Adaptive Insights vs IBM Cognos comparison

Workday and IBM are both solutions in the Reporting category. Workday is ranked #24, while IBM is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.3. Workday holds a 1.4% mindshare in RT, compared to IBM’s 3.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Workday users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Adaptive Insights

Read 18 Adaptive Insights reviews

2,452 Views
515 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM Cognos

Read 137 IBM Cognos reviews

5,922 Views
2,310 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Adaptive Insights

IBM Cognos

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

Adaptive Insights and IBM Cognos are competitive solutions in the financial planning and analytics sector. Adaptive Insights is favored for its ease of use and rapid deployment, while IBM Cognos is preferred for its comprehensive feature set and powerful data processing capabilities.

Features: Adaptive Insights offers ease of use, intuitive planning, and reporting tools for financial planning. IBM Cognos provides a broad range of analytics features, including advanced data visualization tools, making it suitable for organizations requiring extensive analytical capabilities.

Room for Improvement: Adaptive Insights could enhance its advanced analytics capabilities and data processing power. It can also work on providing more sophisticated data visualization options. IBM Cognos can improve by simplifying its user interface and reducing its complexity for new users. Additionally, the high cost can be a barrier, and streamlining deployment could be beneficial.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Adaptive Insights offers a straightforward cloud-based deployment model with strong customer support, ideal for businesses needing a quick setup. IBM Cognos involves a more complex implementation process but provides detailed support options to ensure successful integration in data-heavy environments.

Pricing and ROI: Adaptive Insights generally has a lower setup cost, providing a quicker return on investment through simplified implementation and operational effectiveness. IBM Cognos, with higher initial costs, offers significant ROI for businesses that leverage its advanced analytical features over time.

To learn more, read our detailed Adaptive Insights vs. IBM Cognos Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Adaptive Insights vs. IBM Cognos

February 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 881,733 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Adaptive Insights

Ranking in Reporting

24th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Performance Management (10th), Financial Performance and Strategy Management (4th), Data Visualization (20th), ESG Reporting Software (12th)

IBM Cognos

Ranking in Reporting

4th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

137

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (7th)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Adaptive Insights is 1.4%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Cognos is 3.2%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Reporting Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM Cognos	3.2%
Adaptive Insights	1.4%
Other	95.4%

Reporting

Featured Reviews

Andrew Rosenberg

Adaptive Planning Manager at Alight

Adaptive scales well, simple to create new budget versions and models

For the organization I used to work at, it streamlined the process of creating budgets. It's very simple to create a new version and do some more modeling based on your need for planning things like headcount, other expenses, and revenue, everything is configurable within Workday. So that made it easy. Reporting was pretty easy to set up as well. It streamlined the amount of time it took to do the budget as well as kind of making it simple to implement a rolling forecast process. So, it really was more just a productivity increase and time shortening for the budgeting and forecasting process.

Read full review

Christine Wanjiru

Sr. Project Manager at GlaxoSmithKline

Reporting workflows have become faster and data-driven decisions are made confidently

The best features IBM Cognos offers include seamless data integration, AI-powered insights, and user-friendly dashboards that really make my job easier. The AI-powered insights help me automatically identify patterns and insights where they enhance analysis depth effortlessly, and this feature has been very instrumental in uncovering variable insights that might have otherwise gone unnoticed. When it comes to seamless data integration, I love the seamless and efficient data integration capability of IBM Cognos Analytics, where it allows us easy merging of data from various sources such as customer feedback and sales figures. The smooth integration process streamlines workflow efficiency and enhances overall data management practice. I also really love the user-friendly and intuitive dashboards where IBM Cognos Analytics enables quick creation of custom dashboards and an easy understanding of visual data presentation, allowing us to identify trends at a glance and enhance our analytical capabilities. IBM Cognos has positively impacted my organization since implementing this tool, as it has been very helpful with a particularly strong data analysis capability that helps us in business planning. Its strong data analysis capability helps us for business planning, and the great reporting capacity helps update all the leadership management about the business in one report. Auto-scheduling and report generation is a good feature that saves a significant amount of time. Specific outcomes that show how IBM Cognos has helped my organization include saving time, as we have been able to save forty to fifty percent of our time with its auto-scheduling and report generation functionality.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"Forecasting changes that instantly flow through all financial statements."

"We utilize planning on a daily basis, therefore we find it to be the most valuable product for our organization."

"The important feature is integration with source data. It connects to various ERP systems, including Workday, Intact, and others. It can also import actuals and compare them to PlanPoint quite easily."

"It helps develop a more unified work format throughout the company."

"It's very stable."

"Reports are allowed to be edited for aesthetic purposes, which is lacking in a lot of other dashboard tools."

"The biggest feature is the source of truth for all of our budget and forecast versions."

"It's very simple to create a new version and do some more modeling based on your need for planning things like headcount, other expenses, and revenue, everything is configurable within Workday."

More Adaptive Insights pros

"It has a very powerful edit feature which allows users to back out of changes (undo) without forcing them to recreate entire reports."

"It's enabled us to report directly from our main application systems. We're removing islands of data and we're removing inefficiencies, where people or small divisions had their own store of information."

"For planning, forecasting, in-boxing, modeling in general and for predicting numbers and doing work analysis, they are excellent."

"The product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report."

"The basic platform comes with several meta-modelling tools."

"We use the account statement report. When you use an account in HSBC, you receive various types of accounts, such as the stock market, fixed accounts, credit cards, and business accounts. We can create one consolidated report called CCS support, which includes all these accounts. In that statement, we are consolidating all those accounts."

"The comprehensiveness or broadness of the software functions or business intelligence functions that it provides is valuable. It is also quite easy to use and user-friendly."

"Integration with Office can enable the 'download' mode of storytelling."

More IBM Cognos pros

Cons

"The integrations could be simpler. It takes quite a bit of internal and IT know-how to set up."

"Users continue to become more advanced and are looking for more advanced solutions."

"Discovery (the data visualization module): Needs to catch up with BI leaders, such as MS and Tableau. E.g., sorting by amounts in column charts and page slicers to control all visuals."

"Better user interface (UI)."

"The product's configuration process could be faster."

"Being able to drill down when using OfficeConnect needs work."

"It's a Workday product; they could do a little bit better to integrate a pure-play integration with Workday, which really doesn't do that."

"We tried Discovery and OfficeConnect at one point and found them too cumbersome, at the time."

More Adaptive Insights cons

"I don't like that when we use Colab packages, we get less functionality. For example, you can make groups of data with Excel or with the data sets from the packages, but when you use the Colab packages directly, you can only group the data when you analyze it with Analysis Studio. I think Cognos needs to improve more on this functionality."

"Data modeling needs to be improved. We use the ETL process, and when we get errors, we then need to identify which structural change is required. The error messaging should be better. They should be descriptive rather than semantic."

"The visualization aspect needs to be improved and I believe, this is being resolved in upcoming versions."

"There are some small features that are missing. It would be nice if the graphics were better. You can use external sources for charts, but it's quite complex to use and not easy to implement. If you want a new chart, you can download it from multiple tools and implement it into IBM Cognos."

"They should provide improved visual reporting."

"One area where IBM Cognos can be improved is that customer service sometimes is not very responsive, and I would love to see the user interface improved, especially to look somehow updated."

"There are some problems with how Cognos handles huge data sets and when connecting with multiple sources and searching the data."

"It is a costly product; it is comparatively expensive."

More IBM Cognos cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is in line with other cloud-based EPM tools. It is a subscription-based model based upon the number of users and site type if it's an admin or end-user type thing."

"Everything is negotiable, but this solution is low cost compared to others."

"Licensing seems to be worth the cost considering the efficiency Adaptive brings."

"Adaptive Insights' pricing is relative to its peer competitors. It's certainly competitive compared to a spreadsheet template that you build in Excel. It can be expensive if you need to have 100-500 budget holders giving input and building financial plans. However, in that case, it becomes an extremely good bargain. Compared to its competitors, it offers an excellent value."

"It's affordable."

"Prior to purchasing licenses, make sure you understand which users will only need planning and which users will need both planning and OfficeConnect."

"Ensure that you have the proper pricing plan in place."

"Adaptive Insights' pricing is reasonable."

"Cognos is super expensive compared to Tableau ($70/month) and Power BI ($20/month) — I think Cognos is roughly $200 a month."

"It is averagely priced."

"My company uses IBM Cognos with another IBM product, so I think only one license is used."

"The pricing and licensing policies are comparatively cheaper than other products in the market ."

"The pricing of this product is meant for medium to large-scale enterprises."

"Pricing should be improved."

"There is need to assess the purchase license accordingly so as to avoid audit penalties."

"I rate the product price as four or five on a scale from one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."

More IBM Cognos pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user79932

Senior Manager - BI Head with 5,001-10,000 employees

Feb 4, 2015

Comparison of SAP BO, Tableau, QlikView, Cognos, Microsoft, OBIEE and Pentaho

1. SAP BO/BI Enterprise scalability Security Ease of use Semantic layer 2. Tableau Visualization Data discovery Turnaround time 3. IBM Cognos Enterprise scalability Security In-memory feature 4. MS BI - Flexibility 5. Pentaho - Open source but still enterprise grade 6. QlikView Data…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

11%

Healthcare Company

Real Estate/Law Firm

Financial Services Firm

13%

Insurance Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	10

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	34
Midsize Enterprise	23
Large Enterprise	88

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

Seeking lightweight open source BI software

It depends on the Data architecture and the complexity of your requirement. Some great tools in the market are Qlik Sense, Power BI, OBIEE, Tableau, etc. I have recently started using Cognos Enter...

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM Cognos?

The solution's most valuable feature is its ease of use, which makes it easily compatible with other tools.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Cognos?

Since IBM Cognos is a futuristic platform with many robust features, it takes time to grasp all the features and how they work, so there is a learning curve. The more I use this platform, the more ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Infor dEPM vs Adaptive Insights

Compared 9% of the time

Planful vs Adaptive Insights

Compared 7% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Adaptive Insights

Compared 7% of the time

Qlik Sense vs Adaptive Insights

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Adaptive Insights

Compared 5% of the time

More Adaptive Insights Competitors

Microsoft Power BI vs IBM Cognos

Compared 11% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs IBM Cognos

Compared 8% of the time

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs IBM Cognos

Compared 6% of the time

Oracle Hyperion vs IBM Cognos

Compared 6% of the time

SQL Server vs IBM Cognos

Compared 4% of the time

More IBM Cognos Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Adaptive Insights

February 2026

Download Adaptive Insights product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cognos

January 2026

Download IBM Cognos product report

Also Known As

Workday Adaptive Planning, Adaptive Discovery , Workday Adaptive Planning

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics

Overview

Adaptive Insights is a cloud-based financial planning and analysis software that helps businesses streamline their budgeting, forecasting, and reporting processes.

With its intuitive interface and powerful analytics, it enables organizations to make data-driven decisions and drive business performance.

Workday

IBM Cognos Business Intelligence provides a wide range of tools to help you analyze your organization's data. IBM Cognos BI allows businesses to monitor events and metrics, create and view business reports, and analyze data to help them make effective business decisions.

IBM Cognos applies techniques to describe, summarize, and compare data, and draw conclusions. This allows users to see trends and discover anomalies or variances that may not be evident by simply reading data. Data sources that contain information from different areas of a business can be stored in separate packages. Users can see only information that they have been granted access to, based on their group or role.

IBM Cognos BI consolidates the following business intelligence functions into a single web-based solution:

IBM Cognos Insight: Create personal and managed workspaces for data analysis. Using these interactive workspaces, you can share insight results with managers. Cognos Insight supports write-back, and you can also use these workspaces to capture and integrate management goals, commitments, and forecasts.
IBM Cognos Workspace: With IBM Cognos Workspace, you can create rich, interactive workspaces using IBM Cognos content as well as data from external sources. You can view and open your favorite workspaces and reports, edit content in your workspaces, and share your workspaces via email.
IBM Cognos Analytics: IBM Cognos Analytics utilizes built-in AI and intuitive searches which helps users to quickly create the visualizations and a wide range of reports. Cognos Analytics provides cognitive and managed self-service, enabling you to gain insights from controlled and trusted data.
IBM Cognos Report Studio and IBM Cognos Query Studio: Easily create structured and query reports. IBM Cognos allows users to create application and report templates. In addition, report authors can reuse report objects to apply filters, fields, and styles to reports. Users can set the language of the user interface and report content according to the user's native language.
IBM Cognos Event Studio: Receive notifications of events that occur within your organization in real time. Event Studio enables the creation of agents that detect the occurrence of business events, failures, or anomalies, based on the change of specific events or data conditions. Notification can be sent via email, publication in the portal, or by triggering reports.
IBM Cognos Connection: This is the Web portal for IBM Cognos BI and is the central area for accessing all the IBM Cognos functions. In the web portal, users can schedule and distribute reports, create tasks, administer the server and the access permissions, and more.

Reviews from Real Users

IBM Cognos stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its powerful analysis tool and its reporting capabilities.

Prasad B., a senior software engineer at a financial services firm, notes, “The product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report. We can receive automated reports as well. They are easy to schedule on a weekly or monthly basis. It is very fast. I mean in means of report output, it's very fast compared to the actual clients involved.”

IBM

Sample Customers

1. Cisco Systems 2. Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated 3. Deloitte 4. DocuSign 5. Dropbox 6. Electronic Arts 7. Fender Musical Instruments Corporation 8. Fitbit 9. Fossil Group 10. Groupon 11. Hilton Worldwide 12. HP Inc. 13. Intuit 14. Johnson & Johnson 15. LinkedIn 16. Lyft 17. McAfee 18. Medtronic 19. Netflix 20. Oracle 21. Pandora 22. PayPal 23. Pinterest 24. Red Hat 25. Salesforce 26. ServiceNow 27. Slack Technologies 28. Spotify 29. Symantec 30. Tableau Software 31. Twitter 32. Workday

More than 23,000 leading organizations across multiple industries use Cognos. Some examples of Cognos customers include BMW Financial Services, Quinte Health Care, Troy Corporation, Michigan State University, and GKN Land System.

Buyer's Guide

Adaptive Insights vs. IBM Cognos

February 2026

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