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IBM Cognos vs Longview Analytics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 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
Ranking in Reporting
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
140
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (11th)
Longview Analytics
Ranking in Reporting
31st
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Business Performance Management (18th), Financial Close Software (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 3.0%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Longview Analytics is 1.3%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Reporting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Cognos3.0%
Longview Analytics1.3%
Other95.7%
Reporting
 

Featured Reviews

RL
Senior Project Manager at BD
Data insights have transformed reporting speed and support faster, informed decisions
IBM Cognos makes it simple to create visually appealing products, and we are able to run about 1,000 reports on a daily basis while another 1,000 are run through the scheduler built into IBM Cognos Analytics. It offers triggering through the scheduler, which we use to confirm the completion of other processes needed to be available before the job is scheduled to run, allowing us to make data-driven decisions easily. Some of the best features that IBM Cognos offers are enterprise reporting, which enables us to create, customize, and run reports on sales trends, consumer sentiment, and many more; dashboard creation; and data exploration and analysis. We are able to use the drag and drop feature to create ad-hoc visualizations. Additionally, I find the AI-powered natural language query feature for data analysis and dashboard input to be very useful for a non-technical person to put queries around the spreadsheets data to get a quick answer. Building insights for accurate decision-making has been great. Moreover, we can package reports with data-backed insights for stakeholders in PDF and Excel format to support business ad-hoc cases, forecasting, and strategic recommendations on relevant tasks. Of all those features, the visual graphs, predictive analytics, and data cleansing feature makes the biggest difference for my team. IBM Cognos is deployed in my organization using a hybrid cloud setup with Amazon Web Services as our cloud provider.
it_user221853 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technology Lead Onsite at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
The database setup is a pain initially, but once it's done everything works fine.
The ability to report multi-dimensionally and the scalability This tool is mainly used for forecasting, and it will, for sure, help all the organizations that need data/reports on expenses and headcount forecasting. This could be made more developer friendly, and could include the ability to…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a very complete solution: versatile, flexible, robust, and scalable."
"The dashboarding offered by this solution is very valuable to us."
"Beside Cognos, none were compliant enough with the needs of my customers."
"There is a huge cost up front to purchase and get it off the ground, but once you have it, you won’t regret it."
"I have worked on the features like dashboards and stories, and I do like them a lot."
"The product is perfectly designed for smaller companies to multi-national companies."
"Moving away from a manual, Excel-based consolidation to a largely automated one has enabled us to reduce our reporting timelines."
"IBM Cognos Analytics has positively impacted my organization by reducing report formulation time by 60%, especially for templated recurring reports such as the monthly sales report."
"This tool is mainly used for forecasting, and it will, for sure, help all the organizations that need data/reports on expenses and headcount forecasting."
"Khalix is a simple tool that builds on existing data sources to develop solutions in forecasting, planning and consolidation needs."
"This product offers a wide range of corporate performance management tools for powerful financial consolidation, planning and reporting."
"Well certainly this product has helped many finance users in the organization as this product enables them to see the numbers for any cost center and business unit and also get a consolidated view of group level numbers."
 

Cons

"This product could use improvement in terms of usability for those with less technical know how."
"The key areas for improvement are the administrative capabilities that are largely the same from the series 8/10 versions and the ability to use Framework Manager packages and models on new dashboards, etc."
"It definitely needs better data visualization."
"Sometimes technical support can be hit and miss."
"Extending dynamic cubes aggregate awareness with calculated measures."
"The GUI for reporting isn’t very user friendly, so beginners struggle with feeling overwhelmed when seeing it for the first few times."
"When we have more than 1000 users logged in to the system, we can see slowdown in terms of performance."
"The main improvement required is to help users with the full vision about the product according to their need."
"The initial set up was complex and painful, both with respect to database setup and the execution script."
"If you compare it with Oracle then Longview isn't that user friendly."
"Web based reporting can have better user interface and functions."
"The original cost is set to use enterprise wide but the users growth is too slow to justify the cost. That's one of the reasons we stopped using this tool."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a standard license required to use this solution. There are some additional tools but I am not sure if they are an extra cost."
"On a scale from one to ten where one is low pricing and ten is high pricing, I would rate this solution at eight."
"IBM Cognos is priced reasonable. However, it is more expensive than Power BI and Tableau."
"It's more expensive than similar solutions like Tableau and Power BI."
"The pricing and licensing policies are comparatively cheaper than other products in the market ."
"The solution is affordable."
"IBM Cognos price is on the higher side of the spectrum. However, with the features that it brings, such as correlation analysis, it's worth the money. They should look at the pricing more clearly because it's a little on the higher side."
"I don't know the exact cost, but I believe Cognos is quite expensive, especially when it comes to the support consultants and the procedures that need to be applied."
Information not available
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Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Insurance Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Construction Company
12%
Retailer
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise92
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What needs improvement with IBM Cognos?
Regarding improvements for IBM Cognos, I think nothing yet about functionality, but I find the costs to be quite high for the enterprise system. However, since we need it, we continue to renew our ...
What is your primary use case for IBM Cognos?
My main use case for IBM Cognos at my place of work is primarily for business intelligence (BI), mostly for serving, and we appreciate it because it covers the full BI stack, including dashboards, ...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
arcplan, Longview Close, Longview CPM, Longview Tax
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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.
ADAC, Acuity Brands, Akzo Nobel, Allegheny Energy, Allianz, AluNorf, Amcor, BASF, Banco Central de Chile, Baerlocher, Bauhaus, Bayer, BMW Financial Services, BNI, Bosch, Bristol-Myers Squibb, B/S/H/, Charmer Sunbelt, China Cargo Airlines, City of Edmonton, Commerzbank, Dachser, Daimler, Darling Ingredients, Deichmann, Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Telekom, DFS, EnBW, Faber Castell, FPT, Fraport, Fritz Egger, Guohua Wind Power, Griesson - de Beukelaer, GS Retail, GT Solar, Hailo, Haniel, HCA, H.C. Starck, H-E-B, Hella, Henkel, Hermes Fulfilment, Hitachi, HORIBA, Hunan Tobacco, Hyundai, Iberia, Intersport, Kaiser + Kraft, KDVZ Frechen, Knorr-Bremse, Lanxess, Leifheit, LG Electronics, Liberty Mutual, Lowe´s, Lufthansa, Lupin, Martin Marietta, Media-Saturn, MetLife, Merck, Migros, NKD, Nobilia, Nokia, Novartis, OBI, Oman Oilfields, Ottobock, Petco, Philip Morris, PSCU, Reitan, Robert Bosch, Roche, RWE, Samsung Electronics, Scripps Health, Siemens, Sinopec Shandong, SMS Group, Sodexo, Southwest Airlines, Stadtwerke Bremen, Swiss Post, Takeda, Telefonica, ThyssenKrupp, TNT Express, TrustX, Turner Broadcasting, T¾V Rheinland, UBS, Veolia Water, Vigor, Vodafone, Voestalpine, Wacker, Waste Management, Wegmans, Wirtgen, World Economic Forum, Yunnan Tobacco, ZFV
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Cognos vs. Longview Analytics and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.