Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Anaplan vs IBM Cognos comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Anaplan
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Business Performance Management (1st), Production Planning (5th), Predictive Analytics (4th)
IBM Cognos
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
135
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 13.3%, down 16.1% compared to last year.
IBM Cognos, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 3.8% mindshare, down 4.3% since last year.
Business Performance Management
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Q&A Highlights

LS
Jan 10, 2025
 

Featured Reviews

Antonio Flor - PeerSpot reviewer
Real-time data integration enhances operational efficiency and flexibility
As a client developer and solutions architect, I use Anaplan for building modules and deploying logic end-to-end. I work closely with the business in an agile manner to ensure the model aligns with business needs Anaplan offers flexibility in building different options within the platform. The…
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Anaplan integrates well into my clients' core systems. The ability to aggregate the forms within the dashboarding is also useful. Only one of my clients has implemented workflow. Their usage has been very light. Dashboarding capability is probably the biggest one. My clients like having the ability to aggregate, slice and dice, and dynamically adjust things in the dashboards."
"It's real-time connected planning, so the calculations are pretty much seamless as far as your model is connected."
"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)."
"The solution scales well."
"The solution works very well for budgeting."
"Anaplan's in-memory calculation engine is super-fast compared to the old tools we previously used. You enter the data and everything shows up in one go."
"Technical support has been good."
"Anaplan is a three-dimensional cloud platform that is good for analyzing data, visualization, integration, terrific for visibility."
"One of the strong suits of Cognos is its robust corporate reporting capability."
"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."
"IBM Cognos is an excellent solution for tax, planning, budgeting, profit and loss statements and balance sheets."
"When it comes to decision-making, the product is very useful and used in many departments since a lot of people prefer the reports to be generated by IBM Cognos."
"Mapbox integration for geospatial analytics down to longitude/latitude layers."
"IBM Cognos offers tools so that you can design and develop your own test queries and reporting solutions."
"We use the account statement report. When you use an account in HSBC, you receive various types of accounts, such as the stock market, fixed accounts, credit cards, and business accounts. We can create one consolidated report called CCS support, which includes all these accounts. In that statement, we are consolidating all those accounts."
"The product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report."
 

Cons

"The solution could improve by better dashboards and while entering the form loss and project implementation the ability to use graphical shapes more effectively."
"It would be nice if the solution offered better extensions."
"The visualization tools in the product are limited in comparison to other reporting tools."
"The negative is that the higher the flexibility, the higher is the complexity. That can act against you as a negative because it does require a model builder or a coder/developer."
"Anaplan could be improved with a stronger consolidation module."
"Space and integration are a problem."
"There are so many business rules to set up in the system that as a business user it's hard to gauge what they're doing and it's possible to get lost."
"The tool needs to work on its integration with MS Excel and MS Word. The tool does not allow data analysis in spreadsheets which is possible on other platforms. I want the solution to be more collaborative to facilitate decision-making in organizations."
"Tableau and Power BI are faster than Cognos."
"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."
"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 tool needs to improve the connectivity since I see that, at times, there is a need to increase the memory in the database."
"We need more predictive analytical functions, not only diagnostic or decryptic analytics."
"IBM Support can be slow at times, but they can usually deliver in a timely manner."
"Chart quality: many other competitors have charts and graphics that look much better and that provide dynamic effects. Cognos doesn't."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool’s pricing is reasonable and competitive with other solutions."
"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 price of the solution is expensive."
"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."
"This is an expensive product and if the price were reduced then it would attract more customers."
"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."
"Anaplan is a bit pricier compared to its competitors - the license costs about $4,000 per user annually."
"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."
"Cognos is super expensive compared to Tableau ($70/month) and Power BI ($20/month) — I think Cognos is roughly $200 a month."
"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."
"It is quite pricy. I think Microsoft BI is cheaper. Tableau might also be cheaper, but it also depends on the usage. If you have very many users, Cognos can be a problem. It could be cheaper than Tableau but not for so many users. If you have a few thousand users, Tableau, which is generally quite expensive, can be cheaper than Cognos."
"The solution is affordable."
"There is need to assess the purchase license accordingly so as to avoid audit penalties."
"It's more expensive than similar solutions like Tableau and Power BI."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Business Performance Management solutions are best for your needs.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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…
 

Answers from the Community

LS
Jan 10, 2025
Jan 10, 2025
Hi Leonardo, I have had the benefit of working with IBM PA and Anaplan applications for many years. If you are working on a smaller application with only a few dimensions (Anaplan calls them lists), Anaplan is fine except for ongoing costs and maintenance. A few, small dimensions, maybe planning by device group (not lower SKU level), general sales locations, departments, time and a two to three...
See 2 answers
Milan Orendac - PeerSpot reviewer
Jul 24, 2024
Both products are great and are massive planning and analyzing tools. I am not sure about the size and complexity of your business. You mention "small businesses". To use IBM Cognos or Anaplan for small business may give more headache than benefits. My suggestion would be to work out the expectations and needs for your planning process and to search for the right tool, fitting to your needs.
CM
Jan 10, 2025
Hi Leonardo, I have had the benefit of working with IBM PA and Anaplan applications for many years. If you are working on a smaller application with only a few dimensions (Anaplan calls them lists), Anaplan is fine except for ongoing costs and maintenance. A few, small dimensions, maybe planning by device group (not lower SKU level), general sales locations, departments, time and a two to three versions, Anaplan works (again, watch ongoing & expansion costs). When it becomes more complex where you want to do more granular planning at the product SKU, multiple budget cycles and rolling forecast throughout the year, across territories, by internal rep, different channels, with distributors selling in multiple territories, that is where IBM Planning Analytics shines. You can plan/forecast at any level including consolidated and have room to expand when needed.  Expansion with Anaplan with granularity becomes very difficult, very quickly.  I am happy to show the differences. Ping me if you like, www.linkedin.com/in/chrismirras. We work very well with Global Clients.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
31%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Educational Organization
56%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
4%
Manufacturing Company
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
 

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: February 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.