IBM Cognos Analytics vs. Tableau Cloud

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
Tableau Cloud
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Tableau Cloud (formerly Tableau Online) is a self-service analytics platform that is fully hosted in the cloud. Tableau Cloud enables users to publish dashboards and invite colleagues to explore hidden opportunities with interactive visualizations and accurate data, from any browser or mobile device.N/A
Pricing
IBM Cognos AnalyticsTableau Cloud
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 AnalyticsTableau Cloud
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 AnalyticsTableau Cloud
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
While all of them have their own advantages. IBM Cognos Analytics is highly scalable and have unmatched data analytics capabilities which makes the data from IBM Cognos Analytics of very high quality and data governance also makes sure your data is safe and protected.
Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
IBM is a titan in BI innovation but has arduous competitors as I mentioned before. IBM has prestige in BI and the directors and managers know that. On the other hand, complexity is not the strategy of Cognos, that's why if you need big cubes of data, Tableau, and Microsoft BI
Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
The University of Pittsburgh BI team continues to explore different BI and analytics platforms. Tableau was offered as a reporting tool to complement Cognos users.
Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
I didn't select IBM Cognos, I only used it in situations where it had already been selected. Cognos was better for a long time than most of the traditional BI vendors. And their modeling is still second to none.
Tableau Cloud
Chose Tableau Cloud
Tableau does a great job compared to all of these mentioned tools. Other tools also have a great shape-up of dashboards but obviously all have their advantages and disadvantages. The reason Tableau has an edge over all the other tools is because of its excellent visual design …
Chose Tableau Cloud
Domo does not fare well against Tableau in terms of visualizations. Our users gave a thumbs up for Tableau, so we went with Tableau Online.
Chose Tableau Cloud

My work environment uses both Tableau Online, MicroStrategy & SSRS in parallel. Tableau is much closer to the SSRS in terms of visualization tool where as MicroStrategy is an enterprise data modeling and reporting tool.

WHY SELECT TABLEAU ONLINE

Chose Tableau Cloud
Birst seems very good at getting data aggregated into the tool (ETL), but weaker at the front end visualizations.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
IBM Cognos AnalyticsTableau Cloud
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
Tableau Cloud
8.8
67 Ratings
7% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports8.593 Ratings8.650 Ratings
Customizable dashboards7.8100 Ratings8.267 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates7.497 Ratings9.656 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
Tableau Cloud
8.7
67 Ratings
7% above category average
Drill-down analysis8.1102 Ratings8.167 Ratings
Formatting capabilities8.1103 Ratings8.564 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages7.872 Ratings8.742 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration8.4100 Ratings9.565 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
Tableau Cloud
8.8
65 Ratings
5% above category average
Publish to Web8.327 Ratings8.761 Ratings
Publish to PDF8.798 Ratings8.760 Ratings
Report Versioning8.626 Ratings7.849 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling8.0101 Ratings9.653 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers8.112 Ratings8.932 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
Tableau Cloud
8.8
63 Ratings
9% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)8.089 Ratings8.760 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.286 Ratings8.059 Ratings
Predictive Analytics8.182 Ratings9.551 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
Tableau Cloud
8.5
62 Ratings
1% below category average
Multi-User Support (named login)8.496 Ratings8.456 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model8.395 Ratings9.049 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.295 Ratings7.652 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control8.424 Ratings00 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)8.377 Ratings9.147 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
Tableau Cloud
7.7
52 Ratings
3% below category average
Responsive Design for Web Access7.977 Ratings7.950 Ratings
Mobile Application7.368 Ratings7.038 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile8.174 Ratings8.745 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
Tableau Cloud
9.1
34 Ratings
14% above category average
REST API7.359 Ratings9.729 Ratings
Javascript API7.658 Ratings9.727 Ratings
iFrames8.39 Ratings8.027 Ratings
Java API6.911 Ratings8.824 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)7.110 Ratings9.728 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)7.87 Ratings8.827 Ratings
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IBM Cognos AnalyticsTableau Cloud
Small Businesses
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Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
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Score 9.9 out of 10
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Score 9.9 out of 10
Enterprises
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User Ratings
IBM Cognos AnalyticsTableau Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
8.1
(127 ratings)
9.7
(68 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.8
(27 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(8 ratings)
9.4
(21 ratings)
Availability
8.6
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(8 ratings)
8.8
(20 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 AnalyticsTableau Cloud
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
Tableau
We just need to refresh our data once a day for our unique use case, which allows the complete online system to run on extracts. For us, this is critical because our daylight hours are spent focusing on new updates and implementations rather than worrying about excessive database traffic (which would be required with a direct connection to the online system). The process of importing extracts is straightforward and sturdy enough to handle massive amounts of data.
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
Tableau
  • Tableau Online is completely cloud based and that's why the reports and dashboards are accessible even on the go. One doesn't always need to access the office laptop to access the reports.
  • The visualizations are interactive and one can quickly change the level at which they want to view the information. For example, one person might be more interested in looking at the country level performances rather than client level. This is intuitive and one doesn't need to create multiple reports for the same.
  • The feature to ask questions in plain vanilla English language is great and helpful. For quick adhoc fact checks one can simply type what they are looking for and the Natural Language Programming algorithms under the hood parse the query, interpret it and then fetch the results accordingly in a visual form.
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
Tableau
  • Can be a steep learning curve for new users
  • Modeling and building algorithms aren't always intuitive and take some testing/retesting to ensure it's working as it should
  • Inability to integrate easily with our HRIS platform. Reports are pulled from HRIS at various intervals and uploaded into Tableau
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
Tableau
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
Tableau
From an end user perspective Tableau Online is overall very easy to navigate once you get used to it, my only complaint is that when expanding or contracting a graph, the "plus" and "minus" on the bottom left is sometimes hidden, and should always be visible. From a builder perspective, it can take some getting used to but the sheer depth of customization makes it all worthwhile.
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
Tableau
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
Tableau
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
Tableau
In times where the system is down, support has always been quick to notify and keep us apprised of the latest developments. It's crucial for our system to always be available, but when emergencies have arisen, I don't recall a time where the Tableau Online Support hasn't been able to address our concerns in a timely manner.
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
Tableau
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
Tableau
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
Tableau
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
Tableau
Googles dashboard suite is very user-friendly and anyone can edit and make changes with very little knowledge or practice. But nothing I’ve worked with compares to the customization and multi streams of data in a user-friendly package like tableau does. It’s a really cool piece of software and I would choose that again.
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
Tableau
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
Tableau
  • When we release new products, we are now able to quickly see data and toggle between current periods and previous to see performance
  • Generating new reports requires less IT time to build
  • Data can be shared across many different device types
  • We now have integration where our customers can extract data from our software more easily-this was a big ask from our customers
Read full review
ScreenShots