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.
"Integration with Office can enable the 'download' mode of storytelling."
"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."
"IBM Cognos offers tools so that you can design and develop your own test queries and reporting solutions."
"The basic platform comes with several meta-modelling tools."
"The initial setup is very straightforward."
"It's enabled us to report directly from our main application systems. We're removing islands of data and we're removing inefficiencies, where people or small divisions had their own store of information."
"For planning, forecasting, in-boxing, modeling in general and for predicting numbers and doing work analysis, they are excellent."
"Self-service is possible through the use of dashboards, which are also very intuitive. Stories can be used to pin snapshots, tell the story for meetings, etc."
"It provides business users with a tool, so they are not dependent on IT."
"The best use case for us is the solution's integration with Salesforce because we are also partners of Salesforce."
"The UI part is the best. The end-users can easily get started with Tableau Desktop or Tableau Online because of its user-friendliness."
"Tableau is very good in the front-end visualization compared to Power BI."
"The product’s performance is better than other tools."
"Tableau's initial setup was straightforward."
"Easy for beginners to use"
"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."
"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."
"There are some problems with how Cognos handles huge data sets and when connecting with multiple sources and searching the data."
"In terms of what could be improved, I would say, monitoring, monitoring, monitoring. Some improvements in monitoring would be helpful. I'd like to see more monitoring of specific reports and fields. The way the auditing is now is very limited, so I'd like to see more of that - of the monitoring."
"The solution's support could be better."
"The charts and graphics are weak."
"Extending features on dashboards so it becomes a real dashboard building application, not only a data exploration tool."
"The high cost of a license makes it hard to scale up on a budget."
"There are a lot of limitations with the out-of-the-box tool."
"In the next release, I would like to be able to have the option to see more raw data that I'm converting on the dashboard."
"The use of this service in the desktop version is annoying due to the constant updates which lead to reinstalling the application. If they could give support with updates on the same downloaded version, it would be great."
"With Tableau, there is a gap in its ability to handle very large-scale data."
"The architecture should be improved to better handle the data."
"With Tableau, when you're dealing with very large datasets, it can be slow so the performance is an area that can be improved."
"Tableau support could be improved."
"From a downside perspective, some of the more advanced modeling techniques are actually fairly difficult to do. In addition, I just fundamentally disagree with the way you have to implement them because you can get incorrect answers in some cases."
"Bursting email is needed to deliver the reports to many people in their inboxes and this functionality is not provided by Tableau."
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.