos is ranked 4th in Reporting with 132 reviews while Tableau is ranked 2nd in Reporting with 292 reviews. IBM Cognos is rated 8.0, while Tableau is rated 8.4. 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 Tableau writes "Provides fast data access with in-memory extracts, makes it easy to create visualizations, and saves time". IBM Cognos is most compared with Microsoft Power BI, Oracle OBIEE, SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform, Oracle Hyperion and Amazon QuickSight, whereas Tableau is most compared with Microsoft Power BI, Amazon QuickSight, Domo, SAS Visual Analytics and QlikView. See our IBM Cognos vs. Tableau 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.