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.
"The solution's most valuable feature is its ease of use, which makes it easily compatible with other tools."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"I have worked on the features like dashboards and stories, and I do like them a lot."
"The initial setup is very straightforward."
"For planning, forecasting, in-boxing, modeling in general and for predicting numbers and doing work analysis, they are excellent."
"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."
"The basic platform comes with several meta-modelling tools."
"Tableau has comprehensive, insightful charts, which allow you to build stunning dashboards and enrich your support decision-making."
"The solution offers very good reporting."
"This solution has transformed us from an Excel reporting environment to one of visual exploration."
"Partner support is very good."
"It is a very stable product. It doesn't break."
"The best thing I like about Tableau is that you don't have to go for creating; it is calculated free."
"The solution makes for very productive and really informative decision making. It can lead the whole business and build a strategy across whole working departments."
"Tableau's visualization features let you present information insights quickly and practically. So it's something which I prefer with Tableau. In terms of reporting, I have to point out the sheer quality and function of the Tableau server, but the first impression is that it's a great visualization tool."
"There are a lot of limitations with the out-of-the-box tool."
"It would be better if it is was easier to implement without extensive training for it."
"Extending features on dashboards so it becomes a real dashboard building application, not only a data exploration tool."
"The charts and graphics are weak."
"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."
"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."
"Tableau and Power BI are faster than Cognos."
"We would like to see development of the product's UI function, to make it more of a UI tool that can be configured as required."
"It should have more integration with different tools and technologies. Its licensing cost should also be improved."
"When it comes to large datasets, the data should be extracted faster."
"Overall, the only major frustration that I have had so far is with Tableau Public. I first used Tableau Public when I was building capacity, and when there was a later release to download and you wanted to upgrade, all your work would have to be manually re-entered."
"An advanced type of visualization is a bit tricky to create. It has something called a Calculated field, and that sometimes gets a bit difficult to use when you want to create an advanced type of visualization."
"There should be more widgets that would help less trained individuals create charts with less difficulty."
"The price could be better."
"I also work as an SME on the platform side. Tableau is very nice and jazzy for the end-users, but there are pain points for the admins. Performance is something about which we hear a lot of complaints, such as the dashboard doesn't open in time. It performs well on the desktop but not on the server. I know that there is always a limitation when it comes to a huge amount of data or the complexity of the calculations, but we often hear from end-users about the performance on the server side. It is easy to drag and drop all the columns and do what we want, but if it is not going to load better on the server, users are not going to like it."
"The architecture should be improved to better handle the data."
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.