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 138 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

138

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

Rawen Lawrence

Senior Project Manager at BD

Data insights have transformed reporting speed and support faster, informed decisions

IBM Cognos makes it simple to create visually appealing products, and we are able to run about 1,000 reports on a daily basis while another 1,000 are run through the scheduler built into IBM Cognos Analytics. It offers triggering through the scheduler, which we use to confirm the completion of other processes needed to be available before the job is scheduled to run, allowing us to make data-driven decisions easily. Some of the best features that IBM Cognos offers are enterprise reporting, which enables us to create, customize, and run reports on sales trends, consumer sentiment, and many more; dashboard creation; and data exploration and analysis. We are able to use the drag and drop feature to create ad-hoc visualizations. Additionally, I find the AI-powered natural language query feature for data analysis and dashboard input to be very useful for a non-technical person to put queries around the spreadsheets data to get a quick answer. Building insights for accurate decision-making has been great. Moreover, we can package reports with data-backed insights for stakeholders in PDF and Excel format to support business ad-hoc cases, forecasting, and strategic recommendations on relevant tasks. Of all those features, the visual graphs, predictive analytics, and data cleansing feature makes the biggest difference for my team. IBM Cognos is deployed in my organization using a hybrid cloud setup with Amazon Web Services as our cloud provider.

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

"A drag-and-drop interface for selecting creating ad hoc reports makes this product very easy to use."

"IBM Cognos improves the effectiveness of the sales team."

"Even while a user is using a cube for reporting, there will not be a situation as ' Cube file locked; unable to build or deploy'."

"We are able to generate quality reports easily which allows us to decrease response time."

"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."

"IBM Cognos is a robust governed platform with significant security features and provides excellent graphics and reporting."

"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."

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

More IBM Cognos pros

"Oracle Essbase is a web integration system that integrates with other data systems."

"With Oracle Essbase, everything is centralized in a comprehensive financial statement analysis, allowing for complete management of budget, actuals analysis, and forecast."

"The solution is scalable."

"It is very fast compared to other normal databases, like SQL and MySQL."

"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'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."

"It helps us fetch specific data sets per users' requirements."

More Oracle Essbase pros

Cons

"IBM Support can be slow at times, but they can usually deliver in a timely manner."

"I would like to see is more easy building, movement in the reports, and dashboard functionality within reporting. Overall more simple elements within reports. If the elements are simple then you don't have to render a full page, but you can move separate parts in the page."

"We need more predictive analytical functions, not only diagnostic or decryptic analytics."

"It would be nice to offer free online training on the tool for end-users."

"I would like to see the introduction of mapbooks for supporting some geographical information."

"The technical support team’s response time is slow and needs to be improved."

"In terms of what could be improved, I would say, monitoring, monitoring, monitoring. Some improvements in monitoring would be helpful. I'd like to see more monitoring of specific reports and fields. The way the auditing is now is very limited, so I'd like to see more of that - of the monitoring."

"The solution's support could be better."

More IBM Cognos cons

"There is room for improvement in terms of cost-effectiveness."

"They should improve the solution's performance."

"The initial setup is pretty complex."

"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 include the financial consolidation module that is available in EPM."

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

"I would like to see an integration with application performance management and a version control management 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 solution could enhance business analytics. I delved into the data using Oracle Essbase to create a new support tool."

More Oracle Essbase cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing and licensing policies are comparatively cheaper than other products in the market ."

"It is my understanding that the cost is very low. It's not very expensive."

"IBM Cognos is priced reasonable. However, it is more expensive than Power BI and Tableau."

"It is averagely priced."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The solution is affordable."

More IBM Cognos pricing and cost advice

"The solution is expensive."

"It is a costly solution."

"Essbase is competitively priced."

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

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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	89

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 21% of the time

SAP Analytics Cloud vs Oracle Essbase

Compared 10% of the time

IBM Planning Analytics vs Oracle Essbase

Compared 8% of the time

Oracle Analytics Cloud vs Oracle Essbase

Compared 7% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Oracle Essbase

Compared 7% 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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