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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    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

    Microsoft SQL Server

    Score8.7 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft SQL Server is a relational database.

    $1,418

    Per License

    Pricing
    IBM Cognos AnalyticsMicrosoft SQL Server
    Editions & Modules
    On Demand - Standard
    USD 11.25
    per month per user
    On Demand - Premium
    USD 44.90
    per month per user
    Subscription
    $1,418.00
    Per License
    Enterprise
    $13,748.00
    Per License
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    IBM Cognos AnalyticsMicrosoft SQL Server
    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 AnalyticsMicrosoft SQL Server
    Considered Both Products
    IBM
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    Can prepare data like google search engine, users can input their questions and robust framework may answer
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    We selected IBM Cognos because it has all of the features our organization needs for reporting. There are multiple report and dashboard options. Security and scheduling options are good. Tableau does not have good tools for advanced reporting besides dashboards. Power BI does …
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    IBM Cognos Analytics is catching up to Tableau Desktop in the only area that Tableau Desktop had an advantage (visualizations). IBM Cognos Analytics can do a lot more than what Tableau Desktop does with its advanced pixel perfect tools, ease of use, and delivery options to …
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    Although Tableau has certain advantages, mostly in its best in class visualization capabilities, Cognos is catching up. Most of the other advantages of Tableau Desktop have been addressed in more recent versions of Cognos, for instance the ability to ingest personal data …
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    Provides inbuilt AI for self-service report authoring on top of reporting.
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    It stacks up pretty well. The learning curve is low and the user experience is smooth. The cost was less expensive and implementation was very quick.
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    MS BI: A lot of times we meet customers who are dealing with an MS BI maintenance nightmare and we try to ease their pain by implementing Cognos BI and their reporting and analysis system. Cognos BI is better than MS BI from ease of implementation to production support and …
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    1. Dashboards in cognos perform well compared the above reporting product lines. 2. Report Studio can be very well used to form queries from 2 disjoint data sets and still data can be presented as 2 single reports with in a single report. 3. Query studio performs in a better …
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    • SpagoBI
    • Qlikview
    • Tableau
    Microsoft
    Chose Microsoft SQL Server
    For a single vendor solution, SQL Server is the best choice in my opinion. Most of the other solutions do not offer the full range of products in a single package. Also, for a largely Microsoft shop, there are additional integrations which increase the value proposition. …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft SQL Server
    My-SQL, Oracle. My-SQL - recently they coped up a lot on contrast to MS - SQL server with all the latest features.
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft SQL Server
    MS SQL server is the best database management tool available and it has been improving every year addressing the needs for ever growing data.
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    97%
    Would buy again
    92 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    53 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    79 Answers
    96%
    Delivers good value for the price
    45 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    91 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    53 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    93%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    55 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    39 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    64 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    45 Answers
    Features
    IBM Cognos AnalyticsMicrosoft SQL Server
    BI Standard Reporting
    Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of IBM Cognos Analytics and Microsoft SQL Server
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    7.7
    138 Ratings
    6% below category average
    Microsoft SQL Server
    -
    Ratings
    Pixel Perfect reports7.6129 Ratings00 Ratings
    Customizable dashboards8.0136 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report Formatting Templates7.5131 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad-hoc Reporting
    Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of IBM Cognos Analytics and Microsoft SQL Server
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    7.9
    138 Ratings
    1% below category average
    Microsoft SQL Server
    -
    Ratings
    Drill-down analysis7.4136 Ratings00 Ratings
    Formatting capabilities8.3139 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integration with R or other statistical packages7.397 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report sharing and collaboration8.6133 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report Output and Scheduling
    Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of IBM Cognos Analytics and Microsoft SQL Server
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    9.2
    136 Ratings
    11% above category average
    Microsoft SQL Server
    -
    Ratings
    Publish to Web9.836 Ratings00 Ratings
    Publish to PDF8.2132 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report Versioning9.833 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report Delivery Scheduling8.2134 Ratings00 Ratings
    Delivery to Remote Servers9.918 Ratings00 Ratings
    Data Discovery and Visualization
    Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of IBM Cognos Analytics and Microsoft SQL Server
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    7.4
    124 Ratings
    8% below category average
    Microsoft SQL Server
    -
    Ratings
    Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)7.9121 Ratings00 Ratings
    Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.0114 Ratings00 Ratings
    Predictive Analytics6.7110 Ratings00 Ratings
    Pattern Recognition and Data Mining6.947 Ratings00 Ratings
    Access Control and Security
    Comparison of Access Control and Security features of IBM Cognos Analytics and Microsoft SQL Server
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    7.8
    130 Ratings
    8% below category average
    Microsoft SQL Server
    -
    Ratings
    Multi-User Support (named login)7.5129 Ratings00 Ratings
    Role-Based Security Model7.5127 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)7.4127 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report-Level Access Control8.257 Ratings00 Ratings
    Single Sign-On (SSO)8.6111 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile Capabilities
    Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of IBM Cognos Analytics and Microsoft SQL Server
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    6.4
    109 Ratings
    19% below category average
    Microsoft SQL Server
    -
    Ratings
    Responsive Design for Web Access6.8104 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile Application6.390 Ratings00 Ratings
    Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile6.696 Ratings00 Ratings
    Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
    Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of IBM Cognos Analytics and Microsoft SQL Server
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    9.2
    87 Ratings
    17% above category average
    Microsoft SQL Server
    -
    Ratings
    REST API7.683 Ratings00 Ratings
    Javascript API7.779 Ratings00 Ratings
    iFrames9.912 Ratings00 Ratings
    Java API10.013 Ratings00 Ratings
    Themeable User Interface (UI)9.915 Ratings00 Ratings
    Customizable Platform (Open Source)9.99 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    IBM Cognos AnalyticsMicrosoft SQL Server
    Small Businesses
    Cyfe
    Score4 out of 10
    Amazon RDS
    Score8.1 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
    Score8.1 out of 10
    SingleStore
    Score8.2 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Sisense
    Score6.9 out of 10
    SAP IQ
    Score5.4 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    IBM Cognos AnalyticsMicrosoft SQL Server
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (158 ratings)
    7.9
    (107 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.4
    (31 ratings)
    9.0
    (8 ratings)
    Usability
    7.3
    (10 ratings)
    7.6
    (17 ratings)
    Availability
    8.6
    (4 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    9.0
    (5 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    1.0
    (9 ratings)
    7.9
    (26 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    8.7
    (4 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    8.0
    (4 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    7.0
    (7 ratings)
    9.0
    (6 ratings)
    Configurability
    7.0
    (3 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Data Sharing and Collaboration
    8.6
    (40 ratings)
    9.0
    (5 ratings)
    Data Sources
    8.3
    (40 ratings)
    10.0
    (5 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    5.5
    (6 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    6.4
    (5 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    IBM Cognos AnalyticsMicrosoft SQL Server
    Likelihood to Recommend
    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
    Microsoft
    Microsoft SQL is ubiquitous, while MySQL runs under the hood all over the place. Microsoft SQL is the platform taught in colleges and certification courses and is the one most likely to be used by businesses because it is backed by Microsoft. Its interface is friendly (well, as pleasant as SQL can be) and has been used by so many for so long that resources are freely available if you encounter any issues.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    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
    Microsoft
    • Easy to configure and use with Visual Studio and Dot Net
    • Easy integration with MSBI to perform data analysis
    • Data Security
    • Easy to understand and use
    • Very easy to export database and tables in the form of SQL query or a script
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise edition has a high cost but is the only edition which supports SQL Always On Availability Groups. It would be nice to include this feature in the Standard version.
    • Licensing of Microsoft SQL Server is a quite complex matter, it would be good to simplify licensing in the future. For example, per core vs per user CAL licensing, as well as complex licensing scenarios in the Cloud and on Edge locations.
    • It would be good to include native tools for converting Oracle, DB2, Postgresql and MySQL/MariaDB databases (schema and data) for import into Microsoft SQL Server.
    Incentivized
    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
    Microsoft
    We understand that the Microsoft SQL Server will continue to advance, offering the same robust and reliable platform while adding new features that enable us, as a software center, to create a superior product. That provides excellent performance while reducing the hardware requirements and the total cost of ownership of our solution.
    Incentivized
    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
    Microsoft
    SQL Server mostly 'just works' or generates error messages to help you sort out the trouble. You can usually count on the product to get the job done and keep an eye on your potential mistakes. Interaction with other Microsoft products makes operating as a Windows user pretty straight forward. Digging through the multitude of dialogs and wizards can be a pain, but the answer is usually there somewhere.
    Incentivized
    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
    Microsoft
    Its does not have outages.
    Incentivized
    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
    Microsoft
    SSAS data cubes may some time slow down your Excel reports.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    We managed to handle most of our problems by looking into Microsoft's official documentation that has everything explained and almost every function has an example that illustrates in detail how a particular functionality works. Just like PowerShell has the ability to show you an example of how some cmdlet works, that is the case also here, and in my opinion, it is a very good practice and I like it.
    Incentivized
    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
    Microsoft
    It was good
    Incentivized
    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
    Microsoft
    very hands on and detailed training
    Incentivized
    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
    Microsoft
    Other than SQL taking quite a bit of time to actually install there are no problems with installation. Even on hardware that has good performance SQL can still take close to an hour to install a typical server with management and reporting services.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    [Microsoft] SQL Server has a much better community and professional support and is overall just a more reliable system with Microsoft behind it. I've used MySQL in the past and SQL Server has just become more comfortable for me and is my go to RDBMS.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    SQL server does handle growing demands of a mid sized company.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    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
    Microsoft
    • Increased accuracy - We went from multiple users having different versions of an Excel spreadsheet to a single source of truth for our reporting.
    • Increased Efficiency - We can now generate reports at any time from a single source rather than multiple users spending their time collating data and generating reports.
    • Improved Security - Enterprise level security on a dedicated server rather than financial files on multiple laptop hard drives.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    IBM Cognos Analytics Screenshots

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