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Amazon QuickSight vs ThoughtSpot comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Cognos
Sponsored
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (4th)
Amazon QuickSight
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
3rd
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
ThoughtSpot
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
17th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (11th), Embedded BI (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 3.8%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon QuickSight is 8.1%, down from 11.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ThoughtSpot is 1.5%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Larrad Salgado - PeerSpot reviewer
Improved the quality of our KPIs, while reducing calls to the IT department
I don't like that when we use Colab packages, we get less functionality. For example, you can make groups of data with Excel or with the data sets from the packages, but when you use the Colab packages directly, you can only group the data when you analyze it with Analysis Studio. I think Cognos needs to improve more on this functionality. The user experience is also very important. Cognos is not very easy to understand sometimes, especially when they change the layout but keep the functionality the same. The help is not very graphic and they have no examples. Cognos has to make a big effort to help with understanding the functionality by improving the documentation. There is a lot of documentation, but the examples are hard to find and they should make their help section easier to understand for non-technical users.
Anoop Jose - PeerSpot reviewer
Helpful for visualization purposes but delayed drill-downs feature
Compared to Power BI, I felt QuickSight lacks some features, like delayed drill-downs. Drill-downs were the main area where we found QuickSight lacking. Especially for root cause analysis, the ability to drill down from a high-level problem to its root is crucial. Aside from that, QuickSight is a good service.
Avirat Gaikwad - PeerSpot reviewer
It's great not having to write SQL queries but they lack custom visualization functionalities
The majority of issues we have are similar to those every visualization tool faces in the initial phase. Something like a customized visualization, which a lot of companies build for Power BI or Tableau isn't available in ThoughtSpot, or there are minimal options. That's something that I'd like to see in the next release. ThoughtSpot is essentially a query-based search engine where you can type your query and get the answer. If you don't have your data prepared well, your user won't understand what this search engine is for, or they won't get the right answer. So, it doesn't have that powerful query. We usually create models in DBT and then get that into ThoughtSpot as a worksheet.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a stable product."
"The tool can join data from different sources, write back to databases, generate alerts, and be customized to our preferences. It's an enterprise BI tool that's more powerful than just visualization tools like Power BI or Tableau."
"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."
"If they want dashboarding, storytelling, and analyzing why KPIs are met or not, then Cognos is a better candidate than Qlik Sense."
"The most valuable features of IBM Cognos are governance and enterprise reporting."
"Dashboarding, reporting, and ad hoc reporting are the valuable features of IBM Cognos."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"The dashboarding offered by this solution is very valuable to us."
"QuickSight makes it easy to provision, create, and publish dashboards."
"The product is easy to learn."
"The query and dashboard capabilities are entirely good."
"The solution is very quick to turn around and integrate."
"It is fine for basic reporting."
"It works well with the AWS ecosystem."
"Easily able to connect with our other services and easy to manage."
"The best part about Amazon QuickSight is the filtration capability."
"ThoughtSpot takes the modifying of existing reports out of our hands."
"I like ThoughtSpot's search capabilities. You can also create custom analytics even if you aren't an experienced data analyst. We have users with no data analytics experience making some of the dashboards we've created, copying components, and customizing them to their specific use cases."
"It's easy to drill down or expand data to get more details right out of the box."
"The scalability is good."
"The ability to do ad hoc explorations of data has been most valuable."
"It is easy to set up the solution."
"I would say the return on investment is good. Whatever we invested, we got results. We have been finding it easy to use and onboard new use cases."
"The initial setup was very straightforward."
 

Cons

"Cognos charts are not as fast as those of the other tools, even with DQM (dynamic query mode)."
"The data uploads that we do, such as Excel files, have a lot of restrictions. If we can make it a bit more user-friendly, allowing us to have more flexibility it would be a great help."
"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."
"There are many problems with the product's stability part, making it an area where improvements are required."
"It would be better if it is was easier to implement without extensive training for it."
"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."
"The performance is a bottleneck and something that can be improved."
"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."
"Right now, you can't use Amazon QuickSight on other cloud providers, so I'd like it to have availability on other cloud providers. This is an area for improvement in the product. What I'd like to see in Amazon QuickSight in the future is a distributed centralized system where I can manage all reports in one place, and for Amazon QuickSight to become reporting as a service."
"Amazon QuickSight has minimal features. The feature set can be improved to allow you to create good production-ready dashboards. This does not happen with QuickSite, it needs to mature to be used in production."
"QuickSight needs to add more visuals similar to what Power BI offers."
"They could provide more options for graphics and other features."
"The cost of queries is very high."
"There should be better connectors for different data sets."
"I would like to see a feature that allows us to save a draft version before making it public and publishing it."
"I just want a few more features to be added."
"If I want to order columns, this feature is not there."
"I would like to see more flexibility in adding the pins. Currently, we have four different sizes in which I can add pins, but I would like to be able to resize my pins."
"The one area of the solution that I do hear needs improvement is on the visualization front."
"In terms of features, I'd like to be able to pivot data - for example, going from rows to columns. It's not easy to do."
"The most difficult thing I found is that it only deals with the files and does not have direct connectivity to databases."
"The dashboards could give you more ability to fine tune the appearance. You get a great deal more control over how something looks in Power BI than you do in ThoughtSpot."
"A customized visualization is lacking in this product."
"ThoughtSpot is a fairly new product, so some usability aspects aren't as mature as we'd like them to be. One example is their organizational methodology, like how objects are organized in their dashboards inside the product. They're all on a flat list, which works if you've got five or 10 dashboards. However, it's insufficient when you're a large enterprise with multiple groups looking at the same dashboards. It isn't organized well."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's more expensive than similar solutions like Tableau and Power BI."
"There is need to assess the purchase license accordingly so as to avoid audit penalties."
"The solution is affordable."
"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."
"IBM Cognos is priced reasonable. However, it is more expensive than Power BI and Tableau."
"The pricing of this product is meant for medium to large-scale enterprises."
"My company uses IBM Cognos with another IBM product, so I think only one license is used."
"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."
"A highly affordable cost structure with fixed membership and timeframe basis options."
"It's affordable compared to other long-term contractor business tools available in the market."
"The solution is not affordable."
"The solution's pricing is cheaper than the other products in the market."
"I rate the price of Amazon QuickSight a four on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"Amazon QuickSight you subscribe and you use the service."
"It is simpler and cheaper than other solutions."
"Amazon QuickSight charges $250 per user, which becomes expensive when managing multiple departments."
"I give the pricing a six out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
55%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
4%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

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 ...
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?
I need improvements, particularly with the Framework Manager, which has an outdated user interface from older version...
What do you like most about Amazon QuickSight?
The integration is very seamless. We stored our result CSV files in S3 and connected directly from there.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon QuickSight?
QuickSight is considered cost-effective. As far as I know, QuickSight is cheaper compared to other solutions like Pow...
What needs improvement with Amazon QuickSight?
QuickSight needs to add more visuals similar to what Power BI offers. I have noticed that many drill-down visuals and...
What do you like most about ThoughtSpot?
It's easy to drill down or expand data to get more details right out of the box.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ThoughtSpot?
I like the pricing structure. I get billed by how much data I put in, not how many people are looking at the data. It...
What needs improvement with ThoughtSpot?
We'd like more flexibility with the calendar as our fiscal year does not align with the calendar year. We have to loa...
 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
QuickSight
No data available
 

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.
MLB Advanced Media, Infor, HotelBeds, Gemini, Jivochat, Edmunds.com
Primary Capital Mortgage, Sterling Backcheck, RichRelevance, Rambus, Batteries Plus Bulbs
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon QuickSight vs. ThoughtSpot and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.