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IBM Cognos vs Looker Studio comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 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
Ranking in Reporting
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (7th)
Looker Studio
Ranking in Reporting
11th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 4.8%, down from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Looker Studio is 2.5%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Reporting
 

Featured Reviews

AMOL JAJU - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers ad hoc analysis reports and good for operational dashboarding
There used to be many valuable features, but in the last three or four years, whatever IBM is doing with enhancements, it has taken a lot of time to build and develop. But the best usage of Cognos is the ad hoc analysis reports. I really like that. Our customers also like that. But now the usage of Cognos and OBIE is reduced by various business users because people and business users are now more focused on analytics, slice and dice, and the dashboard, and the widgets.
Srini-Dhanaraj - PeerSpot reviewer
Available for free and can help businesses resolve their data migration problems
It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten. Google Data Studio is a cloud-based tool. With cloud-based tools, there can be two challenges, the first one being associated with the bandwidth of your data strength. If I run a report from my home because of the wi-fi connection, it may give an excellent response. When I run the reports, Google Data Studio develops reports from my home, and because of wi-fi, it works in an excellent manner. When I am on the road or at the wheel, if I use the internet data from my mobile to browse my reports, the performance may not be good, and this issue is not because of the product but because of the bandwidth. The second issue arises when you connect Google Data Studio to a source system to extract the data to do the visualization. If the source system is not responding as quickly as expected, it could be the reason why the report may be printed slowly. Considering the aforementioned aspects, the problem may not be because of Google Data Studio but because of the source system.

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."
"Even while a user is using a cube for reporting, there will not be a situation as ' Cube file locked; unable to build or deploy'."
"IBM Cognos improves the effectiveness of the sales team."
"Cognos is the best application with dashboards,batch reporting, jobs, events and ad-hoc reporting for business users."
"When it comes to decision-making, the product is very useful and used in many departments since a lot of people prefer the reports to be generated by IBM Cognos."
"One of the strong suits of Cognos is its robust corporate reporting capability."
"A drag-and-drop interface for selecting creating ad hoc reports makes this product very easy to use."
"IBM Cognos is an excellent solution for tax, planning, budgeting, profit and loss statements and balance sheets."
"The integration with Excel and Google Sheets is a valuable feature, making it easy to access and visualize data."
"The solution is free so that is a good feature."
"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."
"The ability to integrate with a great variety of data sources."
"The product's initial setup phase is very simple."
"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, allowing us to compare revenues."
"Looker's ability to perform aggregation before visualization allows for effective data slicing and dicing."
"This has improved our organization by allowing people to see their data and develop visualizations themselves."
 

Cons

"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 think the GIS pieces maybe not as good as we would like."
"It would be nice to offer free online training on the tool for end-users."
"There is room for improvement in self-service analytics and predictiveness."
"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."
"It is a costly product; it is comparatively expensive."
"The performance is a bottleneck and something that can be improved."
"Other tools might be worth considering if you need more advanced features or support for a larger user base."
"There is a significant degree of sophistication required to compete with Tableau or Cognos."
"Stability and scalability an be improved for a full ten."
"Panels are not as easy to use as other data extraction UIs."
"The tool has a lot of room for improvement. It's not very professional and allows for only simple tasks like indicating KPIs or quick calculations. It lacks a good calculation-based language like Power BI's DAX, making it less suitable for professional use. Additionally, the variety of visualization tools is limited, and customization options are restricted."
"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."
"Insisting on forums, blogs and community outreach in communications, and posting videos on an established calendar would be useful."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"On a scale from one to ten where one is low pricing and ten is high pricing, I would rate this solution at eight."
"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."
"It is my understanding that the cost is very low. It's not very expensive."
"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."
"Cognos is super expensive compared to Tableau ($70/month) and Power BI ($20/month) — I think Cognos is roughly $200 a month."
"IBM Cognos is priced reasonable. However, it is more expensive than Power BI and Tableau."
"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 averagely priced."
"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 tool is free."
"The cost is quite affordable based on feature analysis."
"The solution is free but the Google Looker is expensive."
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Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
55%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
4%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Educational Organization
8%
 

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 Sense, Power BI, OBIEE, Tableau, etc. I have recently started using Cognos Enter...
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?
There is room for improvement in self-service analytics and predictiveness.
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...
What needs improvement with Google Data Studio?
The tool should improve on live data integration for quicker data reflection. Currently, changes in Google Sheets take about three to five minutes to reflect in Looker Studio. Overall, the interfac...
What is your primary use case for Google Data Studio?
I use Looker Studio primarily for dashboard creation and data analytics. I have integrated it with Google Sheets, and I use it for project plan maintenance and data tracking.
 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
Data Studio
 

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.
Genesys, Shueisha
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Cognos vs. Looker Studio and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.