We performed a comparison between IBM Cognos and Microsoft BI based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Microsoft BI has a slight edge in this comparison. According to its reviewers, it is a more lightweight solution than IBM Cognos.
"Security administration tools are powerful and flexible."
"Cognos' most valuable features are the bundled studios, simple UI, and advanced features like the ability to create data modules."
"Dashboarding, reporting, and ad hoc reporting are the valuable features of IBM Cognos."
"The three IBM Cognos features I find the most valuable are Dynamic Cubes, PowerPlay, and Watson."
"It's enabled us to report directly from our main application systems. We're removing islands of data and we're removing inefficiencies, where people or small divisions had their own store of information."
"I have worked on the features like dashboards and stories, and I do like them a lot."
"Report Studio: This is the most powerful and sophisticated tool for professional reporting."
"IBM Cognos is an excellent solution for tax, planning, budgeting, profit and loss statements and balance sheets."
"The drag and drop facility to easily change the data correctly is the most valuable feature. I am happy to see visualizations. It's easier to talk about and make people understand what is going on."
"The most valuable feature is definitely the visual aspect and the DAX capabilities to virtually do anything."
"When we are introducing Microsoft BI to our clients, if they're familiar with Excel, the transition phase will be much easier for them. They can easily switch from Microsoft Excel to Microsoft BI. The core foundation or the base technology is the same in both tools. There are a few limitations in Microsoft Excel, and this is where Microsoft BI comes in."
"It has greatly improved our reporting capabilities."
"We have found that the reporting and publishing are great."
"Previously we used Excel, which took a long time - two or three weeks - to bring the data into a uniform format, whereas BI can do the same job in a day."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The advantages of Microsoft Power BI stem from the fact that it is really easy to use. The drag and drop facilities provided by the product are good."
"Extending features on dashboards so it becomes a real dashboard building application, not only a data exploration tool."
"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."
"Compared to Tableau and PowerBI, the IBM interface is easier to use. However, the drag-and-drop functionality isn't as straightforward. Formatting is also more challenging in the cloud than in other applications, like Power BI. Also, if you encounter an issue, it takes more time to resolve it on the formatting side."
"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."
"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."
"It would be nice to offer free online training on the tool for end-users."
"I would like to see is more easy building, movement in the reports, and dashboard functionality within reporting. Overall more simple elements within reports. If the elements are simple then you don't have to render a full page, but you can move separate parts in the page."
"Microsoft is behind IBM when it comes to security features."
"It needs an AI which can choose the appropriate connection strings and provide options for connections."
"The product doesn't support unstructured data. It doesn't support video, streaming, and strings of files."
"When it comes to improvement, I would say there could be more tutorials for students in universities who are just learning it. And it wouldn't have to be just for students in universities. It might also be for the people who use it in the real world."
"I think that there should be visuals for financial reporting videos. It should just be a plug and play because there is a lot of coding that goes into it with different clients."
"I think that the product would benefit by increasing the range of visuals and graphics readily available, as opposed to using a third party included as part of the product."
"It needs more analytic tools."
"It should have more report outputs. They should expand the report outputs. Its documentation should also be better."
IBM Cognos is ranked 4th in Reporting with 131 reviews while Microsoft Power BI is ranked 1st in Reporting with 297 reviews. IBM Cognos is rated 8.0, while Microsoft Power BI is rated 8.0. 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 Microsoft Power BI writes "A complete ecosystem with an builtin ETL tool, good integrations with python and R, and support of DAX and Power Query (M languages)". IBM Cognos is most compared with Oracle OBIEE, Tableau, SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform, Oracle Hyperion and Amazon QuickSight, whereas Microsoft Power BI is most compared with Tableau, Amazon QuickSight, KNIME, Domo and SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform. See our IBM Cognos vs. Microsoft Power BI 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.