IBM Cognos vs Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services comparison

IBM Cognos vs. Microsoft SQL Servering Services

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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

4th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

134

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (7th)

Microsoft SQL Server Report...

Ranking in Reporting

6th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 4.8%, down from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is 3.5%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Reporting

Featured Reviews

AMOL JAJU

Senior BI-ETL Consultant at CMA Consulting Services

Offers ad hoc analysis reports and good for operational dashboarding

There used to be many valuable features, but in the last three or four years, whatever IBM is doing with enhancements, it has taken a lot of time to build and develop. But the best usage of Cognos is the ad hoc analysis reports. I really like that. Our customers also like that. But now the usage of Cognos and OBIE is reduced by various business users because people and business users are now more focused on analytics, slice and dice, and the dashboard, and the widgets.

Read full review

Gnanavel-Chakkarapani

Junior Consultant at CMA CGM

Offers useful templates but needs to improve the connectivity offered

In Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services, not much of the interface part is used. With Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services, its users face issues with the interface after they use Excel or create Microsoft SSIS Packages. The tool's interface is an area of concern requiring improvement. There needs to be an improvement in the product's connectivity so that the tool can connect easily with other third-party databases. In the dashboard, drag and drop functionality needs to improve, especially when compared to other tools like IBM Cognos Analytics and Qlik Sense. Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is useful only for standard reports. In IBM Cognos Analytics, query studio can be used by users to drag the data and simply download the reports, so the user doesn't need to have any technical knowledge like developers. Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is to be improved to offer features like query Studio, which is provided in IBM Cognos Analytics.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"If they want dashboarding, storytelling, and analyzing why KPIs are met or not, then Cognos is a better candidate than Qlik Sense."

"The initial setup is quite straightforward."

"Mapbox integration for geospatial analytics down to longitude/latitude layers."

"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."

"In terms of stability, I think that Cognos is more stable than Tableau and Power Bi because of its framework manager concept that allows us to import metadata and store it in the framework manager."

"The solution's initial setup process is easy."

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

"IBM Cognos offers tools so that you can design and develop your own test queries and reporting solutions."

More IBM Cognos pros

"The tool's valuable features are its drill-down feature, graphs, and charts."

"The SQL Server Reporting Services makes it very easy to get the data whenever we need it."

"I'm very satisfied with the customer service. And usually, whenever we have any issue or details, we get to the person for the support. I'm really satisfied with the service. Within a few minutes or within a few hours, the support person will be available."

"In Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services, the installation and configuration are easy."

"It is scalable."

"The solution's features are all just wrapped up in one nice easy package. I don't need a lot of toolsets to get everything I need done."

"Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) is reliable for management dashboard and reporting purposes. It is helpful for user reporting and administrative tasks, such as monitoring progress. It is easy to use since it is lightweight and integrates well with the SQL Server database, making reporting straightforward. The visualization capabilities enhance our reporting needs with good pagination and KPI features. It integrates well with data servers and workbooks, allowing us to publish reports on mobile applications and tablets easily. Integrating other tools and platforms in our tech ecosystem is generally straightforward. However, if we need to perform something very specialized, we might have to use third-party tools rather than inbuilt options."

"With SQL Server Reporting Services, I can create reports and printable reports, known as paginated reports."

More Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services pros

Cons

"They should provide improved visual reporting."

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

"Most of our company's customers want to be able to deploy IBM Cognos on a web application and use it as a desktop application, which is not possible currently."

"We need more predictive analytical functions, not only diagnostic or decryptic analytics."

"The tool needs to improve the connectivity since I see that, at times, there is a need to increase the memory in the database."

"Extending features on dashboards so it becomes a real dashboard building application, not only a data exploration tool."

"I rate pricing as a four, meaning it is more expensive compared to other solutions."

"I need improvements, particularly with the Framework Manager, which has an outdated user interface from older versions like IBM Cognos 10 or 8. Additionally, the Event Studio, which offered great flexibility in previous versions, is no longer available in IBM Cognos Analytics 12. These are areas that could be improved to enhance the product."

More IBM Cognos cons

"It is not easy to integrate the product with other tools in the market."

"Sometimes, we need to make sure that the configuration stays consistent across the reporting instances. They all connect to the same database. So, it shares that same backend, but the reporting services itself can also be configured. On the application level, for reporting level. And it is, based on my own experience, it is a manual effort to make sure that the reporting servers are configured the same across the environment."

"In this solution, the cost should be reduced for the enterprise edition."

"The complex tuning for report performance is complicated. There is a lack of native support for source code control. We often need to use separate tools like VS Code or other software to manage version control and changes in the database. It would be beneficial if source code management were integrated directly into SSRS, thus eliminating the need to rely on external tools. While CLI-based operations are exemplary, the trend is towards GUI for a better user experience. Integrating both visualization and source code management within SSRS would simplify the process for users."

"We have had issues with the refresh interval since we have too many reports scheduled. Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is also expensive."

"The product could be improved by reducing the time it takes to build and deploy reports."

"The setup is difficult because you have to install different servers."

"The solution's interface is old."

More Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing costs are a little bit higher for IBM Cognos. I don't think there is any additional cost apart from the licensing charges."

"Pricing should be improved."

"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."

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

"It's more expensive than similar solutions like Tableau and Power BI."

"It is averagely priced."

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

"It is quite pricy. I think Microsoft BI is cheaper. Tableau might also be cheaper, but it also depends on the usage. If you have very many users, Cognos can be a problem. It could be cheaper than Tableau but not for so many users. If you have a few thousand users, Tableau, which is generally quite expensive, can be cheaper than Cognos."

More IBM Cognos pricing and cost advice

"Value-wise, the solution's pricing is good for the price that we pay."

"The pricing is high."

"The solution is cheaper than its alternatives."

"The tool's licensing costs are expensive."

"The solution is free to use for developers."

"The price is pretty good."

"The solution is expensive."

"The product pricing is reasonable in terms of suitable features for business."

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Comparison Review

it_user79932

Senior Manager - BI Head at NVidia

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

Educational Organization

57%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Government

12%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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 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.

What needs improvement with IBM Cognos?

There is room for improvement in self-service analytics and predictiveness.

What do you like most about Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services?

I mainly use the solution for the ease of reporting and for executive dashboards.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services?

I don't recall the current pricing as it changes frequently.

What needs improvement with Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services?

They could improve the scalability and stability of SQL Server Reporting Services. I haven't used it recently, so I can't provide detailed suggestions on improvements.

Microsoft Power BI vs IBM Cognos

Comparisons

Compared 12% of the time

Tableau vs IBM Cognos

Compared 10% of the time

Oracle Hyperion vs IBM Cognos

Compared 9% of the time

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs IBM Cognos

Compared 8% of the time

Databricks vs IBM Cognos

Compared 3% of the time

More IBM Cognos Competitors

TIBCO Jaspersoft vs Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services

Compared 21% of the time

Tableau vs Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services

Compared 17% of the time

Oracle OBIEE vs Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services

Compared 12% of the time

SAP Crystal Reports vs Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services

Compared 9% of the time

QlikView vs Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services

Compared 7% of the time

More Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services Competitors

Product Reports

IBM Cognos

Download IBM Cognos product report

Microsoft SQL Servering Services

Download Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services product report

Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services report

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics

SQL Server Reporting Services, Microsoft SSRS, SSRS, MS SQL Server Reporting Services

Overview

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

At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Our mission is grounded in both the world in which we live and the future we strive to create. Today, we live in a mobile-first, cloud-first world, and the transformation we are driving across our businesses is designed to enable Microsoft and our customers to thrive in this world.

We do business in 170 countries and are made up of 114,000 passionate employees dedicated to fulfilling our mission of helping you and your organization achieve more.

Microsoft

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.

CMS Wire, The New York Times

IBM Cognos vs. Microsoft SQL Servering Services