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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
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
137
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (4th)
Oracle Analytics Cloud
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 1.3%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Analytics Cloud is 1.2%, 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 Cloud1.2%
Other97.5%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Christine Wanjiru - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Project Manager at GlaxoSmithKline
Reporting workflows have become faster and data-driven decisions are made confidently
The best features IBM Cognos offers include seamless data integration, AI-powered insights, and user-friendly dashboards that really make my job easier. The AI-powered insights help me automatically identify patterns and insights where they enhance analysis depth effortlessly, and this feature has been very instrumental in uncovering variable insights that might have otherwise gone unnoticed. When it comes to seamless data integration, I love the seamless and efficient data integration capability of IBM Cognos Analytics, where it allows us easy merging of data from various sources such as customer feedback and sales figures. The smooth integration process streamlines workflow efficiency and enhances overall data management practice. I also really love the user-friendly and intuitive dashboards where IBM Cognos Analytics enables quick creation of custom dashboards and an easy understanding of visual data presentation, allowing us to identify trends at a glance and enhance our analytical capabilities. IBM Cognos has positively impacted my organization since implementing this tool, as it has been very helpful with a particularly strong data analysis capability that helps us in business planning. Its strong data analysis capability helps us for business planning, and the great reporting capacity helps update all the leadership management about the business in one report. Auto-scheduling and report generation is a good feature that saves a significant amount of time. Specific outcomes that show how IBM Cognos has helped my organization include saving time, as we have been able to save forty to fifty percent of our time with its auto-scheduling and report generation functionality.
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

"Mapbox integration for geospatial analytics down to longitude/latitude layers."
"Dashboarding, reporting, and ad hoc reporting are the valuable features of IBM Cognos."
"IBM Cognos is an excellent solution for tax, planning, budgeting, profit and loss statements and balance sheets."
"Using custom controls, it is possible to extend the application with even more functionality and make the application intuitive and attractive."
"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."
"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."
"It is a stable product."
"The features that I find to be the most valuable are the BAS (Business Analytics), the Narrate feature, and the auto-visualization."
"It has the best feature for data augmentation."
"Oracle Analytics Cloud's most valuable feature is its visualization."
"Oracle Analytics Cloud is not very user-friendly, however, it is robust and capable of performing a wide range of tasks."
"It's great for consolidation and creating one source of truth."
"The technical support is excellent, and they respond quickly."
"The AI/ML enablement is useful, as many reporting tools do not offer machine learning models as of now, without writing customized code."
"The solution can scale."
 

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."
"There are some problems with how Cognos handles huge data sets and when connecting with multiple sources and searching the data."
"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."
"I rate pricing as a four, meaning it is more expensive compared to other solutions."
"It could have more options for themes."
"Extending features on dashboards so it becomes a real dashboard building application, not only a data exploration tool."
"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."
"It would be good if the solution had conditional formatting."
"The solution could be more flexible."
"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."
"Sharing dataflows is not possible at this time, and the custom chart functionality is not available."
"This solution could be more adaptable in its application."
"The implementation of generative AI and machine learning should improve"
"When we have, for example, a table with low performance, we have several issues with drawing some graphics in the Oracle cloud."
"Its machine learning and visualization capabilities can be improved. There should be more visualization options."
"They could improve the ease of developing the dashboard and interacting with it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It is my understanding that the cost is very low. It's not very expensive."
"IBM Cognos is priced reasonable. However, it is more expensive than Power BI and Tableau."
"There is need to assess the purchase license accordingly so as to avoid audit penalties."
"The pricing of this product is meant for medium to large-scale enterprises."
"The licensing costs are a little bit higher for IBM Cognos. I don't think there is any additional cost apart from the licensing charges."
"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."
"The pricing and licensing policies are comparatively cheaper than other products in the market ."
"The price is reasonable; it's quite a bit lower than Tableau and Spotfire."
"Oracle Analytics Cloud's pricing is generally higher than that of other vendors."
"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."
"It is an expensive platform."
"We pay on a monthly basis and it is $10 per user each month."
"The product’s pricing is expensive. However, feature-wise, it fits the requirements of enterprise customers."
"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"
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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
13%
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 Enterprise88
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: February 2026.
881,665 professionals have used our research since 2012.