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.
"I have worked on the features like dashboards and stories, and I do like them a lot."
"We use IBM Cognos for enterprise analytics and reporting."
"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'."
"If they want dashboarding, storytelling, and analyzing why KPIs are met or not, then Cognos is a better candidate than Qlik Sense."
"Mapbox integration for geospatial analytics down to longitude/latitude layers."
"Integration with Office can enable the 'download' mode of storytelling."
"In terms of stability, I think that Cognos is more stable than Tableau and Power Bi because of its framework manager concept that allows us to import metadata and store it in the framework manager."
"IBM Cognos is an excellent solution for tax, planning, budgeting, profit and loss statements and balance sheets."
"We frequently utilize visualizations using maps and different objects, all with rich coloring options. And tooltips are absolutely essential for us. Tooltips, like the pop-up descriptions when you hover over some object or graph. Those tooltips in Tableau are great features."
"Tableau has many different connectors for different databases. It's very easy to connect to MySQL, SQL Server, Amazon EMR, Presto, Redshift, BigQuery, and so on."
"While using this solution I have found the valuable features to be ease of use and the visualization. It is a complete solution."
"I really like the interactivity of the dashboards."
"It allows us to basically understand and evaluate our numbers in an expedient manner."
"Easy to create graphs and visualizations."
"The most valuable feature is that we can integrate with our own database, and it will displays the KPIs. This is highly required from the business side."
"A valuable feature of Tableau is that it is a useful tool for small setups. I shuffle between Tableau and MicroStrategy, so I use Tableau for personal purposes more than enterprise. I like the light version of Tableau for personal usage and doing some use cases on my own. When it comes to something small, I use Tableau for setups, rather than any other 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."
"I would like to see the introduction of mapbooks for supporting some geographical information."
"They should provide improved visual reporting."
"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 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."
"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."
"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."
"It would be good if the solution had conditional formatting."
"The cost of owning the solutions from Tableau is much higher compared to any other analytical solutions."
"In the cloud sometimes the performance is a little bit slow."
"Small multiples (a.k.a. Trellis charts) are possible only through very hacky means. Update: Still remains a challenge."
"I would like the solution to have certain features allowing the delivery of reports to the email."
"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."
"When it comes to large datasets, the data should be extracted faster."
"In the next release, there should be more information describing each chart because users have a difficult time telling them apart. They should also include the animations/videos, similar to Power BI."
"With Tableau, there is a gap in its ability to handle very large-scale data."
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.