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.
"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 product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report."
"Cognos is the best application with dashboards,batch reporting, jobs, events and ad-hoc reporting for business users."
"We use the account statement report. When you use an account in HSBC, you receive various types of accounts, such as the stock market, fixed accounts, credit cards, and business accounts. We can create one consolidated report called CCS support, which includes all these accounts. In that statement, we are consolidating all those accounts."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"We are able to generate quality reports easily which allows us to decrease response time."
"The initial setup is very straightforward."
"This solution allows you to input a wide range of file formats."
"The most valuable features are data discovery and fine visualizations."
"I really like the interactivity of the dashboards."
"Data handling, visualizations, and aesthetics of it are the most valuable features."
"The best part about Tableau is the visualization."
"Gradual scalability from simple to complex situations"
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use."
"I like the solution's web version, more so than Power BI's web version. It just makes it easier to drag and drop things and to blend data on the backend. It simplifies the process."
"Tableau will automatically show charts for the related data that I choose making it very easy to use."
"Tableau and Power BI are faster than Cognos."
"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."
"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."
"One thing that we really want is the ability to have data portrayed on an image. Cognos is not able to do it at the moment, and that's becoming a requirement from the business side: having an image and then plotting your dataset on top of the image as a map."
"IBM Cognos's error messages seem to be a bit ambiguous. An error will be encountered and a message will be sent out very ambiguous and after investigating the error message it could be any number of issues. There was never a direct answer to the question or a direct answer to the error messages. Sometimes it would be a generic error message for 21 different solutions. It wasn't very specific, which required a lot of digging around and trial and error trying to fix the problem. The messaging in their error messaging is something needing improvement."
"Need improvement towards Visualization."
"The AI-based features could be further enhanced by the solution."
"I would like to see the introduction of mapbooks for supporting some geographical information."
"Small multiples (a.k.a. Trellis charts) are possible only through very hacky means. Update: Still remains a challenge."
"Some of our clients are looking for better UI when using Tableau as they often work with this solution directly."
"To be the best in the market, Tableau has to improve its user interface and also look into developing implementing the best machine learning algorithms."
"I would like Tableau Prep to be integrated with Tableau Desktop. I would also like more customizations for tables."
"It would be nice if we could export more raw data. Currently, there is a limit as to how much data you can export."
"The customization requires a lot of effort and should be simplified. The performance could be better."
"It will be good if the server, could be more stable, and I would like to have the technical service to be more reliable."
"I would like the solution to have certain features allowing the delivery of reports to the email."
IBM Cognos is ranked 4th in Reporting with 131 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.