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.
"Mapbox integration for geospatial analytics down to longitude/latitude layers."
"One of the strong suits of Cognos is its robust corporate reporting capability."
"IBM Cognos is an excellent solution for tax, planning, budgeting, profit and loss statements and balance sheets."
"It is a stable product."
"The product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report."
"Cognos is the best application with dashboards,batch reporting, jobs, events and ad-hoc reporting for business users."
"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."
"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."
"The solution is easy to use."
"It's a very easy-to-use solution."
"I think the visualization part is valuable."
"Initial setup was very straightforward. Users can get up and running reporting on databases within minutes."
"Ability to extract data from a variety of sources and systems."
"The DAX coding language is good for creating formulae."
"The standard BI visualization capabilities are great."
"I also find connecting to different data sources is quite simple. Other solutions we were using before were complicated."
"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."
"The AI-based features could be further enhanced by the solution."
"There are some problems with how Cognos handles huge data sets and when connecting with multiple sources and searching the data."
"It would be better if it is was easier to implement without extensive training for it."
"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."
"The solution's support could be better."
"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."
"Data modeling needs to be improved. We use the ETL process, and when we get errors, we then need to identify which structural change is required. The error messaging should be better. They should be descriptive rather than semantic."
"I would like to be able to use SQL properly within the reports and allow multiple people to work on the same report at the same time. If one person is working on it, then it causes issues for anyone else wanting to make reports."
"Microsoft BI could improve by allowing large-size data sources. We have large data sources, and we have problems loading them in Microsoft BI."
"The visualization aspect, while being the most visible to business users, also happens the be the weakest point in the entire Microsoft BI stack."
"I would like to see some AI incorporated into this solution in the future."
"A lot of people work on Excel, so being able to export an Excel file as part of a subscription would be an improvement."
"Power BI's drillthrough feature could be improved. I didn't like drillthrough and those options much, but I did like it in MicroStrategy."
"Most clients have MacBooks. Therefore, they use Tableau as Power BI Desktop is not available for the MacBook right now."
"I would like to see a more user-friendly interface with Microsoft BI."
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.