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.
"The solution's initial setup process is easy."
"If they want dashboarding, storytelling, and analyzing why KPIs are met or not, then Cognos is a better candidate than Qlik Sense."
"The most valuable feature of IBM Cognos is security. The solution has updated features that other competitors' solutions come out with long after IBM Cognos has had them."
"One of the strong suits of Cognos is its robust corporate reporting capability."
"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."
"It is a stable product."
"For planning, forecasting, in-boxing, modeling in general and for predicting numbers and doing work analysis, they are excellent."
"It is in the cloud, which makes it easy for mobile access of reports and data."
"The visualization and reporting are the most valuable features of this solution."
"We found the initial setup to be straightforward."
"It is more user-friendly compared to SSRS."
"It offers a lot of information and is very flexible and interactive."
"There are some great automation elements in the product."
"We have a lot of servers and applications from which we want reports, and it allows us to create reports from an SQL source or some other source."
"Power BI has strong support from Microsoft. If you need help, they answer promptly. There are also several discussion groups where you can get information, like the product roadmap and any new things coming up."
"The high cost of a license makes it hard to scale up on a budget."
"The solution's support could be better."
"One key area for improvement is the need to improve the self-service nature and functionality of the product in terms of visual analytics."
"It could have more options for themes."
"Need improvement towards Visualization."
"The technical support team’s response time is slow and needs to be improved."
"We need more predictive analytical functions, not only diagnostic or decryptic analytics."
"The solution seems to slow down the servers."
"The Power Query feature needs to be improved to handle large amounts of data. This feature is also slow for large data transfers making it better to use some kind of script."
"The product could have better analytics capabilities."
"It is too slow. I hope in future it will be a comparable big data tool, such as, for example, Data Lake."
"Microsoft BI lacks some of the scheme features. It would be beneficial if there were a way to show how we move values in a different way."
"One area for improvement in Microsoft Power BI is serviceability. Compared to one of its competitors: Tableau, there are a lot of things which you cannot do in this tool, that can be done in Tableau."
"The solution's documentation needs improvement."
"A lot of people work on Excel, so being able to export an Excel file as part of a subscription would be an improvement."
"Technical support could be a bit better."
IBM Cognos is ranked 4th in Reporting with 132 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.