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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 March 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 3.6%, down from 4.2% 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 product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report."
"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'."
"Mapbox integration for geospatial analytics down to longitude/latitude layers."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its ease of use, which makes it easily compatible with other tools."
"The Report Studio that is aimed at professional report writers."
"We use the account statement report. When you use an account in HSBC, you receive various types of accounts, such as the stock market, fixed accounts, credit cards, and business accounts. We can create one consolidated report called CCS support, which includes all these accounts. In that statement, we are consolidating all those accounts."
"The initial setup is quite straightforward."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"A valuable feature is the speed of the solution."
"The scalability is acknowledged as pretty good, although my evaluation is limited because I used the tool for a short period."
"Analytics Cloud allows you to merge various data types and structure data from multiple sources."
"The technical support services are good."
"Oracle Analytics Cloud is not very user-friendly, however, it is robust and capable of performing a wide range of tasks."
"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 technical support is excellent, and they respond quickly."
"The ability to quickly search for and access relevant data is crucial."
 

Cons

"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."
"IBM Support can be slow at times, but they can usually deliver in a timely manner."
"The solution seems to slow down the servers."
"It is a costly product; it is comparatively expensive."
"It would be better if it is was easier to implement without extensive training for it."
"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."
"There are many problems with the product's stability part, making it an area where improvements are required."
"This product could use improvement in terms of usability for those with less technical know how."
"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."
"This solution could be more adaptable in its application."
"It is less scalable than Snowflake."
"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."
"Its FAW feature has limitations in terms of usage."
"As with most BI tools, the visualizations can be made much nicer. Currently, it has standard visualizations. They've been adding new visualizations, but we see animated visualizations from other vendors. It would be nice to have similar visualizations, such as the swarming visualizations, which are fairly new and very popular at the moment. I haven't seen that with Oracle. That would be nice."
"The implementation of generative AI and machine learning should improve"
"Analytics Cloud allows you to merge various data types and structure data from multiple sources."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is my understanding that the cost is very low. It's not very expensive."
"My company uses IBM Cognos with another IBM product, so I think only one license is used."
"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 solution is affordable."
"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."
"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."
"IBM Cognos offers competitive pricing similar to other BI vendors in the market."
"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."
"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"
"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."
"The tool's pricing is not unreasonable or non-competitive."
"I rate the product's pricing a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"I would rate it a five out of five in terms of the value received for the price charge."
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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
38%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
 

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: March 2025.
842,296 professionals have used our research since 2012.