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.
"The correlation analysis is excellent. It's one of the best that I have used to date."
"IBM Cognos is an excellent solution for tax, planning, budgeting, profit and loss statements and balance sheets."
"The most valuable features of IBM Cognos are governance and enterprise reporting."
"Dashboarding, reporting, and ad hoc reporting are the valuable features of IBM Cognos."
"Integration with Office can enable the 'download' mode of storytelling."
"One of the strong suits of Cognos is its robust corporate reporting capability."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its ease of use, which makes it easily compatible with other tools."
"IBM Cognos offers tools so that you can design and develop your own test queries and reporting solutions."
"The platform's most important feature is predictive analysis."
"The solution has a lot of customization when comparing to Microsoft BI."
"The product offers an intuitive user interface, detailed screens and widgets, and the absence of data limitations"
"It has made the reporting stage simple and enabled us to focus mainly on the ETL part"
"Tableau's visualization features let you present information insights quickly and practically. So it's something which I prefer with Tableau. In terms of reporting, I have to point out the sheer quality and function of the Tableau server, but the first impression is that it's a great visualization tool."
"The most valuable part of the solution is the general dashboard features."
"It has been the best tool to work with from a self-service point of view."
"Tableau has comprehensive, insightful charts, which allow you to build stunning dashboards and enrich your support decision-making."
"Cognos charts are not as fast as those of the other tools, even with DQM (dynamic query mode)."
"There are some small features that are missing. It would be nice if the graphics were better. You can use external sources for charts, but it's quite complex to use and not easy to implement. If you want a new chart, you can download it from multiple tools and implement it into IBM Cognos."
"They were lacking in the initial phases of development in the area of big data, and they still need to improve that aspect of the product."
"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."
"This product could use improvement in terms of usability for those with less technical know how."
"The performance is a bottleneck and something that can be improved."
"IBM Cognos's error messages seem to be a bit ambiguous. An error will be encountered and a message will be sent out very ambiguous and after investigating the error message it could be any number of issues. There was never a direct answer to the question or a direct answer to the error messages. Sometimes it would be a generic error message for 21 different solutions. It wasn't very specific, which required a lot of digging around and trial and error trying to fix the problem. The messaging in their error messaging is something needing improvement."
"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."
"Maybe the price could be a bit cheaper, especially if you're a personal developer that uses Tableau just to explore smaller data sets and you're not a company or something like that."
"An advanced type of visualization is a bit tricky to create. It has something called a Calculated field, and that sometimes gets a bit difficult to use when you want to create an advanced type of visualization."
"The product's features for cloud integration need improvement."
"There could be improvements on the mobile application, it is lacking features."
"Improvements can be made in template support. The workbook file structure is really hard to version control. If there was some sort of version control support offered particularly for workbooks, that would help big time."
"There are more than a powerful tool in the market, such as Microsoft BI."
"When you create new fields in Tableau and you enter the formulas, there is a new small window that is there in the interface. You can enter the calculated fields, it could be more user-friendly. At this time it is limited and hard to understand at the beginning. The fields should be easier to use, such as in Microsoft Excel. You can have a difficult time understanding what to do in the fields, you end up doing trial and error to figure it out."
"Implementation requires a technical background."
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.