IBM Cognos vs Oracle Essbase comparison

The compared IBM and Oracle solutions aren't in the same category. IBM is ranked #7 in BIT , with an average rating of 8.3, and holds a 1.3% mindshare in the category. Oracle is ranked #11 in DDM , with an average rating of 7.9, and holds a 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Oracle users who would recommend it.

IBM Cognos

Read 137 IBM Cognos reviews

5,922 Views
3,139 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Oracle Essbase

Read 18 Oracle Essbase reviews

1,800 Views
342 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM Cognos

Oracle Essbase

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM Cognos and Oracle Essbase based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Salesforce, Domo and others in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools.

To learn more, read our detailed BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

February 2026

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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

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

137

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (7th), Reporting (4th)

Oracle Essbase

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

4.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Database Development and Management (11th)

Mindshare comparison

IBM Cognos and Oracle Essbase aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. IBM Cognos is designed for BI (Business Intelligence) Tools and holds a mindshare of 1.3%, down 3.8% compared to last year.
Oracle Essbase, on the other hand, focuses on Database Development and Management, holds 1.2% mindshare, up 1.2% since last year.

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM Cognos	1.3%
Microsoft Power BI	8.9%
Tableau Enterprise	6.2%
Other	83.6%

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Database Development and Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Oracle Essbase	1.2%
Redgate SQL Toolbelt Essentials	4.5%
Spotlight	4.0%
Other	90.3%

Database Development and Management

Featured Reviews

Christine Wanjiru

Sr. Project Manager at GlaxoSmithKline

Reporting workflows have become faster and data-driven decisions are made confidently

The best features IBM Cognos offers include seamless data integration, AI-powered insights, and user-friendly dashboards that really make my job easier. The AI-powered insights help me automatically identify patterns and insights where they enhance analysis depth effortlessly, and this feature has been very instrumental in uncovering variable insights that might have otherwise gone unnoticed. When it comes to seamless data integration, 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. The smooth integration process streamlines workflow efficiency and enhances overall data management practice. I also really love the user-friendly and intuitive dashboards where IBM Cognos Analytics enables quick creation of custom dashboards and an easy understanding of visual data presentation, allowing us to identify trends at a glance and enhance our analytical capabilities. IBM Cognos has positively impacted my organization since implementing this tool, as it has been very helpful with a particularly strong data analysis capability that helps us in business planning. Its strong data analysis capability helps us for business planning, and the great reporting capacity helps update all the leadership management about the business in one report. Auto-scheduling and report generation is a good feature that saves a significant amount of time. Specific outcomes that show how IBM Cognos has helped my organization include saving time, as we have been able to save forty to fifty percent of our time with its auto-scheduling and report generation functionality.

Read full review

Bhavya N

Senior System Engineer at Infosys

Ensuring efficient data analysis and reporting while identifying areas for calculation and export improvements

The features of Oracle Essbase are valuable, such as its multi-dimensional database used for dynamic calculations and reporting purposes. These features are valuable because they support multi-dimensional data views, allowing users to analyze relationships across various data categories and establish a comprehensive perspective on business operations. Moreover, dynamic calculations allow real-time data analysis, significantly improving the accuracy and depth of financial insights. I have utilized Essbase's data aggregation capabilities. The Oracle Essbase interface provides a good user experience, allowing users to easily navigate and analyze data with fast query performance, effective data visualization tools such as charts, graphs, and tables, and flexibility for customizable analysis and reporting, including the ability to create ad hoc reports. The benefits of the interface include improving productivity and enhancing decision-making.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In my opinion, IBM Cognos is very stable, and the benefits of choosing it, aside from cost savings, include having institutional knowledge for maintaining this infrastructure and a reliable solution that enhances developer productivity, given our team's extensive experience with IBM Cognos."

"It's enabled us to report directly from our main application systems. We're removing islands of data and we're removing inefficiencies, where people or small divisions had their own store of information."

"This solution allows you to input a wide range of file formats."

"The dashboarding offered by this solution is very valuable to us."

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

"Dashboarding, reporting, and ad hoc reporting are the valuable features of IBM Cognos."

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

"Using custom controls, it is possible to extend the application with even more functionality and make the application intuitive and attractive."

More IBM Cognos pros

"Essbase is extremely stable and low-maintenance."

"Oracle's capability to define custom hierarchies and dimensions has helped my organization in performing nuanced data exploration and advanced modeling because we use Oracle Essbase for dimension definition and also to define the properties of these members, such as dynamic members, stored members, shared members."

"It is highly efficient and easily scalable, particularly for handling large databases."

"The solution is scalable."

"Essbase is a kind of backbone, or back end, for systems like Hyperion Planning."

"It's a very powerful analytical engine with Essbase as the back end. We can analyze, transform, or utilize a big chunk of data for our calculations."

"I have found the most valuable aspect is the user-friendly environment and current features."

"The Oracle Essbase interface provides a good user experience, allowing users to easily navigate and analyze data with fast query performance, effective data visualization tools such as charts, graphs, and tables, and flexibility for customizable analysis and reporting, including the ability to create ad hoc reports."

More Oracle Essbase pros

Cons

"They should provide improved visual reporting."

"There are a lot of limitations with the out-of-the-box tool."

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

"The AI-based features could be further enhanced by the solution."

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

"This product could use improvement in terms of usability for those with less technical know how."

"I would like to have predictive and forecasting capabilities in Cognos. It's one thing to do reporting, and another thing to easily predict or forecast certain data points, which is very important for all the clients."

"Tableau and Power BI are faster than Cognos."

More IBM Cognos cons

"Essbase has a programming language, and it has a couple of functions to do forecasting, however, their feature set for that is not that good."

"It's an expensive product to use."

"The solution could enhance business analytics. I delved into the data using Oracle Essbase to create a new support tool."

"The main concern is that Oracle is ending on-premises server support, so it would be better if there was a cloud platform available for Oracle Essbase."

"The initial setup could be simplified."

"The consolidation engine, which is HFM or FCCS, needs some room for improvement."

"The ability to drive external reporting out for development could be improved."

"The reporting tool of Essbase needs improvement."

More Oracle Essbase cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing should be improved."

"It is averagely priced."

"There is need to assess the purchase license accordingly so as to avoid audit penalties."

"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."

"There is some additional licensing that we needed to purchase because we were touching data outside of our core data platform. The cost was approximately $25,000 for the additional licenses, which were approximate 45 licenses. For the application itself, updates, and the core platform it was approximately $50,000. Giving a total cost of $75,000 annually for our usage of IBM Cognos."

"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."

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

"The pricing of this product is meant for medium to large-scale enterprises."

More IBM Cognos pricing and cost advice

"I believe the licensing is on a monthly base."

"It is a costly solution."

"The solution is expensive."

"Essbase is competitively priced."

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Comparison Review

it_user79932

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Insurance Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

20%

Insurance Company

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	34
Midsize Enterprise	23
Large Enterprise	88

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	14

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Cognos?

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. The more I use this platform, the more ...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Essbase?

It's not that expensive, but also not cheap. I'm not sure because it's a private license.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Oracle Essbase?

A significant area for improvement in Oracle Essbase is that financial statement analysis, CAPEX and OPEX analysis, and financial consolidation must be done manually, as Oracle Essbase doesn't incl...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Oracle Essbase?

The initial setup of Oracle Essbase is dependent on whether you select BSO or ASO cubes. First, you need to set up the type of information and once the type of cubes is defined, you need to define ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Power BI vs IBM Cognos

Compared 11% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs IBM Cognos

Compared 8% of the time

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs IBM Cognos

Compared 6% of the time

Oracle Hyperion vs IBM Cognos

Compared 6% of the time

SQL Server vs IBM Cognos

Compared 4% of the time

More IBM Cognos Competitors

Microsoft Power BI vs Oracle Essbase

Compared 22% of the time

SAP Analytics Cloud vs Oracle Essbase

Compared 10% of the time

IBM Planning Analytics vs Oracle Essbase

Compared 9% of the time

Oracle Analytics Cloud vs Oracle Essbase

Compared 7% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Oracle Essbase

Compared 6% of the time

More Oracle Essbase Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cognos

January 2026

Download IBM Cognos product report

Buyer's Guide

Oracle Essbase

January 2026

Download Oracle Essbase product report

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics

Essbase

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

Oracle Essbase is an OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) Server that provides an environment for deploying pre-packaged applications or developing custom analytic and enterprise performance management applications.

Oracle

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.

CHU de Rennes, Bellco Credit Union, Akindo Sushiro Co. Ltd, Deutsche Telekom AG, Samarco MineraÊo S.A., PCCW Ltd., QDQ media S.A.U., Boiron Italia, Specialized Bicycle Components Inc., Akindo Sushiro Co. Ltd., Air Canada, Daelim Industrial Co. Ltd.

Buyer's Guide

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

February 2026

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