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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
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
136
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

reviewer2648136 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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

"It's enabled us to report directly from our main application systems. We're removing islands of data and we're removing inefficiencies, where people or small divisions had their own store of information."
"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."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"IBM Cognos improves the effectiveness of the sales team."
"Self-service is possible through the use of dashboards, which are also very intuitive. Stories can be used to pin snapshots, tell the story for meetings, etc."
"The correlation analysis is excellent. It's one of the best that I have used to date."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"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 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."
"Mobility is the most valuable feature for us. All employees can access it from anywhere. It is a big advantage for us."
"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."
"The best feature may be data flow, which is used to prepare and clean data."
"This is a stable and scalable solution."
"The ability to quickly search for and access relevant data is crucial."
"The AI/ML enablement is useful, as many reporting tools do not offer machine learning models as of now, without writing customized code."
"It's really an enterprise solution. It has a dashboard, like standard dashboarding functionality. It also has reporting capabilities for producing pixel-perfect reports, bursting large volumes of a document if you need to. It has interactive data discovery functionality, which you would use to explore your data, bring your own data, and merge it with maybe the data from an enterprise data warehouse to get new insights from the pre-existing data. It has machine learning embedded in the solution. If you're new to machine learning, it's a really good way to get into it, because it's all within this platform, and it's really easy to use."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in self-service analytics and predictiveness."
"There are a lot of limitations with the out-of-the-box tool."
"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."
"Cognos is quite slow - it's missing the performance of the PowerPlay cubes."
"The high cost of a license makes it hard to scale up on a budget."
"There are some small features that are missing. It would be nice if the graphics were better. You can use external sources for charts, but it's quite complex to use and not easy to implement. If you want a new chart, you can download it from multiple tools and implement it into IBM Cognos."
"Extending features on dashboards so it becomes a real dashboard building application, not only a data exploration tool."
"The solution's support could be better."
"It's not a failure of the product; it's just an architectural choice. It has to do with data modeling. I'm comparing this to another product, which is Oracle's developer client and probably called Oracle BI Developer Client Tool. The data modeler, which is cloud-based, and Oracle BI Developer Client Tool, which is local or on-premises-based, both can do the same thing in data modeling. However, the cloud tool does not have as many features as the Oracle BI Developer Client Tool, which is closest to the OBIEE Administration Tool with full feature data modeling, metadata development, and so forth. In a complex environment or implementation, that is the capability that you need."
"When we have, for example, a table with low performance, we have several issues with drawing some graphics in the Oracle cloud."
"When you implement the product on a small scale, it doesn't generate any ROI."
"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."
"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."
"The scalability has room for improvement."
"The product should improve its user interface. It should be welcoming and modern. Developers should also find it easier to build data models. Oracle Analytics Cloud needs to have better visualizations and more options in the marketplace."
"The product should be improved in terms of connectors; right now the top twenty connectors are available, but OneDrive and Teradata are missing."
 

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."
"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."
"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."
"IBM Cognos is priced reasonable. However, it is more expensive than Power BI and Tableau."
"The pricing of this product is meant for medium to large-scale enterprises."
"It is pretty expensive."
"Pricing should be improved."
"The solution is affordable."
"I would rate it a five out of five in terms of the value received for the price charge."
"The price is reasonable; it's quite a bit lower than Tableau and Spotfire."
"Bottom line, the cost is really, really cheap compared to other solutions. Oracle has made a huge effort on the pricing."
"A highly cost-effective solution"
"It is an expensive platform."
"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."
"We pay on a monthly basis and it is $10 per user each month."
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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
8%
Government
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise86
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.
880,255 professionals have used our research since 2012.