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IBM Cognos vs Teradata comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 30, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.7
IBM Cognos offers mixed returns; some save significantly, others find it costly, but generally enhances insights and processes.
Sentiment score
8.1
Teradata boosts speed and ROI, with high customer satisfaction and enhanced analytics, rated highly by organizations like Central Bank of Colombia.
We have realized a return on investment, with a reduction of staff from 27 to eight, and our current return on investment is approximately 14%.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
IBM Cognos support is responsive and expert but criticized for high costs, slow resolutions, and complexity in customer service.
Sentiment score
7.1
Teradata's customer service is highly rated for professionalism and expertise, though response times occasionally need improvement and experiences vary.
I rate technical support from IBM as eight out of ten, indicating a high quality of service.
The customer support for Teradata has been great.
Customer support is very good, rated eight out of ten under our essential agreement.
The technical support from Teradata is quite advanced.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
IBM Cognos offers scalable solutions, supporting large deployments with proper server architecture, powerful hardware, and seamless software integration.
Sentiment score
7.4
Teradata's cloud capabilities offer flexible, efficient scalability, though some users face cost and on-premise expansion challenges.
It can be scaled out to other teams, but requires building cubes and implementing policies.
This expansion can occur without incurring downtime or taking systems offline.
Teradata's scalability is great; it's been awesome.
Scalability is complex as you need to purchase a license and coordinate with Teradata for additional disk space and CPU.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
IBM Cognos is praised for stability and performance, surpassing competitors, with minor issues often due to server configuration.
Sentiment score
8.3
Teradata is praised for stability with high uptime, robust architecture, minimal downtime, and effective workload management despite occasional issues.
I rate the stability of this solution as nine out of ten, indicating it is highly stable.
I find the stability to be almost a ten out of ten.
The workload management and software maturity provide a reliable system.
 

Room For Improvement

IBM Cognos needs UI upgrades, better data visualization, improved performance, and advanced self-service features to compete with rivals.
Teradata needs improvements in transactional processing, user interface, pricing, integration, analytics, scalability, AI features, and support.
There is room for improvement in self-service analytics and predictiveness.
Unlike SQL and Oracle, which have in-built replication capabilities, we don't have similar functionality with Teradata.
If Teradata could provide a list of certified experts, that would be fantastic.
 

Setup Cost

IBM Cognos is costlier but offers extensive features, complex licensing, and competitive SaaS options for SMEs, emphasizing negotiation.
Teradata's high pricing is justified by performance, with flexible models offering value for large projects, requiring negotiation.
I rate pricing as a four, meaning it is more expensive compared to other solutions.
Teradata is much more expensive than SQL, which is well-performed and cheaper.
Initially, it may seem expensive compared to similar cloud databases, however, it offers significant value in performance, stability, and overall output once in use.
We spent roughly $295,000 on setup costs.
 

Valuable Features

IBM Cognos offers powerful analytics, flexible reporting, strong visualization, and robust security with scalability and ease of use.
Teradata offers scalable, fast processing with excellent performance, adaptability, ease of use, robust security, and advanced analytics capabilities.
IBM Cognos is a robust governed platform with significant security features and provides excellent graphics and reporting.
Teradata's security helps our organization meet compliance requirements such as GDPR and IFRS, and it is particularly essential for revenue contracting or revenue recognition.
The data mover is valuable over the last two years as it allows us to achieve data replication to our disaster recovery systems.
 

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)
Teradata
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
13th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
Customer Experience Management (6th), Backup and Recovery (21st), Data Integration (17th), Relational Databases Tools (8th), Data Warehouse (3rd), Marketing Management (5th), Cloud Data Warehouse (4th)
 

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 Teradata is 0.7%, up from 0.7% 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%
Teradata0.7%
Other97.1%
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.
Kirk Robinson - PeerSpot reviewer
Has improved data quality, optimized reporting processes, and enabled predictive insights across business units
The limitation we encountered was related to speed, prompting us to increase our AWS cloud thresholds and benchmarks on the servers, adding more throughput. We have been testing that, but speed remains one of our key issues. The integration has been awesome because of the platforms and their usage, and usability is great. The most challenging aspect is finding Teradata resources, so we are focusing on internal training and looking for more Teradata experts. If Teradata could provide a list of certified experts, that would be fantastic. I rated Teradata a nine because the main area for improvement is the bandwidth of resources that could assist us in applying to our projects, specifically more certified and expert resources. The market share of Teradata professionals is limited, creating an issue for us.
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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%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

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 Business26
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise49
 

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.
Comparing Teradata and Oracle Database, which product do you think is better and why?
I have spoken to my colleagues about this comparison and in our collective opinion, the reason why some people may declare Teradata better than Oracle is the pricing. Both solutions are quite simi...
Which companies use Teradata and who is it most suitable for?
Before my organization implemented this solution, we researched which big brands were using Teradata, so we knew if it would be compatible with our field. According to the product's site, the comp...
Is Teradata a difficult solution to work with?
Teradata is not a difficult product to work with, especially since they offer you technical support at all levels if you just ask. There are some features that may cause difficulties - for example,...
 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
IntelliFlex, Aster Data Map Reduce, , QueryGrid, Customer Interaction Manager, Digital Marketing Center, Data Mover, Data Stream Architecture, Teradata Vantage Enterprise (DIY)
 

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