IBM Cognos Analytics

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM Cognos Analytics
Score 7.6 out of 10
N/A
IBM 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
IBM Cognos Analytics
Editions & Modules
On Demand - Standard
USD 11.25
per month per user
On Demand - Premium
USD 44.90
per month per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM Cognos Analytics
Free Trial
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes
Entry-level Setup FeeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
IBM Cognos Analytics
Considered Both Products
IBM Cognos Analytics
Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
Cognos Analytics builds your core numbers, Planning Analytics shows you how the forecast in the future and gives you valuable insights on what to focus, on how oganisations perform and where to have a deeper dive to controll and steer your organisation. Cognos isn't good in …
Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
Since we have previously used Salesforce, Tableau and Qlik Sense. I find each platform has it own strengths and weaknesses. Tableau is very intuitive and flexible, Qlik is very strong with ease of development. But IBM Cognos Analytics stands out in structured org level …
Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
IBM Cognos Analytics is good in few things, but we find more value in other BI tools where IBM Cognos Analytics is lacking. So we use all these above BI tools in our enterprise as a supplemental value for things where IBM Cognos Analytics is not helping with the analysis, …
Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
We have been using IBM Cognos Analytics since we got away from in-app reports from multiple systems. I can’t compare it to any of those systems. It is leaps and bounds above what any of them offer on their own. IBM Cognos Analytics has saved our organization countless hours of …
Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
i believe that CA is more powerful, has better modelling, and is not held back by a cumbersome method of re-using data models. The only thing that holds it back is the complexity of licensing.
Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
Cognos provides very advanced analytics functionalities, maybe even more advanced than the competition, and works great when used in collaboration with Watson. However, Tableau and other newer products are much better regarding overall usability.
Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
We selected IBM Cognos Analytics based on the following. The scalable and robust features for large organizations allowing it to grow as we do. The nest feature is the strong data governance and security features. It also supports a wide variety of data sources. Lastly, it …
Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
IBM Cognos Analytics is robust in terms of reporting, governance and scheduling while Power BI excels in use, interactivity and visuals. In nutshell, IBM Cognos Analytics has edge over Power BI for enterprise grade , structured reporting needs.
Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
We chose IBM Cognos Analytics because, in our experience, IBM Cognos Analytics was Better, had more feature functionality, and is easier to use
Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
Much more powerful and complete
Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
have been using since it's creation
Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
We chose IBM Cognos Analytics because, in our opinion, IBM Cognos Analytics has Better enterprise integration
Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
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 …
Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
IBM Cognos Analytics was more matured enterprise modeling-based tool. Our power Bi struggled against large ERP data sets, which IBM didn't after few initial days.

IBM had much better scalability and security when comes to user reports distribution. The schedule feature worked …
Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
Compared to other tools like Power BI, Tableau, and Google studio, IBM Cognos Analytics is better for the companies who looks strong control on detailed reports. Power BI and Tableau are easy to use and good for quick presentation, but Cognos has more options for security, such …
Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
Tableau, Power BI, QlikView were the other options considered. Tableau lacked the following key components of business intelligence and analytics. Some other statistical functions that are available on the platform were not matched by Power BI. QlikView lacked robust …
Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
I believe you can’t compare the two just based off of data sets. Domo does allow room for customization and Cognos has a huge data set. It would be great to be able to pair the two.
Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
It was due to trust in IBM. Very good support provide by IBM. Response time is pretty good
Product is proven in past & well robust feature
Many good enterprises have used this product
Features
IBM Cognos Analytics
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cognos Analytics
7.7
136 Ratings
6% below category average
Pixel Perfect reports7.6127 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.0133 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates7.5129 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cognos Analytics
7.9
136 Ratings
2% below category average
Drill-down analysis7.4134 Ratings
Formatting capabilities8.3136 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages7.395 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration8.5130 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cognos Analytics
9.2
134 Ratings
11% above category average
Publish to Web9.933 Ratings
Publish to PDF8.2129 Ratings
Report Versioning9.931 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling8.2131 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers9.916 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cognos Analytics
7.4
123 Ratings
8% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)7.9119 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.0112 Ratings
Predictive Analytics6.7108 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining6.945 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cognos Analytics
7.8
128 Ratings
8% below category average
Multi-User Support (named login)7.5126 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model7.6125 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)7.3124 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control8.254 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)8.6108 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cognos Analytics
6.4
108 Ratings
19% below category average
Responsive Design for Web Access6.8102 Ratings
Mobile Application6.390 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile6.796 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cognos Analytics
9.2
87 Ratings
17% above category average
REST API7.683 Ratings
Javascript API7.779 Ratings
iFrames9.912 Ratings
Java API10.013 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)9.915 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)9.99 Ratings
Best Alternatives
IBM Cognos Analytics
Small Businesses
Yellowfin
Yellowfin
Score 8.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Kyvos Semantic Layer
Kyvos Semantic Layer
Score 9.5 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
IBM Cognos Analytics
Likelihood to Recommend
7.9
(155 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.4
(31 ratings)
Usability
7.3
(10 ratings)
Availability
8.6
(4 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(5 ratings)
Support Rating
1.0
(9 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.7
(4 ratings)
Online Training
8.0
(4 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.0
(7 ratings)
Configurability
7.0
(3 ratings)
Ease of integration
5.5
(6 ratings)
Product Scalability
6.2
(5 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
7.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
7.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM Cognos Analytics
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM
Well suited: Financial reporting - It can handle complex, pixel perfect, muti-page reports with scheduled delivery to stakeholders (like sales report by region on quarterly periodicity) Operational dashboard across departments - It can combine multiple data sources (ERP, CRM, excels etc) with filters, and embedded AI insights Less appropriate: Live dashboards - As stated earlier as well, IBM Cognos Analytics doesn't suit well for live dashboards or event driven data. For ex: live web traffic data or IOT device data, etc Data science - Although IBM Cognos Analytics is great tool for data exploration but it should not be used as a substitute for Python or R, which has edge over advanced modelling and stats based workflows like predictive modelling or clustering
Read full review
Pros
IBM
  • We can make dozens of dispatchers all focusing on different types of workloads.
  • Friendly user interface, without the need for coding or complicated editing.
  • Highly functionality reporting tools.
  • We can easily create trigger when a certain threshold are met sending reports or alerts to needed parties.
Read full review
Cons
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.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
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
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
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
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
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.
Read full review
In-Person Training
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
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
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
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.
Read full review
Scalability
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.
Read full review
Return on Investment
IBM
  • We use the tool for data modeling as it helps in predictive data analysis for complex data, which is very similar to real-life scenarios.
  • Options of customizing & scheduling reports as per our requirements basis.
  • Has mobile application which works seamless.
  • API integration is not upto the mark with very limited options.
  • Licensing & Maintenance can go from cheap to expensive depending on the scope.
Read full review
ScreenShots

IBM Cognos Analytics Screenshots

Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of