We performed a comparison between IBM Cognos and Tableau based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: In this comparison, IBM Cognos comes out on top. Users are happier with the support than Tableau users are, and IBM Cognos users also report an ROI.
"We are able to generate quality reports easily which allows us to decrease response time."
"IBM Cognos improves the effectiveness of the sales team."
"Security administration tools are powerful and flexible."
"IBM Cognos offers tools so that you can design and develop your own test queries and reporting solutions."
"The correlation analysis is excellent. It's one of the best that I have used to date."
"This solution allows you to input a wide range of file formats."
"Integration with Office can enable the 'download' mode of storytelling."
"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."
"When compared to Power BI, Tableau has more readily available resources."
"It allows us to basically understand and evaluate our numbers in an expedient manner."
"The initial setup is simple."
"It is very good for data visualization. It has very powerful visualizations and is easy to use."
"The action feature which Tableau has is very useful for us. If we click on one visualization, it will pass the value to another visualization. That interactivity within different visualizations is the most valuable feature of Tableau."
"Provides a very good sound analysis quotient."
"The most important feature is the tool is very easy to use. This makes it simple to introduce it to CxOs. After a rapid demo, they are usual impressed by the results shown, because it has such a rare simplicity."
"The most valuable feature is the geographic data analysis."
"The performance is a bottleneck and something that can be improved."
"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 think the GIS pieces maybe not as good as we would like."
"They should provide improved visual reporting."
"Tableau and Power BI are faster than Cognos."
"The high cost of a license makes it hard to scale up on a budget."
"Most of our company's customers want to be able to deploy IBM Cognos on a web application and use it as a desktop application, which is not possible currently."
"There are a lot of limitations with the out-of-the-box tool."
"Tableau support could be improved."
"When you create new fields in Tableau and you enter the formulas, there is a new small window that is there in the interface. You can enter the calculated fields, it could be more user-friendly. At this time it is limited and hard to understand at the beginning. The fields should be easier to use, such as in Microsoft Excel. You can have a difficult time understanding what to do in the fields, you end up doing trial and error to figure it out."
"Firstly, the high cost of Tableau licenses makes it inaccessible for many mid-scale clients. Secondly, the server requires at least 128GB of RAM, which can be impractical for some systems. We need a dedicated system to use Tableau."
"The cost of owning the solutions from Tableau is much higher compared to any other analytical solutions."
"The data preparation could integrate better with Tableau."
"There should be stronger data modules for the platform."
"Reports should be downloadable as PDF files."
"Maybe the price could be a bit cheaper, especially if you're a personal developer that uses Tableau just to explore smaller data sets and you're not a company or something like that."
IBM Cognos is ranked 4th in Reporting with 132 reviews while Tableau is ranked 2nd in Reporting with 290 reviews. IBM Cognos is rated 8.0, while Tableau is rated 8.4. 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 Tableau writes "Provides fast data access with in-memory extracts, makes it easy to create visualizations, and saves time". IBM Cognos is most compared with Microsoft Power BI, Oracle OBIEE, SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform, Oracle Hyperion and Amazon QuickSight, whereas Tableau is most compared with Microsoft Power BI, Amazon QuickSight, Domo, SAS Visual Analytics and Oracle OBIEE. See our IBM Cognos vs. Tableau 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.