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IBM Cognos Dashboard vs Qlik Sense comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

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

IBM Cognos Dashboard
Ranking in Data Visualization
24th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Qlik Sense
Ranking in Data Visualization
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
125
Ranking in other categories
Embedded BI (2nd), AI Data Analysis (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Data Visualization category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos Dashboard is 1.0%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qlik Sense is 5.2%, down from 8.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Visualization Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qlik Sense5.2%
IBM Cognos Dashboard1.0%
Other93.8%
Data Visualization
 

Featured Reviews

Unes Ay - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Scientist at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Provides efficient data modules, but it could be more user-friendly
We use IBM Cognos Dashboard for data manufacturing, reporting, costing, quality check, etc The product helps us update the KPI automatically. We can access reports and analyze if a particular solution fits the requirements. The product's most valuable is the concept of data modules. IBM Cognos…
SW
Solution Architect at Predoole Analytics
Unlocks actionable insights through user-friendly analysis features
The self-service capabilities that Qlik Sense offers are significant. They offer natural language processing, allowing users to ask questions in layman language, and Qlik Sense will create charts and narratives automatically. Users can access any dashboard developed in Qlik Sense from familiar portals such as Okta or other company portals through embedding features. The integration with chatbots, particularly Microsoft Teams, allows users to access dashboards and ask questions directly within Teams. The collaboration feature enables users to share analysis by taking snapshots and tagging team members within the Qlik Sense interface, eliminating the need for lengthy emails or screenshots. The storytelling feature allows users to create presentations directly in Qlik Sense using dashboard analysis, making it easier to answer questions during meetings. The subscription feature enables users to receive charts and sheets via email instead of navigating to the dashboard, facilitating monitoring purposes. Qlik Sense offers alerting capabilities where users can set thresholds for KPIs and receive notifications when these thresholds are reached. The platform also includes AI/ML features for predictive modeling through a no-code component, allowing business users to create and deploy AutoML models without depending on data scientists. The Qlik Answers component, featuring generative AI capability, enables users to get answers from unstructured data including Excel, HTML documents, or Microsoft Word documents by creating a knowledge base. The user-friendly interface operates on a drag-and-drop approach, with Qlik Sense suggesting appropriate charts based on selected dimensions and measures. The associative engine capabilities allow data association between tables, implementing selections across related tables. The platform uses a color-coding system (white, gray, and dark gray) to show related, excluded, and unrelated data selections, providing insights beyond traditional BI tools.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The main feature that is useful is the on-demand report generation through the dashboard."
"The main feature that is useful is the on-demand report generation through the dashboard."
"The product helps us update the KPI automatically."
"The tool's valuable features are that it is easy to use and stable."
"It is a pretty stable solution."
"The most valuable features of Qlik Sense are the integration and panel for reports. The integration is very fast even though we process a lot of information."
"The most valuable feature is the drag-and-drop reporting."
"It has allowed us to manage our staff more effectively and frees up time for our analysts to analyze new problems and opportunities."
"The visualizations are good and keep improving."
"Ease of use and connectivity to Qlik platform products are the most valuable features."
"The UI is very easy to use, with drag and drop self-service analytics."
"Qlik has made life easier by visualising data."
"I am very happy with Qlik and the solutions they offer, as it allows for great flexibility and ease of use."
 

Cons

"Visualization is an area where the product lacks."
"The scalability of the product's on-premises version is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"The price point is one of the major areas to be improved."
"They should include proper documentation to learn more about the product."
"The price point is one of the major areas to be improved."
"Possibly offering some more basic, simpler templates."
"The support aspect could be improved, particularly in terms of response time for high-priority issues, especially when dealing with production environment client issues that require immediate attention."
"Qlik cloud's performance is an issue, as it has no costs - the resources are shared."
"Error handling is an area that needs to be improved."
"The solution needs to make improvements to the licensing model. They need to make it more affordable at scale, and to make it more affordable for those companies at the low end of the market as well."
"Report generation without the need for NPrinting, which has limited capabilities anyway, would be an improvement."
"As we are a very process-oriented company, we would like to see more extensions maintained from Qlik, because it's a huge budget problem to choose the right one."
"If a team wants to keep track of source code changes, there is not an out-of-the-box solution for it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing is based on individual usage, and it is more expensive than other providers."
"The product is expensive for small businesses compared to other vendors."
"You need to pay 5,000 Norwegian kroner per user. Microsoft Power BI is slightly more expensive than Qlik Sense."
"Ultimately, the cost is low, and it implements fast. The limiting factor is how quickly your staff can keep up."
"For on-premise enterprise users, a number of additional features come at a premium cost."
"Qlik Sense pricing and licensing is like that of QlikView. It's on the high side for a small company, but it’s competitive among its peers. Use of licenses (referred to as tokens) is a bit confusing. There is a login access pass for infrequent or anonymous access."
"Licensing can start to get expensive, but compared to other tools in this space it is about average."
"Licensing could be cheaper."
"Know your needs when going into the purchasing decision."
"Licensing: Review the named model and move towards a usage model (e.g., cores, memory, computers, API calls, etc.)."
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise40
Large Enterprise88
 

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...
Seeking lightweight open source BI software
There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I would recommend as follows: 1) If you have legacies of SAP, Oracle - look for SAP...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qlik Sense?
It is not about performance. It is just about how expensive it is to implement.
 

Also Known As

Cognos Dashboard
QlikSense, Qlik Analytics Platform
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Abbvie, Airbus, Barclays, BT Openreach, BMW, Daimler AG, HSBC, IKEA, Nationwide Building Society, Royal Mail Group, Sanofi, Siemens, Wendy'', Vodafone, Volvo
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Cognos Dashboard vs. Qlik Sense and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.