TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

Save this comparison

Save this comparison

Add Product

Recommended Comparisons

    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Google Analytics

    Score8.3 out of 10
    N/AGoogle Analytics is perhaps the best-known web analytics product and, as a free product, it has massive adoption. Although it lacks some enterprise-level features compared to its competitors in the space, the launch of the paid Google Analytics Premium edition seems likely to close the gap.

    $0

    per month

    IBM Cognos Analytics

    Score7.7 out of 10
    N/AIBM Cognos is a full-featured business intelligence suite by IBM, designed for larger deployments. It comprises Query Studio, Reporting Studio, Analysis Studio and Event Studio, and Cognos Administration along with tools for Microsoft Office integration, full-text search, and dashboards.

    $11.25

    per month per user

    Pricing
    Google AnalyticsIBM Cognos Analytics
    Editions & Modules
    Google Analytics 360
    150,000
    per year
    Google Analytics
    Free
    On Demand - Standard
    USD 11.25
    per month per user
    On Demand - Premium
    USD 44.90
    per month per user
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Google AnalyticsIBM Cognos Analytics
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Google AnalyticsIBM Cognos Analytics
    Considered Both Products
    Google
    No answer on this topic
    IBM
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    IBM Cognos made it easy to request data that was needed. With PeopleSoft, our IT department needed to be involved/was required so that in-house programmers could design code and queries in order to be able to review the data. Excluding this extra step made productivity much …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    96%
    Would buy again
    101 Answers
    97%
    Would buy again
    92 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    100 Answers
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    79 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    99%
    Happy with the feature set
    104 Answers
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    91 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    97%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    77 Answers
    93%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    55 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    87 Answers
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    64 Answers
    Features
    Google AnalyticsIBM Cognos Analytics
    Web Analytics
    Comparison of Web Analytics features of Google Analytics and IBM Cognos Analytics
    Feature
    Google Analytics
    8.4
    11 Ratings
    4% above category average
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    -
    Ratings
    Lead Conversion Tracking8.210 Ratings00 Ratings
    Bounce Rate Measurement8.410 Ratings00 Ratings
    Device and Browser Reporting9.311 Ratings00 Ratings
    Pageview Tracking9.111 Ratings00 Ratings
    Event Tracking8.411 Ratings00 Ratings
    Reporting in real-time7.810 Ratings00 Ratings
    Referral Source Tracking8.610 Ratings00 Ratings
    Customizable Dashboards7.910 Ratings00 Ratings
    BI Standard Reporting
    Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Google Analytics and IBM Cognos Analytics
    Feature
    Google Analytics
    -
    Ratings
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    7.7
    138 Ratings
    6% below category average
    Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings7.6129 Ratings
    Customizable dashboards00 Ratings8.0136 Ratings
    Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings7.5131 Ratings
    Ad-hoc Reporting
    Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Google Analytics and IBM Cognos Analytics
    Feature
    Google Analytics
    -
    Ratings
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    7.9
    138 Ratings
    1% below category average
    Drill-down analysis00 Ratings7.4136 Ratings
    Formatting capabilities00 Ratings8.3139 Ratings
    Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings7.397 Ratings
    Report sharing and collaboration00 Ratings8.6133 Ratings
    Report Output and Scheduling
    Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Google Analytics and IBM Cognos Analytics
    Feature
    Google Analytics
    -
    Ratings
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    9.2
    136 Ratings
    11% above category average
    Publish to Web00 Ratings9.836 Ratings
    Publish to PDF00 Ratings8.2132 Ratings
    Report Versioning00 Ratings9.833 Ratings
    Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings8.2134 Ratings
    Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings9.918 Ratings
    Data Discovery and Visualization
    Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Google Analytics and IBM Cognos Analytics
    Feature
    Google Analytics
    -
    Ratings
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    7.4
    124 Ratings
    8% below category average
    Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)00 Ratings7.9121 Ratings
    Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings8.0114 Ratings
    Predictive Analytics00 Ratings6.7110 Ratings
    Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings6.947 Ratings
    Access Control and Security
    Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Google Analytics and IBM Cognos Analytics
    Feature
    Google Analytics
    -
    Ratings
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    7.8
    130 Ratings
    8% below category average
    Multi-User Support (named login)00 Ratings7.5129 Ratings
    Role-Based Security Model00 Ratings7.5127 Ratings
    Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)00 Ratings7.4127 Ratings
    Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings8.257 Ratings
    Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings8.6111 Ratings
    Mobile Capabilities
    Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Google Analytics and IBM Cognos Analytics
    Feature
    Google Analytics
    -
    Ratings
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    6.4
    109 Ratings
    19% below category average
    Responsive Design for Web Access00 Ratings6.8104 Ratings
    Mobile Application00 Ratings6.390 Ratings
    Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile00 Ratings6.696 Ratings
    Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
    Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Google Analytics and IBM Cognos Analytics
    Feature
    Google Analytics
    -
    Ratings
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    9.2
    87 Ratings
    17% above category average
    REST API00 Ratings7.683 Ratings
    Javascript API00 Ratings7.779 Ratings
    iFrames00 Ratings9.912 Ratings
    Java API00 Ratings10.013 Ratings
    Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings9.915 Ratings
    Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings9.99 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Google AnalyticsIBM Cognos Analytics
    Small Businesses
    Matomo Analytics
    Score9 out of 10
    Cyfe
    Score4 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Lead Forensics
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
    Score8.1 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Chartbeat
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Sisense
    Score6.9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Google AnalyticsIBM Cognos Analytics
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.5
    (193 ratings)
    8.0
    (158 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.0
    (51 ratings)
    8.4
    (31 ratings)
    Usability
    7.4
    (19 ratings)
    7.3
    (10 ratings)
    Availability
    10.0
    (4 ratings)
    8.6
    (4 ratings)
    Performance
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    9.0
    (5 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.0
    (42 ratings)
    1.0
    (9 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.7
    (4 ratings)
    Online Training
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    8.0
    (4 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.0
    (7 ratings)
    7.0
    (7 ratings)
    Configurability
    6.0
    (2 ratings)
    7.0
    (3 ratings)
    Data Sharing and Collaboration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.6
    (40 ratings)
    Data Sources
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.3
    (40 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    5.5
    (6 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    6.4
    (5 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Google AnalyticsIBM Cognos Analytics
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Google
    Google Analytics is particularly well suited for tracking and analyzing customer behavior on a grocery e-commerce platform. It provides a wealth of information about customer behavior, including what products are most popular, what pages are visited the most, and where customers are coming from. This information can help the platform optimize its website for better customer engagement and conversion rates. However, Google Analytics may not be the best tool for more advanced, granular analysis of customer behavior, such as tracking individual customer journeys or understanding customer motivations. In these cases, it may be more appropriate to use additional tools or solutions that provide deeper insights into customer behavior.
    Read full review
    IBM
    For Transaction monitoring, we build reports for executive management, providing insights into the number of alerts, the types or categories of detection scenarios, the risk profile, and a snapshot of high- or urgent-priority cases to be reported to AUSTRAC. Congos helps to build the report by ingesting alert data exported from SAS datasets. It joins with other data from Teradata and Customer Hub (Oracle).
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Google
    • Multiple reports to see website use and behavior
    • Allows you to customize reports with days, weeks, months, and years
    • You can build out a dashboard to easily view stats from multiple websites in one place
    • You can share analytics reports via the dashboard, automatically emailed PDFs or in other formats
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    IBM
    • Enterprise reporting - Create, customise, and run reports on sales trends, consumer sentiment, etc.
    • Dashboard creation and data exploration & analysis - Using drag and drop feature to create ad-hoc visualisation. Additionally, using AI powered natural language query feature for data analysis and dashboard input (formation of pie, bar, line charts). It's useful for no-technical person to put queries around the spreadsheet data to get quick answers.
    • Building insights for accurate decision making - Package reports with data backed insights for stakeholders in pdf, and Excel format to support business ad-hoc cases, forecasting and strategic recommendations on relevant asks.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Google
    • Data sampling is somewhat inaccurate on the free tier - this is addressed in premium but is expensive.
    • Some of the UI is very similar in naming when presenting different data, some in-situ information might be useful.
    • Gotchas around filtering and data validation.
    • Implementation can be tricky, it can take a lot of time and expertise to get a full, accurate picture of your metrics.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    IBM
    • IBM Cognos Analytics enables customer data segmentation, which is essential for marketing, improving and streamlining purchasing behavior and preferences. This helps companies create more targeted and effective marketing campaigns.
    • Our clients Through data analysis, we can identify and observe trends in the behavior of other clients, allowing us to anticipate needs and adjust strategies to avoid consequences.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Google
    We will continue to use Google Analytics for several reasons. It is free, which is a huge selling point. It houses all of our ecommerce stores' data, and though it can't account for refunds or fraud orders, gives us and our clients directional, real time information on individual and group store performance.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    IBM
    For an existing solution, renewing licenses does provide a good return on investment. Additionally, while rolling out scorecards and dashboards with little adhoc capabilities, to end users, cognos is very easily scalable. It also allows to create a solution that has a mix of OLAP and relational data-sources, which is a limitation with other tools. Synchronizing with existing security setup is easy too.
    Read full review
    Usability
    Google
    Google Analytics provides a wealth of data, down to minute levels. That is it's greatest detriment: find the right information when you need it can be a cumbersome task. You are able to create shortcuts, however, so it can mitigate some of this problem. Google is continually refining Analytics, so I do not doubt there will be improvements
    Read full review
    IBM
    We have a strong user base (3500 users) that are highly utilizing this tool. Basic users are able to consume content within the applied security model. We have a set of advanced users that really push the limits of Cognos with Report and Query Studio. These users have created a lot of personal content and stored it in 'My Reports'. Users enjoy this flexibility.
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Google
    We all know Google is at top when it comes to availability. We have never faced any such instances where I can suggest otherwise. All you need is a Google account, a device and internet connection to use this super powerful tool for reporting and visualising your site data, traffic, events, etc. that too in real time.
    Read full review
    IBM
    Reports can typically be viewed through any browser that can access the server, so the availability is ultimately up to what the company utilizing it is comfortable with allowing, though report development tends to be more picky about browsers and settings as mentioned above. It also has an optional iPad app and general mobile browsing support, but dashboards lack the mobile compatibility. What keeps it from getting a higher score is the desktop tools that are vital to the development process. The compatibility with only Windows when the server has a wide range of compatibility can be a real sore point for a company that outfits its employees exclusively with Mac or Linux machines. Of course, if they are planning on outsourcing the development anyways, it's a rather moot point
    Read full review
    Performance
    Google
    This has been a catalyst for improving our site's traffic handling capabilities. We were able to identify exit% from our sites through it and we used recommendations to handle and implement the same in our sites. We have been increasing the usage of Google Analytics in our sites and never had any performance related issues if we used Analytics
    Read full review
    IBM
    Overall no major complaints but it doesn't handle DMR (Dimensionally Modeled for Relational) very well. DMR modelling is a capability that IBM Cognos Framework Manager provides allowing you to specify dimensional information for relational metadata and allows for OLAP-style queries. However, the capability is not very efficient and, for example, if I'm using only 2 columns on a 20-column model, the software is not smart enough to exclude 18 columns and the query side gets progressively larger and larger until it's effectively unusable.
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Google
    The Google reps respond very quickly. However, sometimes they can overly call you to set up an apportionment. I'm very proficient and sometimes when I talk to reps, they give beginner tutorials and insights that are a waste of time. I wish Google would understand my level of expertise and assign me to a rep (long-term) that doesn't have to walk me through the basics.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    IBM
    Why is their web application not working as fast as you think it should? They never know, and it is always a a bunch of shots in the dark to find out. Trying to download software from them is like trying to find a book at the library before computers were invented.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Google
    No answers on this topic
    IBM
    Onsite training provided by IBM Cognos was effective and as expected. They did not perform training with our data which was a bit difficult for our end-users.
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Google
    love the product and training they provide for businesses of all sizes. The following list of links will help you get started with Google Analytics from setup to understanding what data is being presented by Google Analytics.
    1. How to Use Google Analytics for Beginners – Mahalo’s how-to guide for beginners.
    2. A beginner’s guide to Google Analytics – A free eBook walking you through Google Analytics from setup to understanding what data is being presented.
    3. Getting to Know Your Google Analytics Dashboard – The title says it all! This is a brief post with one goal: to introduce you to the Google Analytics dashboard.
    4. Google Analytics for Beginners: How to Make the Most of Your Traffic Reports– This guide doesn’t cover setup, but it does a great job of helping you to better understand the data being presented.
    5. Google Analytics Video Tutorial 1: Setup – A video presentation that walks you through Google Analytics setup.
    6. Google Analytics Video Tutorial 2: Essential Stats – A video presentation that introduces you to some of the most important data being presented in Google Analytics.
    Read full review
    IBM
    The online courses they offer are thorough and presented in such a way that someone who isn't already familiar with the general design methodologies used in this field will be capable of making a good design. The training environments are provided as a fully self contained virtual machine with everything needed already to create the environments. We've had some persisting issues with the environments becoming unavailable, but support has been responsive when these issues arise and straightening them out for us
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Google
    I think my biggest take away from the Google Analytics implementation was that there needs to be a clear understanding of what you want to achieve and how you want to achieve it before you start. Originally the analytics were added to track visitors, but as we became more savvy with the product, we began adding more and more functionality, and defining guidelines as we went along. While not detrimental to our success, this lack of an overarching goal resulted in some minor setbacks in implementation and the collection of some messy data that is unusable.
    Read full review
    IBM
    Make sure that any custom tables that you have, are built into your metadata packages. You can still access them via SQL queries in Cognos, but it is much easier to have them as a part of the available metadata packages.
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Google
    I have not used Adobe Analytics as much, but I know they offer something called customer journey analytics, which we are evaluating now. I have used Semrush, and I find them much better than Google Analytics. I feel a fairly nontechnical person could learn Semrush in about a month. They also offer features like competitive analysis (on content, keywords, traffic, etc.), which is very useful. If you have to choose one among Semrush and Google Analytics, I would say go for Semrush.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    IBM
    Power BI is stronger for quick ad-hoc analysis and dashboards, but IBM Cognos Analytics is better when consistency, precision, and mass distribution matter. Tableau is best for interactive analysis, while IBM Cognos Analytics is better for standardized, repeatable enterprise reporting. Sigma shines for customizable dashboards and drill-down analysis while IBM Cognos Analytics holds an edge in data discovery and visualization.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Google
    Google Analytics is currently handling the reporting and tracking of near about 80 sites in our project. And I am not talking about the sites from different projects. They may have way more accounts than that. Never ever felt a performance issue from Google's end while generating or customising reports or tracking custom events or creating custom dimensions
    Read full review
    IBM
    We rate IBM Cognos Analytics a 9 out of 10 for overall scalability. The platform handles large numbers of users, reports, and analytical workloads very reliably. We have experienced strong performance even in demanding enterprise environments with substantial data volumes. Its architecture provides sufficient flexibility to scale resources according to demand, making it well suited for large, business-critical deployments.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Google
    • It has helped us gain understanding of what is going on on our website.
    • It has helped us determine areas that need fixing (i.e. pages with extremely high bounce rates may need to be redone).
    • It has helped us understand our biggest avenues for bringing traffic to the website and business in general.
    • It has helped guide our website redesign.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    IBM
    • The platform can be pretty pricey.
    • Convoluted contracts and they fine you for any breach during audits.
    • Things are changed between releases without any warning and break.
    • It is second to none at being able to customize list and crosstab type reports.
    • You can easily set up a report to be emailed out every day and even have it export the report to a shared folder.
    • On-prem environments can be scaled up pretty much as much as you would like.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    IBM Cognos Analytics Screenshots

    Product screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshot