

IBM Cognos and Microsoft Power BI are leaders in the business intelligence and analytics market. In general, Microsoft Power BI seems to have the edge due to its user-friendly interface and seamless integration with other Microsoft products, making it more accessible for a variety of users.
Features: IBM Cognos is notable for its powerful report studio, strong security features, and the flexibility to integrate with multiple platforms. Microsoft Power BI stands out for its advanced data visualization options, smooth integration with Microsoft’s suite of products, and user-friendly dashboard creation.
Room for Improvement: IBM Cognos requires enhancements in its learning curve, administrative capabilities, and visualization tools to stay competitive. Microsoft Power BI could benefit from advancements in big data performance, more integration options, and improved customization and adaptive licensing.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Cognos is widely used on-premises, experiencing mixed reviews regarding customer service. Microsoft Power BI, primarily cloud-based, is praised for easy setup and integration, although sometimes it faces criticism for lack of clarity in updates and support.
Pricing and ROI: IBM Cognos is known for its premium pricing, which can be prohibitive for smaller deployments. In contrast, Microsoft Power BI offers a more affordable pricing structure perceived as cost-effective, especially for smaller environments, although premium features might incur higher costs.
I have seen a return on investment, as I mentioned earlier about time saving and productivity gains, with a consistent governed data model that reduces the risk of errors.
In a world surrounded by data, tools that allow navigation of large data volumes ensure decisions are data-driven.
Power BI is easy to deploy within an hour, providing robust security against data leaks.
Our systems team, operating on a lot of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and maintaining long-term relations with IBM, benefits from good support coverage.
I rate technical support from IBM as eight out of ten, indicating a high quality of service.
I would love them to be proactive and responsive twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
The significant drawback I notice is that Microsoft's size makes it hard to get specific change requests addressed unless they involve a bug.
We have a partnership with Microsoft, involving multiple weekly calls with dedicated personnel to ensure our satisfaction.
The support is good because there is also a community available.
The scalability of IBM Cognos is very good, as it has continued growing with my organization's needs, allowing us to analyze and store a significant amount of data and handle our organization's growth efficiently.
It can be scaled out to other teams, but requires building cubes and implementing policies.
You expect only a small percentage of users concurrently, but beyond a thousand concurrent users, it becomes difficult to manage.
With increasing AI capabilities, architectural developments within Microsoft, and tools like Fabric, I expect Power BI to scale accordingly.
As more data is processed, performance issues may arise.
I rate the stability of this solution as nine out of ten, indicating it is highly stable.
In terms of stability, there's no data loss or leakage, and precautions are well-managed by Microsoft.
We typically do not have problems with end-user tools like Excel and Power BI.
It is very stable for small data, but with big data, there are performance challenges.
Integration with Azure login makes trouble.
There is room for improvement in self-service analytics and predictiveness.
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.
This makes Power BI difficult to manage as loading times can reach one or two minutes, which is problematic today.
Access was more logical in how it distinguished between data and its formatting.
Microsoft updates Power BI monthly based on user community feedback.
I rate pricing as a four, meaning it is more expensive compared to other solutions.
I found the setup cost to be expensive
Power BI isn't very cheap, however, it is economical compared to other solutions available.
The pricing for Microsoft Power BI is low, which is a good selling point.
The AI features in IBM Cognos helped me gain deeper insights into our business processes, enabling me to make data-driven decisions easily and understand which points need our attention and which areas of our business are performing well.
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.
IBM Cognos is a robust governed platform with significant security features and provides excellent graphics and reporting.
In today's data-driven environment, these tools are of substantial value, particularly for large enterprises with numerous processes that require extensive data analysis.
Within the organization, Microsoft Power BI is used to create dashboards and gain insights into data, enhancing data-driven decision-making.
To reduce the need for highly skilled personnel, we can engage someone who is just familiar and has a basic understanding of Microsoft Power BI, while AI can handle the major tasks through either agent AI or requirement analysis.
| Product | Market Share (%) |
|---|---|
| Microsoft Power BI | 8.9% |
| IBM Cognos | 1.3% |
| Other | 89.8% |

| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 34 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 23 |
| Large Enterprise | 88 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 135 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 57 |
| Large Enterprise | 165 |
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:
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.”
Microsoft Power BI is a powerful tool for data analysis and visualization. This tool stands out for its ability to merge and analyze data from various sources. Widely adopted across different industries and departments, Power BI is instrumental in creating visually appealing dashboards and generating insightful business intelligence reports. Its intuitive interface, robust visualization capabilities, and seamless integration with other Microsoft applications empower users to easily create interactive reports and gain valuable insights.
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