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 initial setup is very straightforward."
"If they want dashboarding, storytelling, and analyzing why KPIs are met or not, then Cognos is a better candidate than Qlik Sense."
"For planning, forecasting, in-boxing, modeling in general and for predicting numbers and doing work analysis, they are excellent."
"One of the strong suits of Cognos is its robust corporate reporting capability."
"The three IBM Cognos features I find the most valuable are Dynamic Cubes, PowerPlay, and Watson."
"We are able to generate quality reports easily which allows us to decrease response time."
"It is a stable product."
"Self-service is possible through the use of dashboards, which are also very intuitive. Stories can be used to pin snapshots, tell the story for meetings, etc."
"The standard BI visualization capabilities are great."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"It integrates with all of the Microsoft tools."
"Microsoft B's beneficial features are that it is a Microsoft product and it is well known by the staff here in the company. It suited the available skills."
"The way data is presented is very valuable. The amount of information that we can get at a glance is also valuable. You can then drill-down and see data from many different angles in the same chart by selecting certain things. Based on the selection, everything changes automatically. If we have four parameters in a particular item, when you select a parameter, the remaining charts on that page automatically change for that particular parameter."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft BI are the variety of possibilities to connect to various data sources. The visualizations are easily done, have useful rollover functions, and there are continuous updates being made to the system. You can benefit from the various improvements."
"The product can go easily go and extract data and it can put it into any format."
"It gives you an edge if you are on the Microsoft platform. If you have been using Microsoft products for a long time or if you have the Microsoft infrastructure, this is the right tool for you. It has seamless integration with Microsoft SQL Server and other sources, and you get the best of the three things (SSIS, SSAS, and SSRS) in one suite."
"There are a lot of limitations with the out-of-the-box tool."
"The AI-based features could be further enhanced by the solution."
"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."
"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 high cost of a license makes it hard to scale up on a budget."
"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."
"This product could use improvement in terms of usability for those with less technical know how."
"Microsoft needs to provide more drivers to connect other data sources in a native way."
"Power BI's drillthrough feature could be improved. I didn't like drillthrough and those options much, but I did like it in MicroStrategy."
"The performance of Microsoft BI could improve for large datasets and it would be beneficial to have more visualization features."
"The setup took a lot of tinkering with InfoSec to allow us to do stuff."
"The initial installation is difficult."
"The look and feel should be updated in terms of the types of dashboards and graphs that you can produce. They aren't as visual as some of its competitors."
"The initial setup is a little bit technical."
"If I have to update data automatically, where I have to pin the gateway, it doesn't update. There is a scheduled refresh functionality so that it refreshes automatically, but I find it very hard to make it work."
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.