Birst vs Databricks comparison

The compared Infor and Databricks solutions aren't in the same category. Infor is ranked #32 in RT , and holds a 0.2% mindshare in the category. Databricks is ranked #1 in Data Science Platforms , with an average rating of 8.2, and holds a 19.1% mindshare. Additionally, 76% of Infor users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Databricks users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Birst and Databricks based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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To learn more, read our detailed Reporting Report (Updated: October 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Reporting

October 2024

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Categories and Ranking

IBM Cognos

Mindshare comparison

Reporting

Data Science Platforms

Featured Reviews

Carlos Larrad Salgado

Deputy Director Operations Management Control at Mapfre

Jul 27, 2022

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.

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Rick Hutchinson

Product Manager at a tech vendor

Apr 26, 2017

The dashboards and Visualizer are valuable.

The administration module was built using flash. It is clunky and outdated. By “clunky” I mean that it sometimes becomes confused and throw an error when I’m making a change. To clear it up, I will have to log out and log back in. We knew going into our purchase that the UI for the admin was not the strongest part of Birst at the moment. Power users often depend on the web services to complete admin tasks and the web services are robust. Birst knows they need to improve this area of their system and have been working on that. They began improving usability overall with the the front-end UI that report writers utilize and did an excellent job with that so I have good reason to expect the admin module UI refresh to be solid as well. From what I understand, the planned changes are more significant than a simple UI refresh also.

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Dunstan Matekenya

Data Scientist at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Jul 10, 2024

Process large-scale data sets and integrates with Apache Spark with notebook environment

I primarily use Databricks to process large-scale data sets with Apache Spark. My main use case is processing large data sets, such as 600 GB or 800 GB Databricks integrates natively with Apache Spark, which I use as a processing engine for large-scale datasets. This native integration is one of…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features are Report Development (Functionality) and Information Distribution (Flexibility)."

"Security administration tools are powerful and flexible."

"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."

"Cognos is the best application with dashboards,batch reporting, jobs, events and ad-hoc reporting for business users."

"The Report Studio that is aimed at professional report writers."

"In terms of stability, I think that Cognos is more stable than Tableau and Power Bi because of its framework manager concept that allows us to import metadata and store it in the framework manager."

"The dashboarding offered by this solution is very valuable to us."

"One of the strong suits of Cognos is its robust corporate reporting capability."

More IBM Cognos pros

"Dashboards and self-service reports. These are widely used by customers in the EPM domain."

"I like how easy it is to share your notebook with others. You can give people permission to read or edit. I think that's a great feature. You can also pull in code from GitHub pretty easily. I didn't use it that often, but I think that's a cool feature."

"The most valuable features of the solution are the hardware and the resources it quickly provides without much hassle."

"We can scale the product."

"Databricks covers end-to-end data analytics workflow in one platform, this is the best feature of the solution."

"I like that Databricks is a unified platform that lets you do streaming and batch processing in the same place. You can do analytics, too. They have added something called Databricks SQL Analytics, allowing users to connect to the data lake to perform analytics. Databricks also will enable you to share your data securely. It integrates with your reporting system as well."

"One of the features provides nice interactive clusters, or compute instances that you don't really need to manage often."

"The solution's features are fantastic and include interactive clusters that perform at top speed when compared to other solutions."

"Databricks is a robust solution for big data processing, offering flexibility and powerful features."

More Databricks pros

Cons

"It could have more options for themes."

"The high cost of a license makes it hard to scale up on a budget."

"Extending features on dashboards so it becomes a real dashboard building application, not only a data exploration tool."

"I would like them to reinclude PowerPlay. One thing that I am missing in the current Cognos is what was formally named PowerPlay. They have basically removed PowerPlay from it, which is something that I fail to understand because it was the most wonderful tool for business intelligence that I've ever used. As far as I know, they don't provide this functionality anymore, so this is one thing that I dislike about 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."

"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."

"It would be better if it is was easier to implement without extensive training for it."

"This product could use improvement in terms of usability for those with less technical know how."

More IBM Cognos cons

"Customer support takes lot of time to get a solution."

"I would like to see more documentation in terms of how an end-user could use it, and users like me can easily try it and implement use cases."

"I would like it if Databricks made it easier to set up a project."

"The solution could be improved by adding a feature that would make it more user-friendly for our team. The feature is simple, but it would be useful. Currently, our team is more familiar with the language R, but Databricks requires the use of Jupyter Notebooks which primarily supports Python. We have tried using RStudio, but it is not a fully integrated solution. To fully utilize Databricks, we have to use the Jupyter interface. One feature that would make it easier for our team to adopt the Jupyter interface would be the ability to select a specific variable or line of code and execute it within a cell. This feature is available in other Jupyter Notebooks outside of Databricks and in our own IDE, but it is not currently available within Databricks. If this feature were added, it would make the transition to using Databricks much smoother for our team."

"A lot of people are required to manage this solution."

"The connectivity with various BI tools could be improved, specifically the performance and real time integration."

"Databricks may not be as easy to use as other tools, but if you simplify a tool too much, it won't have the flexibility to go in-depth. Databricks is completely in the programmer's hands. I prefer flexibility rather than simplicity."

"The product needs samples and templates to help invite users to see results and understand what the product can do."

"The integration of data could be a bit better."

More Databricks cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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 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."

"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."

"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."

"IBM Cognos offers competitive pricing similar to other BI vendors in the market."

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

More IBM Cognos pricing and cost advice

"Please negotiate on the price and purchase the latest version."

"I am based in South Africa, where it is expensive adapting to the cloud, and then there is the price for the tool itself."

"The licensing costs of Databricks depend on how many licenses we need, depending on which Databricks provides a lot of discounts."

"The licensing costs of Databricks is a tiered licensing regime, so it is flexible."

"The product pricing is moderate."

"I'm not involved in the financing, but I can say that the solution seemed reasonably priced compared to the competitors. Similar products are usually in the same price range. With five being affordable and one being expensive, I would rate Databricks a four out of five."

"The price is okay. It's competitive."

"Price-wise, I would rate Databricks a three out of five."

"We find Databricks to be very expensive, although this improved when we found out how to shut it down at night."

More Databricks pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

57%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Government

No data available

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

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 ...

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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.

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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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Which do you prefer - Databricks or Azure Machine Learning Studio?

Databricks gives you the option of working with several different languages, such as SQL, R, Scala, Apache Spark, or ...

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How would you compare Databricks vs Amazon SageMaker?

We researched AWS SageMaker, but in the end, we chose Databricks. Databricks is a Unified Analytics Platform designe...

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Which would you choose - Databricks or Azure Stream Analytics?

Databricks is an easy-to-set-up and versatile tool for data management, analysis, and business analytics. For analyti...

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Comparisons

Microsoft Power BI vs IBM Cognos

Compared 13% of the time

Oracle Hyperion vs IBM Cognos

Compared 10% of the time

Tableau vs IBM Cognos

Compared 10% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs IBM Cognos

Compared 8% of the time

QlikView vs IBM Cognos

Compared 3% of the time

More IBM Cognos Competitors

No data available

Dataiku vs Databricks

Compared 11% of the time

Informatica PowerCenter vs Databricks

Compared 8% of the time

Amazon SageMaker vs Databricks

Compared 8% of the time

Dremio vs Databricks

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Databricks

Compared 6% of the time

More Databricks Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cognos

October 2024

Download IBM Cognos product report

Buyer's Guide

Birst

November 2024

Download Birst product report

Buyer's Guide

Databricks

November 2024

Download Databricks product report

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics

No data available

Databricks Unified Analytics, Databricks Unified Analytics Platform, Redash

Learn More

IBM

Infor

Databricks

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.”

Birst Networked BI and Analytics eliminates information silos. Decentralized users can augment the enterprise data model virtually, as opposed to physically, without compromising data governance.

A unified semantic layer maintains common definitions and key metrics.
Birst’s two-tier architecture aligns back-end sources with line-of-business or local data. Birst’s Automated Data Refinement extracts data from any source into a unified semantic layer. Users are enabled with self-service analytics through executive dashboards, reporting, visual discovery, mobile tools, and predictive analytics. Birst Open Client Interface also offers integration with Tableau, Excel and R.

Birst goes to market in two primary ways: as a direct sale, for enterprises using Birst on internal data to manage their business; and embedded, for companies who offer analytic products, by embedding and white-labeling Birst capabilities into their products.

Birst’s is packaged in 3 available formats: Platform and per-user fee; by Department or Business Unit; by end-customer (for embedded scenarios).

Databricks is utilized for advanced analytics, big data processing, machine learning models, ETL operations, data engineering, streaming analytics, and integrating multiple data sources.

Organizations leverage Databricks for predictive analysis, data pipelines, data science, and unifying data architectures. It is also used for consulting projects, financial reporting, and creating APIs. Industries like insurance, retail, manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals use Databricks for data management and analytics due to its user-friendly interface, built-in machine learning libraries, support for multiple programming languages, scalability, and fast processing.

What are the key features of Databricks?

User-friendly interface: Simplifies operations and usability.
Built-in machine learning libraries: Facilitates machine learning tasks.
Support for multiple programming languages: Enhances flexibility.
Scalability: Efficiently handles growing data needs.
Fast processing: Improves performance and speed.
Automated optimization: Reduces manual efforts.
Data visualization: Provides insightful visuals.
Collaborative features: Enhances teamwork.
Delta Lake performance: Boosts data management.
Seamless cluster management: Simplifies system operations.

What are the benefits or ROI to look for in Databricks reviews?

Efficiency in handling large datasets: Ensures smooth processing.
Interactive workspace environment: Improves user collaboration.
Integration with platforms: Provides connectivity benefits.
Performance optimization: Enhances overall system performance.
Support for data governance and security: Ensures data integrity and protection.

Databricks is implemented in insurance for risk analysis and claims processing; in retail for customer analytics and inventory management; in manufacturing for predictive maintenance and supply chain optimization; and in pharmaceuticals for drug discovery and patient data analysis. Users value its scalability, machine learning support, collaboration tools, and Delta Lake performance but seek improvements in visualization, pricing, and integration with BI tools.

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.

Citrix Systems, Jive Software, SunnyD, Toshiba Medical Systems, Cisco OpenDNS, RB, Sunny D, Vertafore

Elsevier, MyFitnessPal, Sharethrough, Automatic Labs, Celtra, Radius Intelligence, Yesware

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