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AtScale Adaptive Analytics (A3) vs MicroStrategy 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)
AtScale Adaptive Analytics ...
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
39th
Average Rating
5.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Data Virtualization (4th), Data Governance (34th), BI on Hadoop (4th)
MicroStrategy
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
159
Ranking in other categories
Embedded BI (3rd)
 

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 AtScale Adaptive Analytics (A3) is 0.3%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MicroStrategy is 3.4%, down from 3.5% 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.
it_user822762 - PeerSpot reviewer
The GUI interface is nice and easy to use, but the organization of the icons is not saved across users
Connecting to a Hadoop database to create a cube to connect to Tableau. We want to be able to easily create cubes which can be connected to Tableau for visualization The product had many issues. We had great collaboration with the product development team, but the product was not able to meet our…
Azhagupandi Parthiban - PeerSpot reviewer
Good for security and performance but lack of user-friendliness
MicroStrategy, for me, it's the visualization and user-friendliness that needs improvement. When compared to Power BI and Tableau, that's their sweet spot. They're super easy to pick up and use. Plus, they've got this cool association feature that updates when you change the timeframe. But with MicroStrategy, there's a lot of room for improvement, especially in integrating with developed mobile solutions using MicroStrategy. We struggled to deploy to iOS, and the Android adaptation was a big challenge for us. Everything that worked in iOS wouldn't work in Android, and videos and calendars were a whole other mess. So, user-friendliness for non-technical users and mobile performance on Android, particularly in India, where it's the dominant platform, those are my two big areas for improvement.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The main difference that I like about Cognos compared to other solutions is its data splitting functionality. We have all our company data inside the Cognos environment and so we prefer to split the information Cognos itself. It's more efficient this way."
"Mapbox integration for geospatial analytics down to longitude/latitude layers."
"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."
"It is a stable product."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"We use IBM Cognos for enterprise analytics and reporting."
"The initial setup is very straightforward."
"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 GUI interface is nice and easy to use."
"We are able to manage to get very in-depth and detailed management of the data model on the backend."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to build reports, then customize for different groups instead of having to build multiple reports. Therefore, the ability to build customization in the reports for different groups."
"The reporting, the dashboards, and the new visualization functions. It is very easy for users to understand their data and dashboards."
"We've made it an open BI platform, so that all our business analysts can build their own dashboards and Dossiers."
"The usability for users to be able to drag and drop, then create their own reports."
"Visual Insights (VI)"
"Having the intelligence server sit in the middle is huge for us. It is going to save us a lot of time, make our work a lot simpler, make it easier for deployment, and getting the reports in the hands of our users sooner."
"If you have data, it is not that complex. It's manageable even for end users."
 

Cons

"It is a costly product; it is comparatively expensive."
"The high cost of a license makes it hard to scale up on a budget."
"We would like to see development of the product's UI function, to make it more of a UI tool that can be configured as required."
"Cognos charts are not as fast as those of the other tools, even with DQM (dynamic query mode)."
"They were lacking in the initial phases of development in the area of big data, and they still need to improve that aspect of the product."
"Extending dynamic cubes aggregate awareness with calculated measures."
"The visualization aspect needs to be improved and I believe, this is being resolved in upcoming versions."
"The solution seems to slow down the servers."
"The organization of the icons is not saved across users."
"The product was not able to meet our 10 second refresh requirements."
"There was an issue with the incremental aggregation not working as indicated."
"We would like access to more storage and access to more metadata to build the right programs that can construct all the stuff for us instead of us having to type it in all the time."
"The solution's licensing could be improved because its cost is heavy on the pockets."
"Needs more visual essence and connectors for the ecosystems, which would be easy to use."
"MicroStrategy lacks that community support. You're either stuck figuring things out yourself or paying expensive fees to MicroStrategy consultants for help."
"If there are some advanced visualization features - maybe I'm not aware of them - but if there were a Vitara which could work on top of MicroStrategy, it would make sense for MicroStrategy to have that within their own library. So they should add more visualizations to the library."
"If you compare it with Power BI with the DAX language, it would be great to put that into MicroStrategy."
"Data writeback, and on-the-fly predictive analysis results from R and Python could be improved."
"Lacks decent visualization and the process for creating new objects needs to be simplified."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Pricing should be improved."
"There is need to assess the purchase license accordingly so as to avoid audit penalties."
"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."
"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."
"IBM Cognos price is on the higher side of the spectrum. However, with the features that it brings, such as correlation analysis, it's worth the money. They should look at the pricing more clearly because it's a little on the higher side."
"The pricing of this product is meant for medium to large-scale enterprises."
"It is my understanding that the cost is very low. It's not very expensive."
Information not available
"The price of MicroStrategy is reasonable."
"The pricing is fair."
"We are waiting to switch to Microsoft Power BI because MicroStrategy is too costly."
"The price was good. We have had great support along the way."
"We actually researched some of the other solutions. For options, price, and customer acceptance, this product has worked well for us.​"
"I am unsure what the licensing costs are for this solution however, development costs are around $100,000 per year."
"Additional costs are associated with maintenance."
"The solution’s licensing cost is expensive."
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Comparison Review

it_user6330 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 2, 2013
MicroStrategy vs. Tableau
After a recent presentation, several attendees asked me about the applications of Visual Insights and Tableau. Many companies are investing in both tools and are trying to figure out the right tool for specific applications Tableau has found its sweet-spot as an agile discovery tool that analysts…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
55%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
4%
Government
4%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
10%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
10%
Retailer
8%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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...
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What do you like most about MicroStrategy?
The stability of the product is good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MicroStrategy?
For larger businesses, I think the pricing is logical, but for smaller companies, it can be a bit costly.
What needs improvement with MicroStrategy?
There is a need to improve the automatic generation of metrics in MicroStrategy, as currently everything must be done...
 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
AtScale, AtScale Intelligence Platform
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.
Rakuten, TD Bank, Aetna, Glaxo-Smith Kline, Biogen, Toyota, Tyson
Allstate Insurance, Barneys New York, Boston Children's Hospital, Buenos Aires Department of the Treasury, Campbell Soup Company, DHL, eBay, eHarmony, Facebook, Four Seasons Hotels Inc., Godiva, Hard Rock International, LinkedIn, Netflix, Pfizer, SECO (Swiss Government Unemployment Agency), Starbucks, Texas A&M University, Thomson Reuters Markets, US House of Representatives, and the US Postal Service.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Salesforce, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools. Updated: December 2024.
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