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."
"The product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report."
"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."
"Comparing IBM Cognos to other applications, once a person is trained on it or they have developed a skill set to operate the application, it is best in its category."
"The solution's initial setup process is easy."
"The initial setup is quite straightforward."
"Cognos is the best application with dashboards,batch reporting, jobs, events and ad-hoc reporting for business users."
"It gives us a new dimension to the way that we analyse our data."
"Easy for beginners to use"
"Tableau is easy to use compared to some other solutions, such as Excel."
"The data blending capabilities is a huge factor for our team."
"The most valuable features are the visualizations, the way they show the combination charts."
"The stability seems to be very reliable."
"I have found Tableau easy to use and the features are superb."
"Easy to create graphs and visualizations."
"There are some problems with how Cognos handles huge data sets and when connecting with multiple sources and searching the data."
"It would be better if it is was easier to implement without extensive training for it."
"The AI-based features could be further enhanced by the solution."
"Cognos is quite slow - it's missing the performance of the PowerPlay cubes."
"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 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."
"The high cost of a license makes it hard to scale up on a budget."
"I would like to see the introduction of mapbooks for supporting some geographical information."
"I would like Tableau Prep to be integrated with Tableau Desktop. I would also like more customizations for tables."
"We need big servers to perform the operations that we are doing. They should probably relook at its architecture."
"I am a BI consultant. I have worked on different reporting tools, such as Power BI and MicroStrategy. As compared to other tools, Tableau lags behind in handling huge enterprise-level data in terms of robust security and the single integrated metadata concept. When we connect to large or very big databases, then performance-wise, I sometimes found Tableau a little bit slow. It can have the single metadata concept like other tools for the reusability of the objects in multiple reports."
"Its documentation can be improved so that a user can get a good hands-on experience. Tableau is well documented, and on their website, there are a lot of tutorials that are available for free. I started my learning process through those tutorials, but there are certain loopholes in those tutorials, which only got filled through a couple of good YouTube channels that talk about Tableau. YouTube helped me a lot. So, the documentation could be better, I understand that it is evolving day by day, and with more usage, there would be more such documentation."
"It needs a little bit more advanced modeling. I would like to see functionality like Cognos has in the Framework Manager."
"There should be stronger data modules for the platform."
"When I've done presentations in the past, I've had issues with uploading the cartography."
"It's already using 32 gigabytes of memory, but the performance is not so good. It's very heavy."
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.