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.
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"Cognos' most valuable features are the bundled studios, simple UI, and advanced features like the ability to create data modules."
"The product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report."
"Using custom controls, it is possible to extend the application with even more functionality and make the application intuitive and attractive."
"IBM Cognos offers tools so that you can design and develop your own test queries and reporting solutions."
"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."
"Dashboarding, reporting, and ad hoc reporting are the valuable features of IBM Cognos."
"This solution allows you to input a wide range of file formats."
"Tableau has greatly enhanced our organization's data-driven decision-making processes by enabling us to create visually compelling reports and dashboards."
"The Web Editing capabilities allow us to grant end users enough capabilities for them to do self-serve discovery without the added cost of needing to get everyone desktop licenses."
"The most valuable features are data discovery and fine visualizations."
"It's intuitive and highly mature"
"The most valuable feature is the geographic data analysis."
"The most valuable feature is the 3D charting."
"I believe one of the most valuable features of the solution is trend analysis."
"The most valuable part of the solution is the general dashboard features."
"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."
"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 small features that are missing. It would be nice if the graphics were better. You can use external sources for charts, but it's quite complex to use and not easy to implement. If you want a new chart, you can download it from multiple tools and implement it into IBM Cognos."
"They should provide improved visual reporting."
"Cognos charts are not as fast as those of the other tools, even with DQM (dynamic query mode)."
"The charts and graphics are weak."
"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."
"Most of our company's customers want to be able to deploy IBM Cognos on a web application and use it as a desktop application, which is not possible currently."
"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."
"Areas for improvement would be visualization and augmented analytics. In the next release, I would like to see automated insights from the data added to the dashboard."
"The data preparation could integrate better with Tableau."
"Could have more integrations with different platforms."
"I have noticed that Tableau is not very compatible with ClickHouse. There's no direct connection to ClickHouse; you have to set up an ODBC connection."
"Navigating through activities like cleansing, reshaping, and wrangling extensive or complicated datasets could prove challenging within the Tableau environment."
"Most of the problems in Tableau Online that I have noticed have to do with performance or weird, inexplicable bugs that I can't pin down. For example, you might try unloading some data, and you'll be waiting for a long time without anything happening."
"The data processing in Tableau is pathetic compared to Qlik."
IBM Cognos is ranked 4th in Reporting with 129 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.