IBM Cognos Analytics vs. Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM Cognos Analytics
Score 7.4 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
Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Qlik Sense® is a self-service BI platform for data discovery and visualization. It supports a full range of analytics use cases—data governance, pixel-perfect reporting, and collaboration. Its Associative Engine indexes and connects relationships between data points for creating actionable insights.
$200
per month
Pricing
IBM Cognos AnalyticsQlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
Editions & Modules
On Demand - Standard
USD 11.25
per month per user
On Demand - Premium
USD 44.90
per month per user
Starter
$200
per month
Standard
$825
per month
Premium
$2750
per month
Qlik Sense (On-Premise)
Contact Sales
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM Cognos AnalyticsQlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
IBM Cognos AnalyticsQlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
Considered Both Products
IBM Cognos Analytics
Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
We looked at Qlik Sense, SAP Analytics Cloud, and IBM Cognos Analytics for our financial brand's needs. Qlik Sense is super user-friendly, great for quick data digging. SAP Analytics is perfect when we're working with other SAP stuff; it just clicks. But for our big project, …
Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
IBM Cognos comes close to Data Central. It has some pros & cons over Data Central. Pros: 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. Has a mobile application that works …
Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
IBM Cognos is a separate product but it allows us to connect to any databases and databases from Microsoft Analysis Services as well. This feature made me choose Cognos.
Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
Chose Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
We keep Cognos and Qlik. Cognos is best for formatted Excel files automated in emails. Qlik is easier to use for dashboards for the end users.
Chose Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
I have used Crystal Report using Pulse WMS and Cognos with Pronto. I really love the functionality of Cognos that it offers the department I work in.
Chose Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
I have used SSRS previously for reporting. One interesting feature of SSRS is its email scheduling process, which comes in the same package as SSRS, but in Qlik Sense, we need to get the NPrinting package to make this happen (email scheduling). Still, we decided to go with Qlik …
Chose Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
[I was not involved in the decision making process for the choice of the reporting tool]
Qlik Sense is - certainly on the front-end side - far more user-friendly than the other tools I've experienced, and allows for more dynamic reporting. It also has obtained a certain …
Chose Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
We selected Qlik Sense because of two main reasons:
  1. Associative Engine
  2. Self Service BI
Chose Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
First and foremost, the ability of Qlik to play nice with SAP and utilize SAP Extractor. Second, the Grey-White-Green feature for basic insight is also very useful.
Chose Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
Cheaper and easy to use.
Chose Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)

I have worked on IBM Cognos , Power BI for reporting and Dashboards in different organisations.

I can say the Cognos is for standard reporting with inbuilt scheduling and mail delivery services, Power BI is a bit more user friendly unlike Cognos and QlikSense.

I have also worked …

Chose Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
Qlik Sense is better than Tableau and Cognos, but scripting is easier with MS Office 365.
Chose Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
We have more enterprise options with Qlik Sense, which we like.
Chose Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
Cognos felt too complex for the user. Tableau was slow and did not have a CSR programme. Hyperion is great but more for finance. Microsoft not as developed and rich in features. Qlikview as much as Qlik Sense felt well developed, rich in features and relatively easy to use for …
Chose Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
Qlik Sense is very user-friendly and, at the same time, powerful.
Chose Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
More expensive, but a more mature product the visualisation features can blow senior managers away.
Chose Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
Qlik Sense is a far superior product in nearly every conceivable way. Not just to "techies," but the actual users who have to consume, internalize, and act on the KPIs being provided.
Chose Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
The associative data model made an unexpected effect when in a pilot application that allowed users to find new and non-trivial patterns in supplied data sets. Surely TIBCO Spotfire is a great tool with incredible statistical and forecasting possibilities but everything is for …
Features
IBM Cognos AnalyticsQlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cognos Analytics
7.6
132 Ratings
7% below category average
Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
7.9
315 Ratings
4% below category average
Pixel Perfect reports7.5122 Ratings8.3216 Ratings
Customizable dashboards7.8128 Ratings7.9313 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates7.6124 Ratings7.4228 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cognos Analytics
7.5
132 Ratings
7% below category average
Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
7.0
326 Ratings
14% below category average
Drill-down analysis6.8129 Ratings8.0322 Ratings
Formatting capabilities7.8131 Ratings6.1315 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages7.393 Ratings6.1154 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration8.2125 Ratings7.8299 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cognos Analytics
5.8
130 Ratings
34% below category average
Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
7.7
278 Ratings
6% below category average
Publish to Web6.428 Ratings6.1210 Ratings
Publish to PDF7.8124 Ratings7.1257 Ratings
Report Versioning3.627 Ratings7.9176 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling8.4126 Ratings8.8183 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers2.713 Ratings8.3108 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cognos Analytics
7.0
119 Ratings
13% below category average
Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
6.7
314 Ratings
17% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)7.7114 Ratings6.7307 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization7.5109 Ratings8.3283 Ratings
Predictive Analytics6.5105 Ratings6.1195 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining6.242 Ratings5.72 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cognos Analytics
7.4
124 Ratings
14% below category average
Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
7.7
297 Ratings
10% below category average
Multi-User Support (named login)7.0121 Ratings6.6276 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model7.1120 Ratings8.4272 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)6.7119 Ratings7.4275 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control7.949 Ratings7.42 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)8.2103 Ratings8.9218 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cognos Analytics
6.3
104 Ratings
20% below category average
Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
7.5
221 Ratings
3% below category average
Responsive Design for Web Access6.698 Ratings8.0215 Ratings
Mobile Application6.588 Ratings8.0133 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile6.594 Ratings9.0185 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cognos Analytics
7.4
83 Ratings
4% below category average
Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
8.4
145 Ratings
8% above category average
REST API7.180 Ratings8.0125 Ratings
Javascript API7.377 Ratings8.494 Ratings
iFrames8.39 Ratings8.094 Ratings
Java API6.911 Ratings8.471 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)7.110 Ratings8.497 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)7.87 Ratings8.984 Ratings
Best Alternatives
IBM Cognos AnalyticsQlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
Small Businesses
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Score 8.6 out of 10
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Score 8.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
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Kyvos Semantic Layer
Score 9.5 out of 10
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User Ratings
IBM Cognos AnalyticsQlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
Likelihood to Recommend
7.7
(149 ratings)
8.3
(332 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.1
(30 ratings)
8.4
(7 ratings)
Usability
7.3
(9 ratings)
8.3
(14 ratings)
Availability
8.6
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
1.0
(9 ratings)
7.3
(9 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.7
(4 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Online Training
8.0
(4 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.0
(7 ratings)
7.3
(5 ratings)
Configurability
7.0
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
5.7
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
2.7
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
7.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
7.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM Cognos AnalyticsQlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
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
Qlik
Qlik Sense is a program whose purpose is to greatly improve all your operations and use of all data in an organic way. The mission will always be to increase the economic and commercial processes of the company in a short time. I recommended it for its high technology, which was Created for this area, the results are successful. We have noticed how it has increased relationships with our clients thanks to the credibility and security that we provide.
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
Qlik
  • Flexibility in data recording, from the app, as well as in handling them. Allowing you to view reports quickly and effectively.
  • Easy to generate dynamic graphics according to our needs.
  • It is very easy to use, intuitive, so it does not generate costs in the learning process compared to the tool with collaborators
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
Qlik
  • Scalability is RAM limited, all data is associative and in-memory so server's RAM is directly proportional to performance
  • Limitation on advanced analytics capabilities in the form of R integration to perform complex statistical and analytical calculations
  • Can have more intuitive interface
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
Qlik
Qlik Sense is a constantly improving it's software and working with its' users to make it better. They are great at keeping their users informed of progress and care about delivering a quality product
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
Qlik
Qlik Sense has a better and easy to learn user interface compared with other analytics tool which always help us to create regular and adhoc reports within the stipulated time frame and can be easily refreshed at a scheduled time and sent to multiple stakeholders for timely update regarding the Key metrics indicator.
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
Qlik
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
Qlik
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
Qlik
Qlik is great for companies with lots of business domains and departments because it scales well, especially if data that is reported is saved in SQL and similar structures. Its ease of use and good UI enables business units to create and manage their own reports. That removes a great burden of creating and managing/modifying these pages from the IT team. Overall, it's a win-win for both IT and business units.
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
Qlik
The instructor was very knowledgeable.
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
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Qlik
The online instructor was very knowledgeable.
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
Qlik
Hire Qlik consultants. It's better done by them or with their aid.
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
Qlik
The customization of the platform opens up plenty of other options depending on the use cases. The API layer is incredibly rich and makes integration of Qlik based visualization into web pages a simple and effective pattern. It's been very easy to use with a great community made up of professionals. Qlik Sense has introduces artificial Intelligence into my data visualization and reporting activity.
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
Qlik
No answers on this topic
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
Qlik
  • Once an app is published and running good, we can quickly see the time we save to analyze data.
  • It's hard sometimes to realize the money we save by using this system.
  • People start understanding the power of data and asking more questions.
Read full review
ScreenShots

IBM Cognos Analytics Screenshots

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

Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense) Screenshots

Screenshot of Qlik Sense Cash Flow DashboardScreenshot of Qlik Sense Global Smart SearchScreenshot of Qlik Sense Smart Data Compression - Get immediate insight on large dataScreenshot of Extend, mix and mash-up with our APIsScreenshot of Add "External data" with Qlik DataMarket - Data as a ServiceScreenshot of Visualization Bundle