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.
"Previously, we were doing static reporting. Management would request a report, and it would take staff a week or more to provide it. With Cognos, we have dynamic reporting, and it has reduced both reporting and decision making times significantly. With the solution's dashboard, the company's management team has updated records at their fingertips. This means that they can directly access the data they need to make decisions."
"The Report Studio that is aimed at professional report writers."
"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'."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report."
"For planning, forecasting, in-boxing, modeling in general and for predicting numbers and doing work analysis, they are excellent."
"The basic platform comes with several meta-modelling tools."
"The dashboarding offered by this solution is very valuable to us."
"The most valuable feature is the 3D charting."
"The best use case for us is the solution's integration with Salesforce because we are also partners of Salesforce."
"Tableau is easy to use."
"Tableau has many good features. It is user-friendly, has a simple-to-use interface, and has a customizable dashboard."
"I believe one of the most valuable features of the solution is trend analysis."
"All features are valuable. It is very user-friendly, and it is mostly drag-and-drop. If we have the dataset available, then we can develop any dashboard very quickly."
"It has been the best tool to work with from a self-service point of view."
"Show Me is a feature to help with knowing which chart is an appropriate one for the selected variables, and it makes helps in creating appropriate visuals."
"The data uploads that we do, such as Excel files, have a lot of restrictions. If we can make it a bit more user-friendly, allowing us to have more flexibility it would be a great help."
"The high cost of a license makes it hard to scale up on a budget."
"Tableau and Power BI are faster than Cognos."
"I don't like that when we use Colab packages, we get less functionality. For example, you can make groups of data with Excel or with the data sets from the packages, but when you use the Colab packages directly, you can only group the data when you analyze it with Analysis Studio. I think Cognos needs to improve more on this functionality."
"The charts and graphics are weak."
"There are many problems with the product's stability part, making it an area where improvements are required."
"One key area for improvement is the need to improve the self-service nature and functionality of the product in terms of visual analytics."
"I would like for the platform to become more standard. If we make a development on our report and our dashboard, it will not be used in another solution. That means there is no portability for the developers."
"Whenever it comes to specialized visualization, Tableau is an absolute failure."
"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 charting is overly complex in comparison with Power BI's"
"It should have more integration with different tools and technologies. Its licensing cost should also be improved."
"With Tableau, when you're dealing with very large datasets, it can be slow so the performance is an area that can be improved."
"The architecture should be improved to better handle the data."
"The SQL programming functionality needs to be improved."
"Could have more integrations with different platforms."
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.