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Anaplan vs IBM Cognos comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Anaplan
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Business Performance Management (1st), Production Planning (5th), Predictive Analytics (4th)
IBM Cognos
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (7th), Reporting (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Anaplan is designed for Business Performance Management and holds a mindshare of 13.5%, down 16.3% compared to last year.
IBM Cognos, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 3.8% mindshare, down 4.4% since last year.
Business Performance Management
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Q&A Highlights

LS
Jul 24, 2024
 

Featured Reviews

Kumaran Singaram - PeerSpot reviewer
Effective machine learning, constantly evolving, but price could improve
If the solution is built correctly there is no maintenance needed. The crucial aspect is to ensure that there are individuals who possess the knowledge to effectively utilize the tool. It is akin to piloting an airplane, where one must first acquire the skills to fly before attempting to operate it. Otherwise, they will crash it. I rate Anaplan a seven out of ten.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Anaplan's strongest feature is that its GUI is very modern and user-friendly."
"I am impressed with the tool’s real-time calculations and intuitive interface. The tool’s user interface is the best compared to other software that I have worked with. I also find the tool’s management reporting feature valuable."
"It's real-time connected planning, so the calculations are pretty much seamless as far as your model is connected."
"The features that I have found most valuable are that it is web-based and easy to use."
"You don't need to have a programming language to use Anaplan."
"It's highly flexible. If you've got a complex environment with complex calculations, you can build that out. So that's a really good positive."
"Anaplan's most valuable features are that it's a no-coding platform, everything can be scaled to your other functions, and it's easy to learn and use (especially because Anaplan provides excellent interactive training)."
"This product has a very good modeling feature, and its graphical representation of visualizations has also been valuable."
"Cognos is the best application with dashboards,batch reporting, jobs, events and ad-hoc reporting for business users."
"Previously, we were doing static reporting. Management would request a report, and it would take staff a week or more to provide it. With Cognos, we have dynamic reporting, and it has reduced both reporting and decision making times significantly. With the solution's dashboard, the company's management team has updated records at their fingertips. This means that they can directly access the data they need to make decisions."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"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."
"A drag-and-drop interface for selecting creating ad hoc reports makes this product very easy to use."
"It is a stable product."
"Report Studio: This is the most powerful and sophisticated tool for professional reporting."
"IBM Cognos offers tools so that you can design and develop your own test queries and reporting solutions."
 

Cons

"The integration technique should be a little bit easier."
"It would be nice if the solution offered better extensions."
"The dashboard could be better. Because within a dashboard or report, you have to do a lot of scrolling. You need to scroll down because the table doesn't fit in a single view. That's why even the users aren't happy with that kind of user experience. They need to scroll to see all the data, and it could be better if it fits in just one page. That way, you can see everything. In the next release, I want automation that's connected to Anaplan. For example, to load master data from SAP to Anaplan. I don't know if this already exists, but a log where you can see the progress and see if there's an error will also help. It would be better to give you the error message, for example, if there is an error within the automated process importing to Anaplan."
"There are workspace issues, like the limitation on model sizes."
"Anaplan should come up with flexible options to connect to a data warehouse rather than an Anaplan hub."
"The visualization tools in the product are limited in comparison to other reporting tools."
"Space and integration are a problem."
"The solution can improve by providing an easier form of integration to different platforms, such as receiving data from different Salesforce. There is a process to do it through the use of some APIs but it could be made much easier. This would be a large help to us."
"They should provide improved visual reporting."
"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."
"Tableau and Power BI are faster than Cognos."
"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."
"It is a costly product; it is comparatively expensive."
"The solution's support could be better."
"Cognos charts are not as fast as those of the other tools, even with DQM (dynamic query mode)."
"This product could use improvement in terms of usability for those with less technical know how."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Anaplan is a bit pricier compared to its competitors - the license costs about $4,000 per user annually."
"This is a yearly subscription. So a customer initially buys a workspace and specifies how much GB they want. The minimum starts at around 30 GB. You can buy multiple workspaces."
"The license is a yearly subscription. There are three licensing tiers: the model builder, planner, and the reporting."
"The entry-level is anywhere from about $30,000 to $50,000 a year, however, it does go up significantly after that depending on the complexity and how much space you're using."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"The cost of Anaplan is a challenge for clients, especially if they don't have an ongoing long-term use case for it. It's a $50,000 licensing fee just to get started. Clients need a strong business case to switch from Excel to Anaplan. But if clients have used something similar in the past, such as Hyperion or other solutions, that's not a factor because they know what to expect."
"The tool’s pricing is reasonable and competitive with other solutions."
"We are currently using a free workspace license for 90 days. We are satisfied with the price of the solution. There are additional costs if you want more storage, the default limit is 250 GB."
"IBM Cognos is priced reasonable. However, it is more expensive than Power BI and Tableau."
"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."
"There is need to assess the purchase license accordingly so as to avoid audit penalties."
"The solution is affordable."
"I don't know the exact cost, but I believe Cognos is quite expensive, especially when it comes to the support consultants and the procedures that need to be applied."
"It is pretty expensive."
"It is averagely priced."
"Cognos is super expensive compared to Tableau ($70/month) and Power BI ($20/month) — I think Cognos is roughly $200 a month."
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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
Educational Organization
29%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Educational Organization
56%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
5%
Government
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What are your main use cases for Anaplan?
Anaplan is an industry-leading cloud-based corporate performance management (CPM) platform that combines business planning and analytics in a single solution. It is designed to assist organizations...
Is Board better than Anaplan as a Business Intelligence (BI) solution?
We've had several FP&A departments include Anaplan in their analytics discussions, and while BI information IS generated, the focus is generally on compiling input from various sources and simu...
Is Anaplan better than SAP ERP?
There are different aspects of both Anaplan and SAP ERP that I like and dislike. Anaplan improves forecast accuracy and drives up the quality of analytics. Rather than spending all of their time co...
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?
I need improvements, particularly with the Framework Manager, which has an outdated user interface from older versions like IBM Cognos 10 or 8. Additionally, the Event Studio, which offered great f...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

HP, ForeScout, DocuSign, EAT, Pandora, Aviva, Intel Security, Zalora
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.
Find out what your peers are saying about Anaplan, Oracle, IBM and others in Business Performance Management. Updated: October 2024.
816,192 professionals have used our research since 2012.