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.
"Using custom controls, it is possible to extend the application with even more functionality and make the application intuitive and attractive."
"In terms of stability, I think that Cognos is more stable than Tableau and Power Bi because of its framework manager concept that allows us to import metadata and store it in the framework manager."
"Cognos is the best application with dashboards,batch reporting, jobs, events and ad-hoc reporting for business users."
"Mapbox integration for geospatial analytics down to longitude/latitude layers."
"IBM Cognos offers tools so that you can design and develop your own test queries and reporting solutions."
"This solution allows you to input a wide range of file formats."
"A positive feature is Report Studio, where we create beautiful, complex reports."
"The solution's initial setup process is easy."
"Its seamless integration with Microsoft products, such as Microsoft SQL Server or Microsoft Excel, is the most valuable."
"Management reporting solution that's very stable and scalable."
"The tool is very flexible so it allows creativity."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Power BI is the drill-through feature that takes you to a details page the users want to see."
"In the process of using data there is the Extract, Transform and Load (ETL). For extracting we are using another software, for transforming we are using our own coding in C#, and then we use Microsoft BI for loading the information. Microsoft BI displays information very well."
"Easy to use and the visualization is valuable."
"The initial setup is simple to do."
"The solution is easy to use and charts can be built quickly with the tools."
"The visualization aspect needs to be improved and I believe, this is being resolved in upcoming versions."
"This product could use improvement in terms of usability for those with less technical know how."
"IBM Support can be slow at times, but they can usually deliver in a timely manner."
"I would like to see the introduction of mapbooks for supporting some geographical information."
"Extending features on dashboards so it becomes a real dashboard building application, not only a data exploration tool."
"The solution's support could be better."
"The solution seems to slow down the servers."
"Tableau and Power BI are faster than Cognos."
"They asked you to pay if you want to synchronize more than eight times, you would have to go to a Power BI enterprise license, which is much more costly."
"When you go to the cloud, its licensing is not intuitive. It is a little bit complex. When you have to purchase a new license, it is difficult to understand on their website what exactly you need to pay and how you can group. It is something that is applicable to all Microsoft products. They're not always so simple and clear when it comes to licensing. Their support can also be better in terms of explaining how they resolved an issue and what steps they took to resolve it. They are able to resolve the issue, but they can be better at explaining the approach they took to resolve the issue. It could have something in the direction of machine learning. It can have some kind of integration with machine learning where you can ask for some reports with natural language."
"Their technical support can be better. They normally take too long to escalate and resolve a case."
"The challenge of this product is in truncating the table data."
"I find the solution to be 70 percent stable."
"Areas of Power BI that could be improved are the learning curve for developers who come from non-technical backgrounds."
"There needs to be improved guidance and documentation for the initial setup of Power BI as it currently remains complex."
"Microsoft BI's visualization could be better. Though Power BI's visualization has steadily improved over the years, it's not on the level tools like Tableau and SAS or some of the more expensive products on the market."
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.