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IBM Cognos vs Oracle Analytics Cloud 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
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (4th)
Oracle Analytics Cloud
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 3.6%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Analytics Cloud is 2.3%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

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.
Hafiz Abdul Mannan - PeerSpot reviewer
Empowers your entire organization to ask any question of any data—across any environment, on any device
The migration of older dash tools from the classic interface of Oracle BI prior to OAS launch to the newer Data Visualization and Oracle Analytics Cloud interfaces, including dashboards and metadata, is currently a cumbersome process. Improvements in this area would be highly beneficial. Additionally, the administration of the cloud, particularly the startup of services and linking of the WebLogic server and integrated components, takes longer than desired. In today's enterprise landscape, waiting forty minutes for the server to be operational is quite lengthy; ideally, this process should take a maximum of four minutes. It would be excellent to incorporate metadata management as an integral part of the Oracle Analytics Cloud. When dealing with integrated data from various sources, tracking data lineage and the entire data life cycle, from sources to report development and the mapping of reports to specific dashboards, should be seamlessly managed within the Oracle Analytics Cloud. This would eliminate the need for additional tools. Drawing a comparison, tools like Tableau have a feature enabling metadata management, making it easier to trace the complete data lineage of reports. Managing over seven hundred and thirty-six business dashboards, the metadata management capability within Tableau simplified the process of understanding how reports were developed, including details like associated tables, users, linked views, materialized views, data segmentations, ETL jobs, and the data warehouse stages. Enhancing metadata tracking within the Oracle Analytics Cloud layout would facilitate easy and practical management of the complete data life cycle, encompassing user accessibility and report permissions.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup was straightforward."
"The Report Studio that is aimed at professional report writers."
"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 comprehensiveness or broadness of the software functions or business intelligence functions that it provides is valuable. It is also quite easy to use and user-friendly."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its ease of use, which makes it easily compatible with other tools."
"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 correlation analysis is excellent. It's one of the best that I have used to date."
"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 technical support services are good."
"The solution can scale."
"It's valuable feature is that it is user-friendly and doesn't require much time for understanding. The solution is stable. The initial setup was straightforward."
"The scalability is acknowledged as pretty good, although my evaluation is limited because I used the tool for a short period."
"It's robust. It has the ability to handle massive amounts. After reporting has been developed, there is an ease of use or a user-friendly interface for a trained workforce."
"Mobility is the most valuable feature for us. All employees can access it from anywhere. It is a big advantage for us."
"The technical support is excellent, and they respond quickly."
"The ability to quickly search for and access relevant data is crucial."
 

Cons

"Extending dynamic cubes aggregate awareness with calculated measures."
"The AI-based features could be further enhanced by the solution."
"One thing that we really want is the ability to have data portrayed on an image. Cognos is not able to do it at the moment, and that's becoming a requirement from the business side: having an image and then plotting your dataset on top of the image as a map."
"The technical support team’s response time is slow and needs to be improved."
"Cognos charts are not as fast as those of the other tools, even with DQM (dynamic query mode)."
"It would be nice to offer free online training on the tool for end-users."
"It would be better if it is was easier to implement without extensive training for it."
"The solution seems to slow down the servers."
"The product should be improved in terms of connectors; right now the top twenty connectors are available, but OneDrive and Teradata are missing."
"The learning curve should be improved, and I'm uncertain if tutorials are readily available or easily accessible. We may have resorted to looking on YouTube for such information. Having easily understandable documents or guides for new users would be beneficial. AI integration would be an interesting feature to add in the next release."
"At this time, dataflows cannot be shared, but I think that this should be enhanced."
"Sharing dataflows is not possible at this time, and the custom chart functionality is not available."
"Analytics Cloud allows you to merge various data types and structure data from multiple sources."
"Its FAW feature has limitations in terms of usage."
"The implementation of generative AI and machine learning should improve"
"One of the major issues is that Oracle Analytics Cloud is not user-friendly, requiring skilled people with proper certifications to work with it successfully."
 

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."
"It's more expensive than similar solutions like Tableau and Power BI."
"IBM Cognos offers competitive pricing similar to other BI vendors in the market."
"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 pricing and licensing policies are comparatively cheaper than other products in the market ."
"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."
"The solution is affordable."
"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."
"I rate the product's pricing a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"A highly cost-effective solution"
"I would rate it a five out of five in terms of the value received for the price charge."
"I don't know the exact cost, but its pricing was good. Its pricing was competitive. I would rate it a three out of five in terms of pricing."
"Oracle Analytics Cloud's pricing is generally higher than that of other vendors."
"The tool's pricing is not unreasonable or non-competitive."
"The product’s pricing is expensive. However, feature-wise, it fits the requirements of enterprise customers."
"We pay on a monthly basis and it is $10 per user each month."
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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
56%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
4%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Educational Organization
36%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
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.
Which Oracle product is better - OBIEE or Analytics Cloud?
Oracle OBIEE is designed to be relatively easy to set up and has a helpful customer support staff at the ready to assist customers. These are two attributes that make this system quite valuable. OB...
What do you like most about Oracle Analytics Cloud?
The ability to quickly search for and access relevant data is crucial.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Analytics Cloud?
The pricing of Oracle Analytics Cloud is quite expensive, fitting for a premium tool. However, the cost raises expectations for partner support that are not met, especially for smaller companies wh...
 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
Oracle Analytics Cloud Service, OAC, Oracle Data Visualization, Oracle Data Visualization Cloud Service, ODV
 

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.
Sejong Hospital
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Cognos vs. Oracle Analytics Cloud and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
847,646 professionals have used our research since 2012.