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IBM Cognos vs Oracle Analytics Cloud 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
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (5th)
Oracle Analytics Cloud
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 2.2%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Analytics Cloud is 2.0%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Cognos2.2%
Oracle Analytics Cloud2.0%
Other95.8%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

AMOL JAJU - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Vaclav-Biba - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced analytics through metadata-driven reporting with enterprise-level visualizations enables competitive advantage
In my opinion, what can be better in Oracle Analytics Cloud these days is primarily about pricing. I am from the Czech Republic, which is our main market. The situation here in the Czech Republic is that Power BI rules the world. There are two main reasons for this. First, speaking about the Czech Republic specifically, and second, the Power BI pricing model appears cheaper compared to Oracle Analytics Cloud. The pricing model in Microsoft is more straightforward. With Oracle, you have the data visualization and enterprise lines, and to put it simply, both appear as more expensive options for customers trying to get oriented in the segment.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"It has a very powerful edit feature which allows users to back out of changes (undo) without forcing them to recreate entire reports."
"The product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report."
"IBM Cognos offers tools so that you can design and develop your own test queries and reporting solutions."
"One of the strong suits of Cognos is its robust corporate reporting capability."
"Cognos is the best application with dashboards,batch reporting, jobs, events and ad-hoc reporting for business users."
"Comparing IBM Cognos to other applications, once a person is trained on it or they have developed a skill set to operate the application, it is best in its category."
"The most valuable feature of IBM Cognos is security. The solution has updated features that other competitors' solutions come out with long after IBM Cognos has had them."
"This is a stable and scalable solution."
"It plays a crucial role in facilitating decision-making for various organizational stakeholders."
"The scalability is acknowledged as pretty good, although my evaluation is limited because I used the tool for a short period."
"The product is easily customized."
"Oracle Analytics Cloud is not very user-friendly, however, it is robust and capable of performing a wide range of tasks."
"It's valuable feature is that it is user-friendly and doesn't require much time for understanding. The solution is stable. The initial setup was straightforward."
"The features that I find to be the most valuable are the BAS (Business Analytics), the Narrate feature, and the auto-visualization."
"Analytics Cloud allows you to merge various data types and structure data from multiple sources."
 

Cons

"The performance is a bottleneck and something that can be improved."
"I would like them to reinclude PowerPlay. One thing that I am missing in the current Cognos is what was formally named PowerPlay. They have basically removed PowerPlay from it, which is something that I fail to understand because it was the most wonderful tool for business intelligence that I've ever used. As far as I know, they don't provide this functionality anymore, so this is one thing that I dislike about Cognos."
"I rate pricing as a four, meaning it is more expensive compared to other solutions."
"It is a costly product; it is comparatively expensive."
"The data uploads that we do, such as Excel files, have a lot of restrictions. If we can make it a bit more user-friendly, allowing us to have more flexibility it would be a great help."
"The technical support team’s response time is slow and needs to be improved."
"It could have more options for themes."
"The charts and graphics are weak."
"The implementation of generative AI and machine learning should improve"
"When you implement the product on a small scale, it doesn't generate any ROI."
"It should simplify data connectivity and modeling, making data extraction more streamlined and adaptable for diverse use cases."
"Sharing dataflows is not possible at this time, and the custom chart functionality is not available."
"Its machine learning and visualization capabilities can be improved. There should be more visualization options."
"Its FAW feature has limitations in terms of usage."
"It is less scalable than Snowflake."
"Analytics Cloud allows you to merge various data types and structure data from multiple sources."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cognos is super expensive compared to Tableau ($70/month) and Power BI ($20/month) — I think Cognos is roughly $200 a month."
"There is need to assess the purchase license accordingly so as to avoid audit penalties."
"Pricing should be improved."
"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."
"It's more expensive than similar solutions like Tableau and Power BI."
"The cost of IBM Cognos it's more or less the same as most of the other solutions on the market. They're very competitive with the rest of the market and it is not the most expensive product."
"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."
"It is an expensive platform."
"Bottom line, the cost is really, really cheap compared to other solutions. Oracle has made a huge effort on the pricing."
"The product’s pricing is expensive. However, feature-wise, it fits the requirements of enterprise customers."
"I would rate it a five out of five in terms of the value received for the price charge."
"The tool's pricing is not unreasonable or non-competitive."
"I rate the product's pricing a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"A highly cost-effective solution"
"The price is reasonable; it's quite a bit lower than Tableau and Spotfire."
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Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
14%
Insurance Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise83
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise11
 

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.
Which Oracle product is better - OBIEE or Analytics Cloud?
Oracle OBIEE is designed to be relatively easy to set up and has a helpful customer support staff at the ready to assist customers. These are two attributes that make this system quite valuable. OB...
What do you like most about Oracle Analytics Cloud?
The ability to quickly search for and access relevant data is crucial.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Analytics Cloud?
The pricing of Oracle Analytics Cloud is quite expensive, fitting for a premium tool. However, the cost raises expectations for partner support that are not met, especially for smaller companies wh...
 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
Oracle Analytics Cloud Service, OAC, Oracle Data Visualization, Oracle Data Visualization Cloud Service, ODV
 

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.
Sejong Hospital
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Cognos vs. Oracle Analytics Cloud and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,759 professionals have used our research since 2012.