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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

    Toad Database Developer Tools

    Score9.2 out of 10
    N/AToad by Quest is a database management toolset that database developers, administrators and data analysts use to simplify workflows, create code free from defects, automate frequent or repetitive processes, and minimize risks. Editions include Toad for Oracle, which automates administration tasks and helps proactively manage databases while embracing performance optimization and risk mitigation. Similar editions exist for IBM DB2, SQL Server, SAP, or MySQL and Postgres environments (Toad Edge).

    $229

    per year

    Pricing
    IBM Cognos AnalyticsToad Database Developer Tools
    Editions & Modules
    On Demand - Standard
    USD 11.25
    per month per user
    On Demand - Premium
    USD 44.90
    per month per user
    Toad Edge For MySQL
    $229
    per year
    Toad Edge For Postgres
    $229
    per year
    Toad for SQL - Pro Edition
    $437
    per year
    Toad for Oracle - Base Edition
    $550
    per year
    Toad for DB2 z/OS - Base Edition
    $636
    per year
    Toad for SAP - Base Edition
    $636
    per year
    Toad for SQL - Xpert Edition
    $763
    per year
    Toad for Oracle - Professional Edition
    $829
    per year
    Toad for SQL - Dev Edition
    $930
    per year
    Toad for DB2 z/OS - Pro Edition
    $996
    per year
    Toad for Oracle - Professional DB Admin Edition
    $1,370
    per year
    Toad for DB2 z/OS - Xpert Edition
    $1,529
    per year
    Toad for SAP - Xpert Edition
    $1530
    per year
    Toad for Oracle - Xpert Plus Edition
    $1,753
    per year
    Toad for DB2 z/OS - Dev Edition
    $1,861
    per year
    Toad for SAP - Dev Edition
    $1863
    per year
    Toad for SAP - Xpert+ Edition
    $2099
    per year
    Toad for SAP - DBA Edition
    $3661
    per year
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    IBM Cognos AnalyticsToad Database Developer Tools
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    IBM Cognos AnalyticsToad Database Developer Tools
    Considered Both Products
    IBM
    No answer on this topic
    Quest Software
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    97%
    Would buy again
    92 Answers
    90%
    Would buy again
    9 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    79 Answers
    89%
    Delivers good value for the price
    8 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    91 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    10 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
    7 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    64 Answers
    75%
    Implementation went as expected
    6 Answers
    Features
    IBM Cognos AnalyticsToad Database Developer Tools
    BI Standard Reporting
    Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of IBM Cognos Analytics and Toad Database Developer Tools
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    7.7
    138 Ratings
    6% below category average
    Toad Database Developer Tools
    -
    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 Toad Database Developer Tools
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    7.9
    138 Ratings
    1% below category average
    Toad Database Developer Tools
    -
    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 Toad Database Developer Tools
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    9.2
    136 Ratings
    11% above category average
    Toad Database Developer Tools
    -
    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 Toad Database Developer Tools
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    7.4
    124 Ratings
    8% below category average
    Toad Database Developer Tools
    -
    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 Toad Database Developer Tools
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    7.8
    130 Ratings
    8% below category average
    Toad Database Developer Tools
    -
    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 Toad Database Developer Tools
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    6.4
    109 Ratings
    19% below category average
    Toad Database Developer Tools
    -
    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 Toad Database Developer Tools
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    9.2
    87 Ratings
    17% above category average
    Toad Database Developer Tools
    -
    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 AnalyticsToad Database Developer Tools
    Small Businesses
    Cyfe
    Score4 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
    Score8.1 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Enterprises
    Sisense
    Score6.9 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    IBM Cognos AnalyticsToad Database Developer Tools
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (158 ratings)
    9.5
    (34 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.4
    (31 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    7.3
    (10 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Availability
    8.6
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    9.0
    (5 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    1.0
    (9 ratings)
    8.2
    (7 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
    7.0
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Data Sharing and Collaboration
    8.6
    (40 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Data Sources
    8.3
    (40 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    5.5
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    6.4
    (5 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 AnalyticsToad Database Developer Tools
    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
    Quest Software
    Toad for Oracle is very well suited for all Oracle implementations, be it single instance or RAC. It is best suited for use of Oracle DBA, Developer and Database Engineers. I don't recommend Toad for Oracle for Project Managers or Solution Architects. This can be a pricier choice for these people. They can do fine with free options like SQL Developer.
    Incentivized
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    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
    Quest Software
    • Toad is a de-facto standard tool for data developers and analysts. Generally speaking it provides almost every function needed to manage data in EDW with great performance and stability.
    • The nature of clinical data is big-sized: one table may have billions of rows. Toad provides critical functions to manage SQLs, e.g. Top SQL that can monitor and manage SQLs using CPU power and network bandwidth, so that EDW administrator can optimize ETL operations in the best efficiency.
    • Many of our data analysts are not computer science backgrounded (having clinical / nursing background). Toad provides great auditing tools such as Tuning Lab or SQL Scanner, so that data analysts can train themselves with guidance of the tool.
    Incentivized
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    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
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    Quest Software
    • The power and control it gives is at the same time kind of a negative thing. There's too many options available, even when you don't need them. For simple database operations it's sometimes easier to just use SQL Developer since navigation is way more intuitive and easy.
    • Related with the above: there is a steep learning curve. However, since this is the main tool for any Oracle developer, this is not that much of a problem.
    • If I remember well, Toad used to be free, some 20 years ago. Or at least had a free version. It would be nice to have a free version. The dedicated Oracle developers and DBA's won't use the free version, but all the rest of us developers might use it instead of SQL Developer. It would make communications between everybody somewhat easier.
    Incentivized
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    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
    Quest Software
    It is the preferred tool for our organization.
    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
    Quest Software
    I give is an 8 because nothing is a 10 and there is always room for improvement. I believe the user who is not as technologically inclined would be better suited with an easier way to identify the options for setting the layout up for Toad's GUI. To some it is very cumbersome and confusing.
    Incentivized
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    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
    Quest Software
    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
    Quest Software
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Quest Software
    I give the overall support for Toad for Oracle a 10/10. This is because whenever there has been an issue with this software, our team has got an immediate response. The same can not be said for similar software. The most recent example of this is when we needed to renew our licenses. Some employees were unable to log in to code with the given license key. Support was able to resolve the issue quickly.
    Incentivized
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    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
    Quest Software
    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
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    Quest Software
    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
    Quest Software
    No answers on this topic
    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
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    Quest Software
    Toad is much better than Tableau query writer. Tableau is not intuitive and requires knowledge of proprietary database language to fully implement. Tableau does not perform as quickly and accurately as Toad. Toad is very easy and slim to install. Additional hardware is often required to run Tableau smoothly. Support for Tableau is even more expensive than Toad support.
    Incentivized
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    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
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    Quest Software
    No answers on this topic
    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
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    Quest Software
    • Quick and easy query development helps reduce man-hours in a project which converts to real dollars.
    • Query analysis and tuning result in low database overhead and low latency, thus translating into real dollars because a system can thus handle more requests from customers.
    • Ease of use makes it easy to deploy greenhorns in projects with minimal training, thus helping save money. Otherwise menial and simple jobs would have required experienced DBAs.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots

    IBM Cognos Analytics Screenshots

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