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.
"We are able to generate quality reports easily which allows us to decrease response time."
"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."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The dashboarding offered by this solution is very valuable to us."
"A positive feature is Report Studio, where we create beautiful, complex reports."
"Dashboarding, reporting, and ad hoc reporting are the valuable features of IBM Cognos."
"The initial setup is very straightforward."
"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."
"We found Tableau has the quickest learning time out of the few other BI reporting tools that we have used."
"The most important feature in Tableau is visual analytics."
"It has been the best tool to work with from a self-service point of view."
"Its dashboarding is the most valuable. It is easy to create visualizations and dashboards and import Excel sheets and ESP files in Tableau as compared to other tools."
"I have found the solution easy to use and the interface is very good."
"Tableau has greatly enhanced our organization's data-driven decision-making processes by enabling us to create visually compelling reports and dashboards."
"The solution allows for the possibility for end-users to do their own reporting."
"While using this solution I have found the valuable features to be ease of use and the visualization. It is a complete solution."
"One key area for improvement is the need to improve the self-service nature and functionality of the product in terms of visual analytics."
"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."
"IBM Support can be slow at times, but they can usually deliver in a timely manner."
"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."
"Tableau and Power BI are faster than Cognos."
"Cognos is quite slow - it's missing the performance of the PowerPlay cubes."
"I don't like that when we use Colab packages, we get less functionality. For example, you can make groups of data with Excel or with the data sets from the packages, but when you use the Colab packages directly, you can only group the data when you analyze it with Analysis Studio. I think Cognos needs to improve more on this functionality."
"The high cost of a license makes it hard to scale up on a budget."
"A strict security measure is needed. I believe it is weak in terms of security."
"The data preparation could integrate better with Tableau."
"Creating empty extracts is not easy."
"There should be stronger data modules for the platform."
"If you wanted to create something without making it an extra column in the data set, you can't just rename it to a more user-friendly short name."
"To be the best in the market, Tableau has to improve its user interface and also look into developing implementing the best machine learning algorithms."
"Requires a lot of user training."
"It will be good if the server, could be more stable, and I would like to have the technical service to be more reliable."
IBM Cognos is ranked 4th in Reporting with 132 reviews while Tableau is ranked 2nd in Reporting with 290 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 Oracle OBIEE. 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.