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IBM Cognos Dashboard vs ThoughtSpot comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

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

IBM Cognos Dashboard
Ranking in Data Visualization
16th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
ThoughtSpot
Ranking in Data Visualization
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (18th), Embedded BI (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Data Visualization category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos Dashboard is 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ThoughtSpot is 2.1%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Visualization
 

Featured Reviews

Leslie Mavonyani - PeerSpot reviewer
An easy-to-use and stable tool useful for its functionalities like analytics and AI
It is a scalable solution, and to provide its scalability a rating, I would say that it would depend on how much data we push at it. There are five users of IBM Cognos Dashboard in my company. Though it is extensively used in my company, we do not plan to increase its usage.
Sushma Polavarapu - PeerSpot reviewer
Creates user-friendly analysis environments for large datasets
The tool is user-friendly for the end users. It is primarily a search-based tool. Users do not need a technical background to work directly on the dataset. Its compatibility with most databases, including the latest from FlexMovely and Redshift, allows users to create joins and worksheets easily. ThoughtSpot is fast, even with one to ten terabytes of data.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product helps us update the KPI automatically."
"The main feature that is useful is the on-demand report generation through the dashboard."
"The tool's valuable features are that it is easy to use and stable."
"It is a pretty stable solution."
"The tool is user-friendly for the end users."
"Stability is very important, and ThoughtSpot performs well."
"ThoughtSpot takes the modifying of existing reports out of our hands."
"I would say the return on investment is good. Whatever we invested, we got results. We have been finding it easy to use and onboard new use cases."
"I like ThoughtSpot's search capabilities. You can also create custom analytics even if you aren't an experienced data analyst. We have users with no data analytics experience making some of the dashboards we've created, copying components, and customizing them to their specific use cases."
"The main core of ThoughtSpot is to create models, connect data pipelines, and create business models and dashboards on top of them."
"ThoughtSpot excels in being self-service oriented, allowing users who aren't developers to easily create their own reports and visualizations, making it very intuitive."
"The tool is user-friendly for the end users."
 

Cons

"The price point is one of the major areas to be improved."
"They should include proper documentation to learn more about the product."
"Visualization is an area where the product lacks."
"The scalability of the product's on-premises version is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"The visualization customization needs improvement."
"The one area of the solution that I do hear needs improvement is on the visualization front."
"The most difficult thing I found is that it only deals with the files and does not have direct connectivity to databases."
"ThoughtSpot is a fairly new product, so some usability aspects aren't as mature as we'd like them to be. One example is their organizational methodology, like how objects are organized in their dashboards inside the product. They're all on a flat list, which works if you've got five or 10 dashboards. However, it's insufficient when you're a large enterprise with multiple groups looking at the same dashboards. It isn't organized well."
"A customized visualization is lacking in this product."
"A crucial feature we needed is missing, which involves restricting views of certain KPIs when users select conflicting parameters. We had to create a workaround, which impacted performance by loading pinboards slowly."
"In terms of features, I'd like to be able to pivot data - for example, going from rows to columns. It's not easy to do."
"The dashboards could give you more ability to fine tune the appearance. You get a great deal more control over how something looks in Power BI than you do in ThoughtSpot."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive for small businesses compared to other vendors."
"Licensing is based on individual usage, and it is more expensive than other providers."
"I give the pricing a six out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Cognos Dashboard?
The product is expensive for small businesses compared to other vendors. Its pricing is fixed and depends on the number of licenses.
What needs improvement with IBM Cognos Dashboard?
The tool is good enough to serve the purpose of what it is meant in our company. The scalability of the product's on-premises version is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are req...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ThoughtSpot?
ThoughtSpot is expensive. When compared with Tableau and Sisense, it is around seven or eight on the expense scale.
What needs improvement with ThoughtSpot?
The visualization customization needs improvement. Currently, it is not as customizable as the options available on Power BI or Tableau. It mainly offers basic chart options.
What is your primary use case for ThoughtSpot?
I use ThoughtSpot as one of the visualization tools. I mainly create some live boards and provide access to the data sources and worksheets to users so they can create their own analyses and answer...
 

Also Known As

Cognos Dashboard
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Primary Capital Mortgage, Sterling Backcheck, RichRelevance, Rambus, Batteries Plus Bulbs
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Cognos Dashboard vs. ThoughtSpot and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
846,617 professionals have used our research since 2012.