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.
"IBM Cognos offers tools so that you can design and develop your own test queries and reporting solutions."
"The initial setup is quite straightforward."
"We are able to generate quality reports easily which allows us to decrease response time."
"The three IBM Cognos features I find the most valuable are Dynamic Cubes, PowerPlay, and Watson."
"The most valuable feature is developing reports from different data sources, making it a reliable data source."
"A positive feature is Report Studio, where we create beautiful, complex reports."
"A drag-and-drop interface for selecting creating ad hoc reports makes this product very easy to use."
"Report Studio: This is the most powerful and sophisticated tool for professional reporting."
"The ability to deploy is the added ability to centralise the Tableau repository for all Tableau Developers."
"Tableau will automatically show charts for the related data that I choose making it very easy to use."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use."
"The most important feature is the tool is very easy to use. This makes it simple to introduce it to CxOs. After a rapid demo, they are usual impressed by the results shown, because it has such a rare simplicity."
"It gives us a new dimension to the way that we analyse our data."
"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."
"It's a very good, flexible product, and it's easy to learn."
"Since Tableau is on the cloud, we haven't faced any challenges around scalability."
"It could have more options for themes."
"The solution's support could be better."
"This product could use improvement in terms of usability for those with less technical know how."
"The technical support team’s response time is slow and needs to be improved."
"Cognos is quite slow - it's missing the performance of the PowerPlay cubes."
"It would be good if the solution had conditional formatting."
"IBM Support can be slow at times, but they can usually deliver in a timely manner."
"The visualization aspect needs to be improved and I believe, this is being resolved in upcoming versions."
"There are not enough language options. It needs to be offered in more than just English."
"The solution could use more features in data analytics."
"Tableau has so many functions, so sometimes it's hard to find the right solution quickly. I have to search multiple menu bars to find the right command."
"The product's features for cloud integration need improvement."
"I would like Tableau Prep to be integrated with Tableau Desktop. I would also like more customizations for tables."
"I also work as an SME on the platform side. Tableau is very nice and jazzy for the end-users, but there are pain points for the admins. Performance is something about which we hear a lot of complaints, such as the dashboard doesn't open in time. It performs well on the desktop but not on the server. I know that there is always a limitation when it comes to a huge amount of data or the complexity of the calculations, but we often hear from end-users about the performance on the server side. It is easy to drag and drop all the columns and do what we want, but if it is not going to load better on the server, users are not going to like it."
"Requires a lot of user training."
"The cost of owning the solutions from Tableau is much higher compared to any other analytical solutions."
IBM Cognos is ranked 4th in Reporting with 132 reviews while Tableau is ranked 2nd in Reporting with 291 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.