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Birst vs Tableau comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Cognos
Sponsored
Ranking in Reporting
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (7th)
Birst
Ranking in Reporting
32nd
Average Rating
7.4
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Embedded BI (14th)
Tableau
Ranking in Reporting
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
294
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (2nd), Data Visualization (1st), Embedded BI (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 4.4%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Birst is 0.2%, down from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tableau is 24.3%, up from 22.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Reporting
 

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.
RH
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 It is clunky and outdated.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.
ROMIL SHAH - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides fast data access with in-memory extracts, makes it easy to create visualizations, and saves time
When it comes to visualizations, Tableau has a limitation as compared to Power BI. It has a limited set of visualizations. Power BI has the entire marketplace, so you can connect and import many visualizations and use them, whereas Tableau has only 10 or 15 visualizations. There should be more visualizations, and there should also be data integration with more cloud providers. Tableau has recently launched a paid version for the documentation. So, documentation has become a little bit challenging when it comes to Tableau development because we do not have any tool to export the data out of it. It is a license-based feature that you need to purchase to prepare documentation. So, on the documentation front, for preparing clear documentation for any dashboard, it would help if we get an embedded option, rather than buying a license for each user for the documentation. To document anything, if I have to connect to each workbook and see what has been written as a formula and then document in the Word document, it is pretty time-consuming. We have the Microsoft stack, and we are currently evaluating Power BI because Tableau has a limitation of 50 columns for a drill-down report. If we want more than 50 columns, we have found a hack, but there is no ready-made option for doing it. So, we have to use another tool in case we need a drilled report with more than 50 columns. There are many instances where users need 80 or 90 columns for their analysis, and switching between two technologies becomes a challenge. It is not a cost-effective approach for us. Their support should be improved. We are not happy with their support. Whenever we raised queries, we were pointed to a few blogs, and we didn't get a proper solution from them. Their licensing should also be improved. They want us to purchase a Tableau Creator license for business users, whereas Power BI Desktop is free for business users. They should come up with a basic license with one or two connectors that our business users can use for preparing their visualizations. Tableau also charges us per user for users who want the data only through email.

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 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."
"The most valuable features of IBM Cognos are governance and enterprise reporting."
"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."
"I have worked on the features like dashboards and stories, and I do like them a lot."
"The product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report."
"Cognos is the best application with dashboards,batch reporting, jobs, events and ad-hoc reporting for business users."
"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."
"The initial setup is quite straightforward."
"Dashboards and self-service reports. These are widely used by customers in the EPM domain."
"It's the ease of use. It is also a self-service tool so it decreases the burden on having centralized IT-type teams or developers."
"This solution has transformed us from an Excel reporting environment to one of visual exploration."
"The most valuable feature is the drag and drop, then the simplicity to build dashboards which allows us to provide more usable data to our customers."
"The solution is easy to use, flexible, our clients enjoy seeing the data on maps, and you do not need to be an expert in SQL to use it."
"It's a very good, flexible product, and it's easy to learn."
"It is very easy to create dashboards, charts, and graphs."
"One of the most valuable features is that the solution allows users to build interactive dashboards. This allows the end user to modify the criteria or the filtering if need be. As far as for my personal use as a QA Engineer, I really value how extensive their API document support has been."
"Tableau is easy to use compared to some other solutions, such as Excel."
 

Cons

"One key area for improvement is the need to improve the self-service nature and functionality of the product in terms of visual analytics."
"The performance is a bottleneck and something that can be improved."
"The high cost of a license makes it hard to scale up on a budget."
"The solution's support could be better."
"Need improvement towards Visualization."
"Most of our company's customers want to be able to deploy IBM Cognos on a web application and use it as a desktop application, which is not possible currently."
"The solution seems to slow down the servers."
"IBM Support can be slow at times, but they can usually deliver in a timely manner."
"Customer support takes lot of time to get a solution."
"The charts need to be improved. The drawings and the visualization need to be more accurate."
"I think Tableau could be improved with cheaper or more flexible licensing, though this is a generic improvement and applies for any product. It would be better if they had more flexible payment and licensing plans so that they could suit small- and mid-sized organizations."
"We did have issues with Tableau 10.1 server with the brokers failing on heavy load but since moving to 10.2, then to 10.3, this issue seems to have been resolved and the environment is now quite stable."
"Other tools are more competitively priced."
"I don't have the ability in Tableau to create a tooltip and see the picture of a piece of jewelry or watch that is a best seller."
"There should be more widgets that would help less trained individuals create charts with less difficulty."
"Whenever it comes to specialized visualization, Tableau is an absolute failure."
"The pricing is a bit expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is pretty expensive."
"The solution is affordable."
"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."
"Cognos is super expensive compared to Tableau ($70/month) and Power BI ($20/month) — I think Cognos is roughly $200 a month."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The pricing and licensing policies are comparatively cheaper than other products in the market ."
"Please negotiate on the price and purchase the latest version."
"It is expensive when you compare it with Power BI. It should be cheaper."
"Tableau's prices are relatively high for our market. I am from Serbia, so many companies in this market don't have the ability to pay for expensive software. My clients are quite satisfied with a lot of Tableau's qualities except for the prices."
"It is fairly expensive. I have no idea what they paid. We were on an enterprise license, so whatever it is they licensed at the enterprise level is what we paid."
"There is a license for the use of this solution and it is on a per-user basis. The server is free but the users you have to pay for."
"It is more expensive than other solutions."
"In general, if someone is new and wants to learn Tableau, it's around $70 per month."
"ROI is very high, but it requires a data preparation/blending tool."
"Tableau can be costly (but this can be indefinable, such as user experience vs. cheaper etc.)"
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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
56%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
5%
Government
4%
No data available
Educational Organization
40%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

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...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
Tableau vs. Business Objects - Which is a better solution for visualization and analysis?
Both tools have their positives and negatives. First, I should mention that I am relatively new to Tableau. I have be...
Which would you choose - Tableau or SAP Analytics Cloud?
Tableau is easy to set up and maintain. In about a day it is possible for the entire platform to be deployed for use....
What do you like most about Tableau?
Tableau is a fantastic tool that provides impressive dashboards and customized reports.
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
No data available
Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online
 

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.
Citrix Systems, Jive Software, SunnyD, Toshiba Medical Systems, Cisco OpenDNS, RB, Sunny D, Vertafore
Accenture, Adobe, Amazon.com, Bank of America, Charles Schwab Corp, Citigroup, Coca-Cola Company, Cornell University, Dell, Deloitte, Duke University, eBay, Exxon Mobil, Fannie Mae, Ferrari, French Red Cross, Goldman Sachs, Google, Government of Canada, HP, Intel, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Macy's, Merck, The New York Times, PayPal, Pfizer, US Army, US Air Force, Skype, and Walmart.
Find out what your peers are saying about Birst vs. Tableau and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.