IBM Cognos Analytics vs. Wolfram Mathematica

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
Mathematica
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Wolfram's flagship product Mathematica is a modern technical computing application featuring a flexible symbolic coding language and a wide array of graphing and data visualization capabilities.
$1,520
per year
Pricing
IBM Cognos AnalyticsWolfram Mathematica
Editions & Modules
On Demand - Standard
$10.00
per month per user
On Demand - Premium
$40.00
per month per user
Standard Cloud
$1,520
per year
Standard Desktop
$3,040
one-time fee
Standard Desktop & Cloud
$3,344
one-time fee
Mathematica Enterprise Edition
$8,150.00
one-time fee
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM Cognos AnalyticsMathematica
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional DetailsDiscounts available for students and educational institutions. The Network Edition reduce per-user license costs through shared deployment across any number of machines on a local-area network.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
IBM Cognos AnalyticsWolfram Mathematica
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
IBM Cognos AnalyticsWolfram Mathematica
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
Wolfram Mathematica
9.9
6 Ratings
16% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports8.593 Ratings9.84 Ratings
Customizable dashboards7.8100 Ratings9.94 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates7.497 Ratings9.96 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
Wolfram Mathematica
9.9
9 Ratings
21% above category average
Drill-down analysis8.1102 Ratings9.98 Ratings
Formatting capabilities8.1103 Ratings9.98 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages7.872 Ratings9.97 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration8.4100 Ratings9.99 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
Wolfram Mathematica
9.3
8 Ratings
11% above category average
Publish to Web8.327 Ratings9.97 Ratings
Publish to PDF8.798 Ratings9.08 Ratings
Report Versioning8.626 Ratings9.97 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling8.0101 Ratings8.95 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers8.112 Ratings8.95 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
Wolfram Mathematica
9.9
9 Ratings
19% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)8.089 Ratings9.99 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.286 Ratings9.98 Ratings
Predictive Analytics8.182 Ratings9.98 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
Wolfram Mathematica
-
Ratings
Multi-User Support (named login)8.496 Ratings00 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model8.395 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.295 Ratings00 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control8.424 Ratings00 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)8.377 Ratings00 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
Wolfram Mathematica
-
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
Wolfram Mathematica
-
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
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IBM Cognos AnalyticsWolfram Mathematica
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Score 8.9 out of 10
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Score 7.8 out of 10
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Score 9.7 out of 10
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User Ratings
IBM Cognos AnalyticsWolfram Mathematica
Likelihood to Recommend
8.1
(127 ratings)
9.9
(9 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)
9.5
(2 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 AnalyticsWolfram Mathematica
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
Wolfram
We are the judgement that Wolfram Mathematica is despite many critics based on the paradigms selected a mark in the fields of the markets for computations of all kind. Wolfram Mathematica is even a choice in fields where other bolide systems reign most of the market. Wolfram Mathematica offers rich flexibility and internally standardizes the right methodologies for his user community. Wolfram Mathematica is not cheap and in need of a hard an long learner journey. That makes it weak in comparison with of-the-shelf-solution packages or even other programming languages. But for systematization of methods Wolfram Mathematica is far in front of almost all the other. Scientist and interested people are able to develop themself further and Wolfram Matheamatica users are a human variant for themself. The reach out for modern mathematics based science is deep and a unique unified framework makes the whole field of mathematics accessable comparable to the brain of Albert Einstein. The paradigms incorporated are the most efficients and consist in assembly on the market. The mathematics is covering and fullfills not just education requirements but the demands and needs of experts.
Mathematica is incompatible with other systems for mCAx and therefore the borders between the systems are hard to overcome. Wolfram Mathematica should be consider one of the more open systems because other code can be imported and run but on the export side it is rathe incompatible by design purposes. A better standard for all that might solve the crisis but there is none in sight. Selection of knowledge of what works will be in the future even more focussed and general system might be one the lossy side. Knowledge of esthetics of what will be in the highest demand in necessary and Wolfram is not a leader in this field of science. Mathematics leves from gathering problems from application fields and less from the glory of itself and the formalization of this.
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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
Wolfram
  • It allows straightforward integration of analytic analysis of algebraic expressions and their numerical implemented.
  • Supports varying programmatic paradigms, so one can choose what best fits the problem or task: pure functions, procedural programming, list processing, and even (with a bit of setup) object-oriented programming.
  • The extensive and rich tools for graphical rendering make it very easy to not just get 2D and 3D renderings of final output, but also to do quick-and-dirty 2D and 3D rendering of intermediate results and/or debugging results.
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
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Wolfram
  • Should include more libraries and functions.
  • Should include more functions that can be used in Machine Learning.
  • Should include more functions that can be used in Data Science.
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
Wolfram
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
Wolfram
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
Wolfram
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.
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Wolfram
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.
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Wolfram
Wolfram Mathematica is a nice software package. It has very nice features and easy to install and use in your machine. Besides this, there is a nice support from Wolfram. They come to the university frequently to give seminars in Mathematica. I think this is the best thing they are doing. That is very helpful for graduate and undergraduate students who are using Mathematica in their research.
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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
Wolfram
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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Wolfram
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.
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Wolfram
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
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Wolfram
We have evaluated and are using in some cases the Python language in concert with the Jupyter notebook interface. For UI, we using libraries like React to create visually stunning visualizations of such models. Mathematica compares favorably to this alternative in terms of speed of development. Mathematica compares unfavorably to this alternative in terms of license costs.
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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.
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Wolfram
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
Wolfram
  • Easy to solve huge mathematical equations, so it saved time there
  • Doing analysis and plotting graphs is also another plus point
  • Learning is very slow, and it took lot of time to learn its scripting language
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