Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
137
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (5th)
Oracle Analytics Cloud
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 1.3%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Analytics Cloud is 1.3%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Cognos1.3%
Oracle Analytics Cloud1.3%
Other97.4%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Dishan Patel - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at McKinsey and Company
Efficient reporting with strong scheduling and time-saving features
The best features IBM Cognos offers include scheduled reports, calculation and transformation of raw data, and flexibility with the Excel format, which all stand out as especially valuable. I rely most on scheduling, calculation and transformation, and Excel flexibility, and these features affect my daily work by allowing me to use this tool for reporting to make and schedule reports easily. We are able to schedule over 300 reports in a day, where we also schedule them weekly to over 40 executives. Additionally, IBM Cognos transforms raw data into insights and analytics, enabling our data team to make great insights and data-driven decisions easily. IBM Cognos has positively impacted my organization by enhancing our data analysis capability which has helped us in our business planning. It is a great tool for reporting capacity, enabling us to update all of the leadership management about our business in one report. Auto scheduling and report generation are strong features that save a lot of time. Precisely, we have been able to save about 60% of our time from IBM Cognos Analytics, which helps us to make data decisions easily while also saving a lot of time.
Vaclav-Biba - PeerSpot reviewer
BI/DW Consultant at Neit Consulting
Enhanced analytics through metadata-driven reporting with enterprise-level visualizations enables competitive advantage
In my opinion, what can be better in Oracle Analytics Cloud these days is primarily about pricing. I am from the Czech Republic, which is our main market. The situation here in the Czech Republic is that Power BI rules the world. There are two main reasons for this. First, speaking about the Czech Republic specifically, and second, the Power BI pricing model appears cheaper compared to Oracle Analytics Cloud. The pricing model in Microsoft is more straightforward. With Oracle, you have the data visualization and enterprise lines, and to put it simply, both appear as more expensive options for customers trying to get oriented in the segment.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The correlation analysis is excellent. It's one of the best that I have used to date."
"The Report Studio that is aimed at professional report writers."
"The most valuable features of IBM Cognos are governance and enterprise reporting."
"IBM Cognos is a very comprehensive analytics tool that dissolves the challenge of turning complex and large data sets into clear, actionable insights by providing an intuitive platform for data visualization and reporting."
"The basic platform comes with several meta-modelling tools."
"One of the strong suits of Cognos is its robust corporate reporting capability."
"The dashboarding offered by this solution is very valuable to us."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The product is able to compare with other tools on the market; it has everything you need, everything you can find in other tools such as Tableau and Power BI, and additionally, it has history, so you get a robust solution with support."
"The features that I find to be the most valuable are the BAS (Business Analytics), the Narrate feature, and the auto-visualization."
"It's great for consolidation and creating one source of truth."
"The technical support is excellent, and they respond quickly."
"It has the best feature for data augmentation."
"The product is able to compare with other tools on the market; it has everything you need, everything you can find in other tools such as Tableau and Power BI, and additionally, it has history, so you get a robust solution with support."
"The ability to quickly search for and access relevant data is crucial."
"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."
 

Cons

"I would like to see is more easy building, movement in the reports, and dashboard functionality within reporting. Overall more simple elements within reports. If the elements are simple then you don't have to render a full page, but you can move separate parts in the page."
"The AI-based features could be further enhanced by the solution."
"We need more predictive analytical functions, not only diagnostic or decryptic analytics."
"It would be good if the solution had conditional formatting."
"IBM Support can be slow at times, but they can usually deliver in a timely manner."
"They were lacking in the initial phases of development in the area of big data, and they still need to improve that aspect of the product."
"The visualization aspect needs to be improved and I believe, this is being resolved in upcoming versions."
"Cognos is quite slow - it's missing the performance of the PowerPlay cubes."
"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."
"At this time, dataflows cannot be shared, but I think that this should be enhanced."
"The product could benefit from increased flexibility compared to other vendors."
"The product should be improved in terms of connectors; right now the top twenty connectors are available, but OneDrive and Teradata are missing."
"The pricing model in Microsoft is more straightforward. With Oracle, you have the data visualization and enterprise lines, and to put it simply, both appear as more expensive options for customers trying to get oriented in the segment."
"When you implement the product on a small scale, it doesn't generate any ROI."
"When we have, for example, a table with low performance, we have several issues with drawing some graphics in the Oracle cloud."
"It is expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"My company uses IBM Cognos with another IBM product, so I think only one license is used."
"The pricing of this product is meant for medium to large-scale enterprises."
"IBM Cognos is priced reasonable. However, it is more expensive than Power BI and Tableau."
"Cognos is super expensive compared to Tableau ($70/month) and Power BI ($20/month) — I think Cognos is roughly $200 a month."
"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."
"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."
"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 price is reasonable; it's quite a bit lower than Tableau and Spotfire."
"The product’s pricing is expensive. However, feature-wise, it fits the requirements of enterprise customers."
"It is an expensive platform."
"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."
"Bottom line, the cost is really, really cheap compared to other solutions. Oracle has made a huge effort on the pricing."
"The tool's pricing is not unreasonable or non-competitive."
"We pay on a monthly basis and it is $10 per user each month."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which BI (Business Intelligence) Tools solutions are best for your needs.
881,282 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Insurance Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
14%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise87
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise11
 

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?
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 ...
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: December 2025.
881,282 professionals have used our research since 2012.