Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (4th)
Oracle Analytics Cloud
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 3.4%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Analytics Cloud is 2.3%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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.
Enrique Pacheco Salinas - PeerSpot reviewer
Advanced analytics facilitate strategy development but demand specialized expertise and better support
Oracle Analytics Cloud is not very user-friendly, however, it is robust and capable of performing a wide range of tasks. However, skilled personnel are needed to operate it effectively due to its complexity. In addition, the brand name carries significant value as many large companies and banks are familiar with Oracle.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The correlation analysis is excellent. It's one of the best that I have used to date."
"A positive feature is Report Studio, where we create beautiful, complex reports."
"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 main difference that I like about Cognos compared to other solutions is its data splitting functionality. We have all our company data inside the Cognos environment and so we prefer to split the information Cognos itself. It's more efficient this way."
"I have worked on the features like dashboards and stories, and I do like them a lot."
"The comprehensiveness or broadness of the software functions or business intelligence functions that it provides is valuable. It is also quite easy to use and user-friendly."
"Cognos is the best application with dashboards,batch reporting, jobs, events and ad-hoc reporting for business users."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its ease of use, which makes it easily compatible with other tools."
"The best feature may be data flow, which is used to prepare and clean data."
"Analytics Cloud allows you to merge various data types and structure data from multiple sources."
"It's great for consolidation and creating one source of truth."
"I've discovered that the new layout of this product makes Docker sharing, machine learning support, and data backups more efficient. Unlike the older method of linking physical, pre-logical, and presentation layers separately, the new interface simplifies this process. Additionally, the integration of databases and machine learning is seamless, with the new visualization approach being particularly beautiful and highly beneficial."
"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."
"Oracle Analytics Cloud is not very user-friendly, however, it is robust and capable of performing a wide range of tasks."
"The features that I find to be the most valuable are the BAS (Business Analytics), the Narrate feature, and the auto-visualization."
"The most valuable features of the solution are dashboarding and data visualization."
 

Cons

"Compared to Tableau and PowerBI, the IBM interface is easier to use. However, the drag-and-drop functionality isn't as straightforward. Formatting is also more challenging in the cloud than in other applications, like Power BI. Also, if you encounter an issue, it takes more time to resolve it on the formatting side."
"This product could use improvement in terms of usability for those with less technical know how."
"It is a costly product; it is comparatively expensive."
"I think the GIS pieces maybe not as good as we would like."
"I would like to see the introduction of mapbooks for supporting some geographical information."
"There is room for improvement in self-service analytics and predictiveness."
"It would be better if it is was easier to implement without extensive training for it."
"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."
"As with most BI tools, the visualizations can be made much nicer. Currently, it has standard visualizations. They've been adding new visualizations, but we see animated visualizations from other vendors. It would be nice to have similar visualizations, such as the swarming visualizations, which are fairly new and very popular at the moment. I haven't seen that with Oracle. That would be nice."
"They could improve the ease of developing the dashboard and interacting with it."
"It is less scalable than Snowflake."
"Its machine learning and visualization capabilities can be improved. There should be more visualization options."
"The learning curve should be improved, and I'm uncertain if tutorials are readily available or easily accessible. We may have resorted to looking on YouTube for such information. Having easily understandable documents or guides for new users would be beneficial. AI integration would be an interesting feature to add in the next release."
"One of the major issues is that Oracle Analytics Cloud is not user-friendly, requiring skilled people with proper certifications to work with it successfully."
"The product should be improved in terms of connectors; right now the top twenty connectors are available, but OneDrive and Teradata are missing."
"The price of the solution could be lower."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is affordable."
"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."
"IBM Cognos offers competitive pricing similar to other BI vendors in the market."
"There is need to assess the purchase license accordingly so as to avoid audit penalties."
"Pricing should be improved."
"It's more expensive than similar solutions like Tableau and Power BI."
"It is my understanding that the cost is very low. It's not very expensive."
"I rate the product price as four or five on a scale from one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"I rate the product's pricing a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"I don't know the exact cost, but its pricing was good. Its pricing was competitive. I would rate it a three out of five in terms of pricing."
"The price is reasonable; it's quite a bit lower than Tableau and Spotfire."
"Bottom line, the cost is really, really cheap compared to other solutions. Oracle has made a huge effort on the pricing."
"We pay on a monthly basis and it is $10 per user each month."
"A highly cost-effective solution"
"The product’s pricing is expensive. However, feature-wise, it fits the requirements of enterprise customers."
"Oracle Analytics Cloud's pricing is generally higher than that of other vendors."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which BI (Business Intelligence) Tools solutions are best for your needs.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
Educational Organization
50%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Insurance Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Educational Organization
31%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
 

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.
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: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.