IBM Planning Analytics vs IBM Watson Explorer comparison

The compared IBM Planning Analytics and IBM Watson Explorer solutions aren't in the same category. IBM Planning Analytics is ranked #4 in BPM , with an average rating of 8.2, and holds a 4.5% mindshare in the category. IBM Watson Explorer is ranked #9 in DM , and holds a 2.8% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of IBM Planning Analytics users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of IBM Watson Explorer users who would recommend it.

IBM Planning Analytics

Read 28 IBM Planning Analytics reviews

3,062 Views
1,286 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

IBM Watson Explorer

Read 10 IBM Watson Explorer reviews

653 Views
170 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM Planning Analytics

IBM Watson Explorer

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM Planning Analytics and IBM Watson Explorer based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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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 Planning Analytics

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Performance Management (4th)

IBM Watson Explorer

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Mining (9th)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM Planning Analytics is designed for Business Performance Management and holds a mindshare of 4.5%, down 9.1% compared to last year.
IBM Watson Explorer, on the other hand, focuses on Data Mining, holds 2.8% mindshare, up 0.6% since last year.

Business Performance Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM Planning Analytics	4.5%
Anaplan	6.9%
CCH Tagetik	5.1%
Other	83.5%

Business Performance Management

Data Mining Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM Watson Explorer	2.8%
IBM SPSS Modeler	19.1%
IBM SPSS Statistics	18.5%
Other	59.599999999999994%

Data Mining

Featured Reviews

Gladys Njeri

Key Account Manager at DHL

Data-driven planning has transformed financial decisions and now saves major reporting time

IBM Planning Analytics helps with collaboration between teams by allowing us to gather data from various departments, analyze it, and collaborate on the data to make data-driven decisions between different departments easily. As I mentioned previously, I mainly use IBM Planning Analytics to visualize the existing data to generate meaningful report dashboards and use it during stakeholder meetings to arrive at the right decision. The best features IBM Planning Analytics offers include budgeting, forecasting, and what-if scenario analysis. The scenario modeling feature in IBM Planning Analytics is probably the most robust planning and forecasting solution we use, especially for what-if scenarios, where we are able to forecast using Watson Studio, which helps in better prediction. I really appreciate the Excel integration in IBM Planning Analytics because it keeps things familiar and adds more power.

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it_user1319820

Lead Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

A data analysis tool that is scalable and includes keyword search functionality

The solution is used for a government company for data collection and analysis I have found the auto-generated document very useful as well as the main keywords that are highlighted, which are used for the search functionality within IBM Watson Explorer. I have been using the solution for five…

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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

"The most valuable features of IBM Planning Analytics for streamlining planning processes include a unified database where all data are centralized."

"It's a very stable, robust product."

"IBM Planning Analytics can help us build scenarios through a sandbox environment, allowing us to test multiple variables and assess their impact on our budget and planning."

"IBM Planning Analytics is easy to use and deploy. It is quick to develop. The calculation machine is also very fast."

"A lot of the platform is in-memory, so Planning Analytics can run calculations quite fast. It also offers several user interfaces. And in the newest version of Planning Analytics, there is a new one called the Planning Analytics Workspace. Maybe it could be useful for the business side."

"We cut down on manual budgeting and forecasting work, which saved us between 50 to 70% of our time."

"The product's stability is good."

"IBM Planning Analytics is essential for creating a clear budget for our organization so that we can reach our future goals without significant loss."

More IBM Planning Analytics pros

"The valuable feature of Watson Explorer for us is data entities, and to see the hidden insights from within unstructured data."

"I have found the auto-generated document very useful as well as the main keywords that are highlighted, which are used for the search functionality within IBM Watson Explorer."

"We take natural language that was happening in our repositories and our application and then feed it to the Watson APIs. We receive JSON payloads as an API response to get cognitive feedback from the repository data."

"For me, as a user, the most valuable feature is the ability to ingest and then retrieve information from a range of separate sources; the ability to dissect questions in context and actually answer them."

"Ease of use is pretty good as is the standardization of not actually having to have my own natural learning algorithms, just to use the Watson APIs."

"The ability to easily pull together lots of different pieces of information and drill down in a smarter way than has been possible with other analytics tools is key. Watson is all based on a set of AI and deep learning, machine-learning capabilities, and it is looking behind the scenes at some relationships that you likely would not have spotted on your own. It's pulling things together, categorizing some things, that are not something that you might have seen on your own."

Cons

"It's wonky, and not super user-friendly with Excel."

"IBM Planning Analytics could be improved by simplifying the learning curve, as it requires a lot of time to learn and master it."

"The tool's transport layer could be improved when promoting development between environments."

"Extracting data is a little slow."

"The new frontend Planning Analytics Workspace is not very good, it could be improved. I like the Planning Analytics functionality but it would be helpful if it could be more customizable. You can create a prediction and receive information but you cannot do feature engineering regarding the predictive models. If this was added it would be helpful."

"IBM Planning Analytics does not work offline, which makes it difficult for me and my team to work or gather required data when we do not have an internet connection."

"The dashboard is very poor and needs a lot of improvement."

"Adding predefined templates could be beneficial."

More IBM Planning Analytics cons

"Much of IBM operates this way, where they have sets of tools that are in the middleware space, and it becomes the customer's responsibility or the business partner's responsibility to develop full solutions that take advantage of that middleware. I think IBM's finding itself in that spot with Watson-related technologies as well, where the capabilities to do really interesting and useful things for customers is there, but somebody still has to build it. Is that going to be the customer? Are they going to be willing to take on that responsibility themselves"

"Small businesses will probably have a little harder time getting into it, just because of the amount of resources that they have available, both financial and time, but it really is a solution that should work for them."

"More cognitive feedback would be good. The natural language analysis is great, the sentiment analyzers are great. But I would just like to see more... innovation done with the Watson platform."

"I would say, give some kind of a community edition, a free edition. A lot of companies do, even Amazon gives you some kind of trial and error opportunities. If they could provide something like that, it would be good."

"Stability is actually one of the areas that could use improvement. Setting it up is always tough. Setting Explorer requires experts, but also the underlying platform is not that stable. So it really needs a good expert to keep it running."

"The solution is expensive."

"It is a little bit tricky to get used to the workflow of knowing how to train Watson, what can be provided, what can't be, how to provide it, how to import, export, and what it means every time you have to add a new dictionary"

"It needs better language support, to include some other languages. Also, they should improve the user interface."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license of this solution is paid annually. Most of my customers choose a license that includes support."

"IBM Planning Analytics is priced well, and licensing costs are yearly."

"Compared with the other tools in the market, IBM Planning Analytics is a bit expensive."

"IBM Planning Analytics is not the cheapest solution, but it's priced per the market standard for this type of solution. I rate the price at seven out of ten."

"I would rate the tool's pricing a nine out of ten since it's expensive."

"It is a bit expensive, but you get what you are paying for."

"Our licensing cost is approximately $50,000.00 per year."

"The solution is expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Retailer

Educational Organization

Performing Arts

12%

University

10%

Educational Organization

Recreational Facilities/Services Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	15

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	7

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Planning Analytics?

The most valuable features of IBM Planning Analytics for streamlining planning processes include a unified database where all data are centralized.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Planning Analytics?

While IBM's solutions were costly before, the introduction of SaaS models has reduced prices significantly. Comparatively, IBM rates may be better than those of competitors, such as Hyperion ( /pro...

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Planning Analytics?

IBM is behind competitors like Tableau ( /products/tableau-reviews ) and Power BI in terms of visualization. Their visuals are less innovative and practical with fewer varieties. IBM's visualizatio...

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Comparisons

Microsoft Power BI vs IBM Planning Analytics

Compared 14% of the time

SAP Analytics Cloud vs IBM Planning Analytics

Compared 12% of the time

Anaplan vs IBM Planning Analytics

Compared 8% of the time

IBM Cognos vs IBM Planning Analytics

Compared 5% of the time

Oracle HFM vs IBM Planning Analytics

Compared 3% of the time

More IBM Planning Analytics Competitors

Tableau Enterprise vs IBM Watson Explorer

Compared 16% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs IBM Watson Explorer

Compared 14% of the time

Salesforce Einstein Analytics vs IBM Watson Explorer

Compared 13% of the time

IBM SPSS Modeler vs IBM Watson Explorer

Compared 11% of the time

SAS Analytics vs IBM Watson Explorer

Compared 9% of the time

More IBM Watson Explorer Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Planning Analytics

January 2026

Download IBM Planning Analytics product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Watson Explorer

January 2026

Download IBM Watson Explorer product report

Also Known As

Cognos TM1, IBM Cognos TM1

IBM WEX

Overview

IBM Planning Analytics is an integrated planning solution that uses AI to automate planning, budgeting, and forecasting and drive more intelligent workflows.

Built on TM1, IBM’s powerful calculation engine, this enterprise performance management tool allows you to transcend the limits of manual planning and become the Analytics Hero your business needs. Quickly and easily drive faster, more accurate plans for FP&A, sales, supply chain and beyond.

IBM

IBM Watson Explorer is a cognitive exploration and content analysis platform that lets you listen to your data for advice. Explore and analyze structured, unstructured, internal, external and public content to uncover trends and patterns that improve decision-making, customer service and ROI. Leverage built-in cognitive capabilities powered by machine learning models, natural language processing and next-generation APIs to unlock hidden value in all your data. Gain a secure 360-degree view of customers, in context, to deliver better experiences for your clients.

IBM

Sample Customers

ManpowerGroup, Convergys, AIG, Orchard Brands, Citibank, InterGen, Northwestern University, EF Education First, Ironside, Bazan Group, CSOB Insurance, Macquarie Group, Charles Stanley, SATO, Government of Sint Maarten, BMW Financial Services

RIMAC, Westpac New Zealand, Toyota Financial Services, Swiss Re, Akershus University Hospital, Korean Air Lines, Mizuho Bank, Honda

Buyer's Guide

Business Performance Management

January 2026

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We monitor all Business Performance Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.