Birst vs IBM Cognos comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Birst and IBM Cognos based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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To learn more, read our detailed Reporting Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"Dashboards and self-service reports. These are widely used by customers in the EPM domain."

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"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 product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report.""The most valuable feature is developing reports from different data sources, making it a reliable data source.""If they want dashboarding, storytelling, and analyzing why KPIs are met or not, then Cognos is a better candidate than Qlik Sense.""It is a stable product.""We use IBM Cognos for enterprise analytics and reporting.""A drag-and-drop interface for selecting creating ad hoc reports makes this product very easy to use.""The most valuable features are Report Development (Functionality) and Information Distribution (Flexibility)."

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Cons
"Customer support takes lot of time to get a solution."

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"Cognos charts are not as fast as those of the other tools, even with DQM (dynamic query mode).""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.""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.""I would like them to reinclude PowerPlay. One thing that I am missing in the current Cognos is what was formally named PowerPlay. They have basically removed PowerPlay from it, which is something that I fail to understand because it was the most wonderful tool for business intelligence that I've ever used. As far as I know, they don't provide this functionality anymore, so this is one thing that I dislike about Cognos.""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 high cost of a license makes it hard to scale up on a budget.""One thing that we really want is the ability to have data portrayed on an image. Cognos is not able to do it at the moment, and that's becoming a requirement from the business side: having an image and then plotting your dataset on top of the image as a map.""There are a lot of limitations with the out-of-the-box tool."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Please negotiate on the price and purchase the latest version."
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  • "There is need to assess the purchase license accordingly so as to avoid audit penalties."
  • "The pricing and licensing policies are comparatively cheaper than other products in the market ."
  • "IBM Cognos offers competitive pricing similar to other BI vendors in the market."
  • "Pricing should be improved."
  • "The pricing of this product is meant for medium to large-scale enterprises."
  • "It is my understanding that the cost is very low. It's not very expensive."
  • "Cognos is super expensive compared to Tableau ($70/month) and Power BI ($20/month) — I think Cognos is roughly $200 a month."
  • "It is quite pricy. I think Microsoft BI is cheaper. Tableau might also be cheaper, but it also depends on the usage. If you have very many users, Cognos can be a problem. It could be cheaper than Tableau but not for so many users. If you have a few thousand users, Tableau, which is generally quite expensive, can be cheaper than Cognos."
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    Comparison Review
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    Top Answer:It depends on the Data architecture and the complexity of your requirement Some great tools in the market are Qlik Sense, Power BI, OBIEE, Tableau, etc. I have recently started using Cognos… more »
    Top Answer:We use IBM Cognos for enterprise analytics and reporting.
    Top Answer:The technical support team’s response time is slow and needs to be improved.
    Ranking
    32nd
    out of 50 in Reporting
    Views
    225
    Comparisons
    165
    Reviews
    0
    Average Words per Review
    0
    Rating
    N/A
    4th
    out of 50 in Reporting
    Views
    7,475
    Comparisons
    4,437
    Reviews
    11
    Average Words per Review
    433
    Rating
    8.2
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
    Learn More
    Overview

    Birst Networked BI and Analytics eliminates information silos. Decentralized users can augment the enterprise data model virtually, as opposed to physically, without compromising data governance.

    A unified semantic layer maintains common definitions and key metrics.
    Birst’s two-tier architecture aligns back-end sources with line-of-business or local data. Birst’s Automated Data Refinement extracts data from any source into a unified semantic layer. Users are enabled with self-service analytics through executive dashboards, reporting, visual discovery, mobile tools, and predictive analytics. Birst Open Client Interface also offers integration with Tableau, Excel and R.

    Birst goes to market in two primary ways: as a direct sale, for enterprises using Birst on internal data to manage their business; and embedded, for companies who offer analytic products, by embedding and white-labeling Birst capabilities into their products.

    Birst’s is packaged in 3 available formats: Platform and per-user fee; by Department or Business Unit; by end-customer (for embedded scenarios).

    IBM Cognos Business Intelligence provides a wide range of tools to help you analyze your organization's data. IBM Cognos BI allows businesses to monitor events and metrics, create and view business reports, and analyze data to help them make effective business decisions.

    IBM Cognos applies techniques to describe, summarize, and compare data, and draw conclusions. This allows users to see trends and discover anomalies or variances that may not be evident by simply reading data. Data sources that contain information from different areas of a business can be stored in separate packages. Users can see only information that they have been granted access to, based on their group or role.

    IBM Cognos BI consolidates the following business intelligence functions into a single web-based solution:

    • IBM Cognos Insight: Create personal and managed workspaces for data analysis. Using these interactive workspaces, you can share insight results with managers. Cognos Insight supports write-back, and you can also use these workspaces to capture and integrate management goals, commitments, and forecasts.

    • IBM Cognos Workspace: With IBM Cognos Workspace, you can create rich, interactive workspaces using IBM Cognos content as well as data from external sources. You can view and open your favorite workspaces and reports, edit content in your workspaces, and share your workspaces via email.

    • IBM Cognos Analytics: IBM Cognos Analytics utilizes built-in AI and intuitive searches which helps users to quickly create the visualizations and a wide range of reports. Cognos Analytics provides cognitive and managed self-service, enabling you to gain insights from controlled and trusted data.

    • IBM Cognos Report Studio and IBM Cognos Query Studio: Easily create structured and query reports. IBM Cognos allows users to create application and report templates. In addition, report authors can reuse report objects to apply filters, fields, and styles to reports. Users can set the language of the user interface and report content according to the user's native language.

    • IBM Cognos Event Studio: Receive notifications of events that occur within your organization in real time. Event Studio enables the creation of agents that detect the occurrence of business events, failures, or anomalies, based on the change of specific events or data conditions. Notification can be sent via email, publication in the portal, or by triggering reports.

    • IBM Cognos Connection: This is the Web portal for IBM Cognos BI and is the central area for accessing all the IBM Cognos functions. In the web portal, users can schedule and distribute reports, create tasks, administer the server and the access permissions, and more.

    Reviews from Real Users

    IBM Cognos stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its powerful analysis tool and its reporting capabilities.

    Prasad B., a senior software engineer at a financial services firm, notes, “The product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report. We can receive automated reports as well. They are easy to schedule on a weekly or monthly basis. It is very fast. I mean in means of report output, it's very fast compared to the actual clients involved.”

    Sample Customers
    Citrix Systems, Jive Software, SunnyD, Toshiba Medical Systems, Cisco OpenDNS, RB, Sunny D, Vertafore
    More than 23,000 leading organizations across multiple industries use Cognos. Some examples of Cognos customers include BMW Financial Services, Quinte Health Care, Troy Corporation, Michigan State University, and GKN Land System.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Healthcare Company25%
    Retailer17%
    Insurance Company8%
    Computer Software Company8%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm15%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Insurance Company9%
    Healthcare Company9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization57%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Computer Software Company5%
    Government5%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business14%
    Midsize Enterprise33%
    Large Enterprise52%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business24%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise61%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business8%
    Midsize Enterprise61%
    Large Enterprise31%
    Buyer's Guide
    Reporting
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Tableau, Oracle and others in Reporting. Updated: March 2024.
    765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Birst is ranked 32nd in Reporting while IBM Cognos is ranked 4th in Reporting with 129 reviews. Birst is rated 7.4, while IBM Cognos is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Birst writes "The dashboards and Visualizer are valuable". On the other hand, the top reviewer of IBM Cognos writes "Improved the quality of our KPIs, while reducing calls to the IT department". Birst is most compared with Microsoft Power BI, Alteryx and ThoughtSpot, whereas IBM Cognos is most compared with Microsoft Power BI, Tableau, Oracle OBIEE, SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform and Oracle Hyperion.

    See our list of best Reporting 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.