IBM Cognos Analytics vs. SAP Business Warehouse

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM Cognos Analytics
Score 8.2 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.
$10
per month per user
SAP BW
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
SAP Business Warehouse, or SAP BW (formerly SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse) is SAP's legacy data warehouse solution, now superseded by SAP BW/4HANA, and the SAP Data Warehouse Cloud which was launched in 2019. SAP BW versions up to 7.4 have reached end of maintenance. SAP BW 7.5 support is extended to align with SAP Business Suite with NetWeaver components. For existing customers maintenance is scheduled to continue through 2027, with extended support available through 2030.N/A
Pricing
IBM Cognos AnalyticsSAP Business Warehouse
Editions & Modules
On Demand - Standard
$10.00
per month per user
On Demand - Premium
$40.00
per month per user
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM Cognos AnalyticsSAP BW
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
IBM Cognos AnalyticsSAP Business Warehouse
Considered Both Products
IBM Cognos Analytics
Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
  • SpagoBI
  • Qlikview
  • Tableau
SAP BW
Chose SAP Business Warehouse
SAP Business Warehouse scores higher in data warehouse functionalities for integration to SAP ERP and other SAP solutions such as SAP CRM, SAP APO, and SAP SRM. Standard SAP data source extractors which are available in SAP ERP can be used immediately for full or delta …
Chose SAP Business Warehouse
SAP business warehouse was chosen years ago along with our current ERP software. It currently doesn't stack up well against newer software such as IBM Cognos, or SAS Business Intelligence. The positive side, is that the software has been around for many years and it is easy to …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
IBM Cognos AnalyticsSAP Business Warehouse
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cognos Analytics
7.9
102 Ratings
4% below category average
SAP Business Warehouse
-
Ratings
Pixel Perfect reports8.593 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable dashboards7.8100 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates7.497 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cognos Analytics
8.1
104 Ratings
0% below category average
SAP Business Warehouse
-
Ratings
Drill-down analysis8.1102 Ratings00 Ratings
Formatting capabilities8.1103 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages7.872 Ratings00 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration8.4100 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cognos Analytics
8.3
104 Ratings
1% below category average
SAP Business Warehouse
-
Ratings
Publish to Web8.327 Ratings00 Ratings
Publish to PDF8.798 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Versioning8.626 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling8.0101 Ratings00 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers8.112 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cognos Analytics
8.1
94 Ratings
0% above category average
SAP Business Warehouse
-
Ratings
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)8.089 Ratings00 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.286 Ratings00 Ratings
Predictive Analytics8.182 Ratings00 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining8.021 Ratings00 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cognos Analytics
8.3
99 Ratings
4% below category average
SAP Business Warehouse
8.8
3 Ratings
2% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)8.496 Ratings9.73 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model8.395 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.295 Ratings9.03 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control8.424 Ratings00 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)8.377 Ratings9.73 Ratings
Location-Based Data Governance00 Ratings7.03 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cognos Analytics
7.3
83 Ratings
8% below category average
SAP Business Warehouse
-
Ratings
Responsive Design for Web Access7.977 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Application7.368 Ratings00 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile8.174 Ratings00 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cognos Analytics
7.5
62 Ratings
5% below category average
SAP Business Warehouse
-
Ratings
REST API7.359 Ratings00 Ratings
Javascript API7.658 Ratings00 Ratings
iFrames8.39 Ratings00 Ratings
Java API6.911 Ratings00 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)7.110 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)7.87 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Modeling
Comparison of Data Modeling features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cognos Analytics
-
Ratings
SAP Business Warehouse
9.0
3 Ratings
12% above category average
Data model creation00 Ratings9.03 Ratings
Data Exploration
Comparison of Data Exploration features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cognos Analytics
-
Ratings
SAP Business Warehouse
5.7
3 Ratings
5% above category average
Visualization00 Ratings5.73 Ratings
Data Warehouse
Comparison of Data Warehouse features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cognos Analytics
-
Ratings
SAP Business Warehouse
7.7
3 Ratings
7% above category average
High-Volume Data Processing00 Ratings8.03 Ratings
Data Warehouse Management00 Ratings9.33 Ratings
Administrative Automation00 Ratings7.73 Ratings
Self-Optimization00 Ratings6.03 Ratings
Best Alternatives
IBM Cognos AnalyticsSAP Business Warehouse
Small Businesses
BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 8.9 out of 10
Google BigQuery
Google BigQuery
Score 8.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
Reveal
Score 9.9 out of 10
Snowflake
Snowflake
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
TIBCO Jaspersoft Community Edition
TIBCO Jaspersoft Community Edition
Score 9.7 out of 10
Oracle Exadata
Oracle Exadata
Score 8.0 out of 10
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User Ratings
IBM Cognos AnalyticsSAP Business Warehouse
Likelihood to Recommend
8.1
(127 ratings)
8.3
(15 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.8
(27 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(8 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
8.6
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(8 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.7
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.0
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.0
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
8.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.3
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.3
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM Cognos AnalyticsSAP Business Warehouse
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM
Well suited: 1. We use the tool for data modeling as it helps in predictive data analysis for complex data, which is very much in line with real-life scenarios. 2. Options
of customizing & scheduling reports as per our
requirements basis. 3. Has a mobile application that works seamlessly. Less Appropriate: 1. API integration with minimal options is not up to the mark. Laptops get overheated when using the tool, from moderate to heavy use. 2. Also, there is a lag in the tool times. 3. There is a lot of scope to improve customer support & it's not up to industry standards. 4. Licensing
& Maintenance can go from cheap to expensive depending on the scope.
Read full review
SAP
SAP BW is best for: 1. Large enterprises 2. Enterprises with 3+ legacy systems with entrenched users (politically difficult to merge) 3. Enterprises with employees who can understand both the technical capabilities of SAP BW and the needs of the business users - ability to speak both languages, otherwise the program could be unwieldy and potentially underutilized (it's not particularly inexpensive) SAP BW is less appropriate for: 1. Small enterprises 2. Enterprises who have well established, same location, CRM and UFS - the integration of data analysis will be easier and less expensive with other solutions 3. HANA
Read full review
Pros
IBM
  • It provides statistical analysis and predictive modeling which helps to forecast sales trends based on data and other factors.
  • It provides user friendly interface which helps users to explore data without extensive IT support. Like sales and marketing teams can use self service BI to analyze customer data and personalize campaigns for marketing.
  • It integrates well with IBM products and also with third party which enables organization to integrate with different products for better results and growth.
  • It provides security and governance features which maintains confidentiality, and compliance of data. It impose HIPAA compliance by providing role based access and encryption to protect sensitive data.
Read full review
SAP
  • It tracks bin locations for parts which can be really helpful.
  • SAP Business Warehouse tells you who has a part checked out so you can find it.
  • It shows current parts shortages so buyers are flagged to get parts on order based on current demand.
Read full review
Cons
IBM
  • Uses a lot of the CPU of PC and can be only item running on computer sometimes
  • The error descriptions could be worded differently to help users find out what is exactly wrong with the report they are trying to write
  • Missing third party integration functionality that works succinctly
Read full review
SAP
  • Support comes slow. This is not a limitation of the software itself but could be a symptom from the local office. Once we get support everything works along smoothly.
  • It is always important to review the instructions. This is not a system that does well initially with personalization without review of standard procedures. A log of time can be lost if the technicians and programmers working with the data are not following correct procedures.
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
SAP
No answers on this topic
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
SAP
No answers on this topic
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
SAP
No answers on this topic
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
SAP
No answers on this topic
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
SAP
No answers on this topic
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
SAP
No answers on this topic
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
SAP
No answers on this topic
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
SAP
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
IBM
I like the cloud native character and ease of deployment with Sigma and ThogthSpot, I also like the metadata modelling capabilities of Power BI. I prefer the ability of Cognos to create and publish a metadata model that provides both ad hoc access and managed reporting and everything in between
Read full review
SAP
SAP Business Warehouse scores higher in data warehouse functionalities for integration to SAP ERP and other SAP solutions such as SAP CRM, SAP APO, and SAP SRM. Standard SAP data source extractors which are available in SAP ERP can be used immediately for full or delta replication into SAP Business Warehouse. System governance in SAP Business Warehouse is top-notch with change management support for migration between system landscape from the development system to production system.
Read full review
Scalability
IBM
The Cognos architecture is well suited for scalability. However, the architecture must be designed with scalability in mind from day one of the implementation. We recently upgraded from 10.1 to 10.2.1 and took the opportunity to revamp our architecture. It is now poised for future growth and scalability.
Read full review
SAP
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
IBM
  • I've rebuilt a few metadata models to make the associated reports run at around a fifth of the time.
  • I was able to write and sell an IBM Cognos Analytics with Watson extension pack to add additional functionality and to make report author's lives easier.
Read full review
SAP
  • Exporting of data and reports to Excel is very easy for the end user to interpret and manipulate.
  • Negatively, the speed at which BW retrieves data and reports is very slow and out of date.
  • Addition of daughter application HANA has helped this aging application stay afloat for a few more years. Overall it has been a great tool but it's showing its age very fast.
Read full review
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