IBM Cognos vs Looker Studio comparison

IBM and Google are both solutions in the Reporting category. IBM is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.3, while Google is ranked #11 with an average rating of 7.6. IBM holds a 3.3% mindshare in RT, compared to Google’s 2.7% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 83% of Google users who would recommend it.

IBM Cognos

Read 136 IBM Cognos reviews

5,536 Views
2,104 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Looker Studio

Read 16 Looker Studio reviews

1,849 Views
869 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

IBM Cognos

Looker Studio

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

IBM Cognos and Looker Studio are both in the business intelligence tools category. Users tend to prefer Looker Studio due to its integration with Google products, while IBM Cognos is favored for its comprehensive analytics features.

Features: IBM Cognos offers a wide array of tools like Report Studio and Query Studio, excelling in data modeling and complex analytics. It integrates effortlessly with diverse databases, providing robust reporting capabilities. Looker Studio is noted for its integration with Google Sheets and Excel, making data management intuitive and enabling detailed trend analysis.

Room for Improvement: IBM Cognos faces a steep learning curve and challenges with visualization capabilities compared to newer tools like Tableau. Users have noted its speed and flexibility issues when handling large datasets. On the other hand, Looker Studio's area for improvement lies in its lack of advanced calculation capabilities and the need for better live data integration and performance metrics.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Cognos is usually deployed on-premises, which might present challenges relative to Looker Studio's cloud-native setup, allowing for faster deployment. Cognos provides competent technical support that may come at a higher cost, whereas customer service experiences vary for both solutions depending on region and issue complexity.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Cognos requires a higher initial investment but delivers substantial ROI for large enterprises with complex needs, although pricing concerns arise due to complex licensing. Looker Studio is generally seen as cost-effective, being available for free, but additional integration costs can occur based on data sources and setup requirements, making it ideal for straightforward organizational needs.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Cognos vs. Looker Studio Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cognos vs. Looker Studio

December 2025

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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

Ranking in Reporting

5th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.0

Number of Reviews

136

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (9th)

Looker Studio

Ranking in Reporting

11th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

5.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 3.3%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Looker Studio is 2.7%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Reporting Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM Cognos	3.3%
Looker Studio	2.7%
Other	94.0%

Reporting

Featured Reviews

reviewer2648136

EDW Manager at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees

Centralized reporting has supported university-wide regulatory dashboards and secure data access

From my experience, we use regular dashboarding with IBM Cognos for producing scheduled reports and for mandatory regulatory reporting. All our departments use IBM Cognos, with each department developing their own reports while our corporate IT team provides the data. Some people use the interactive dashboards feature of IBM Cognos, and there are also other tools in use. I think some users utilize Power BI and Tableau, but our IT organization only provides IBM Cognos as an enterprise business intelligence and reporting tool. IBM Cognos is evaluated and complies fully with all our security standards. In my opinion, IBM Cognos is very stable. It has been around for many years and many users are familiar with it, ensuring it performs well in its intended capacity. The benefits of choosing IBM Cognos, aside from cost savings, include having institutional knowledge for maintaining this infrastructure and a reliable solution that enhances developer productivity, given our team's extensive experience with IBM Cognos.

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Heron Ziegel

Project Engineer at Quartz Consulting Group

Has supported quick dashboard creation and data sharing but lacks tools for managing multiple reports efficiently

We integrated Looker Studio with other platforms in our data ecosystem; we tried integrating with Sheets, and that went okay, but it could have been better. It could have been better because it needed a very specific format to read the data, so we had to reformat the sheet file. Looker Studio was mostly just helpful in that it provided live updating charts for tracking performance indicators in the organization. Integrating with a database was very difficult because there wasn't a lot of feedback for what was going wrong with the connection. I don't remember if we reached out to support. I didn't personally reach out, but my boss may have. I didn't reach out to support, so I do not have experience with it to rate it. We worked with the free version of Looker Studio initially, and we upgraded at some point to the pro version; I don't remember if we actually paid for it or if it was just a free trial. The pricing was reasonable. I remember doing a price comparison, and it was pretty reasonable, but it did have fewer features than a lot of other software, which was okay for a comparable price but a little cheaper.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"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."

"The three IBM Cognos features I find the most valuable are Dynamic Cubes, PowerPlay, and Watson."

"For planning, forecasting, in-boxing, modeling in general and for predicting numbers and doing work analysis, they are excellent."

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

"IBM Cognos is a robust governed platform with significant security features and provides excellent graphics and reporting."

"Integration with Office can enable the 'download' mode of storytelling."

"The initial setup is quite straightforward."

More IBM Cognos pros

"Data Studio integrates seamlessly with other Google products, and we can use it with other APIs if we like."

"The best thing about the tool is that it allows you to share information easily and dashboards with colleagues and teammates because it's all online. No matter where you are, as long as you have the Internet, you can connect and use these dashboards. Google made good documentation for this tool. There are many examples of how to use and create dashboards and videos on YouTube. So, I think it's easy to learn."

"Valuable features include advanced integrated analysis and easy implementation."

"The ability to integrate with a great variety of data sources."

"The fact that Looker Studio is free and has a free tier was probably the biggest benefit; it is very accessible and not too difficult to use."

"What I appreciate about Looker Studio is mostly the clean visuals, which is good, as I prefer a dashboard with a clean aesthetic rather than feeling sort of an old Windows type of dashboard."

"The integration with Excel and Google Sheets is a valuable feature, making it easy to access and visualize data."

"Looker's ability to perform aggregation before visualization allows for effective data slicing and dicing."

More Looker Studio pros

Cons

"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."

"I think the GIS pieces maybe not as good as we would like."

"Compared to Tableau and PowerBI, the IBM interface is easier to use. However, the drag-and-drop functionality isn't as straightforward. Formatting is also more challenging in the cloud than in other applications, like Power BI. Also, if you encounter an issue, it takes more time to resolve it on the formatting side."

"I would like for the platform to become more standard. If we make a development on our report and our dashboard, it will not be used in another solution. That means there is no portability for the developers."

"There are many problems with the product's stability part, making it an area where improvements are required."

"There are a lot of limitations with the out-of-the-box tool."

"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."

"Extending dynamic cubes aggregate awareness with calculated measures."

More IBM Cognos cons

"Insisting on forums, blogs and community outreach in communications, and posting videos on an established calendar would be useful."

"It's not yet a replacement for a complete BI tool."

"When you physically install a product on one machine instead of the cloud, you have a better visibility, best icon quality, etc.. It's more of an issue with how we are adapting to the transition. We are still in the early moments of using this tool, and we need to go deeper to discover some improvements."

"The tool should improve on live data integration for quicker data reflection."

"The challenges with Google Data Studio are associated with the security part, making it an area where improvements are required."

"Looker Studio did not fit our needs for scalability."

"The performance of Looker needs improvement, particularly the report loading time, which is critical for business users."

"Other tools might be worth considering if you need more advanced features or support for a larger user base."

More Looker Studio cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is need to assess the purchase license accordingly so as to avoid audit penalties."

"It is my understanding that the cost is very low. It's not very expensive."

"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."

"Pricing should be improved."

"It is averagely priced."

"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."

"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 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."

More IBM Cognos pricing and cost advice

"The tool is free."

"The solution is free but the Google Looker is expensive."

"The product is available for free."

"I think the tool is cheap because you don't need to pay anything for using the tool. However, when connecting and analyzing other data sources, you should consider where to analyze this information because Google Data Studio doesn't handle much data well. You must also consider how you will connect this data to it. In this case, you might need to hire DevOps or a data team to help with these issues."

"The cost is quite affordable based on feature analysis."

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Comparison Review

it_user79932

Senior Manager - BI Head with 5,001-10,000 employees

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Insurance Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	34
Midsize Enterprise	23
Large Enterprise	86

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	6

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 Sense, Power BI, OBIEE, Tableau, etc. I have recently started using Cognos Enter...

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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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Cognos?

Since IBM Cognos is a futuristic platform with many robust features, it takes time to grasp all the features and how they work, so there is a learning curve. The more I use this platform, the more ...

See all answers

What do you like most about Google Data Studio?

The company dashboard is useful because we could share it via a link as a reminder for everyone to check it weekly. We observed the progress of our portfolio from last week to the current week, all...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Google Data Studio?

I would appreciate improvements in the data modeling features, as it's not straightforward, and it's not what people in analytics are used to. Specifically, most people using this visualization too...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Google Data Studio?

I used Looker Studio mainly for reporting, where I created multiple dashboards on it. I wouldn't say I made the most of the usage of the connections because all the connections were based on flat f...

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Power BI vs IBM Cognos

Compared 10% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs IBM Cognos

Compared 8% of the time

Oracle Hyperion vs IBM Cognos

Compared 7% of the time

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs IBM Cognos

Compared 6% of the time

SQL Server vs IBM Cognos

Compared 5% of the time

More IBM Cognos Competitors

Amazon QuickSight vs Looker Studio

Compared 32% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Looker Studio

Compared 14% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Looker Studio

Compared 8% of the time

Databricks vs Looker Studio

Compared 4% of the time

QlikView vs Looker Studio

Compared 3% of the time

More Looker Studio Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cognos

January 2026

Download IBM Cognos product report

Buyer's Guide

Looker Studio

January 2026

Download Looker Studio product report

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics

Data Studio

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.”

IBM

Google Looker Studio is a free tool designed to help users create visually appealing reports and dashboards, making data easier to understand. It allows you to connect to various data sources such as Google Analytics, Facebook Ads, and spreadsheets. With Looker Studio, you can create charts and graphs to showcase trends and comparisons, build comprehensive dashboards that provide an overview of your data, and customize reports to match your brand or preferences. Additionally, you can share your reports online or export them as PDFs for wider distribution.

Google

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.

Genesys, Shueisha

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cognos vs. Looker Studio

December 2025

Free Report: IBM Cognos vs. Looker Studio

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