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IBM Cognos vs Oracle Essbase comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (7th), Reporting (4th)
Oracle Essbase
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Database Development and Management (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

IBM Cognos and Oracle Essbase aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. IBM Cognos is designed for BI (Business Intelligence) Tools and holds a mindshare of 3.6%, down 4.3% compared to last year.
Oracle Essbase, on the other hand, focuses on Database Development and Management, holds 1.0% mindshare, up 0.8% since last year.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
Database Development and Management
 

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.
RANOJOY PAUL - PeerSpot reviewer
Stores multidimensional data, good customer support and interface is very easy
It is very fast compared to other normal databases, like SQL and MySQL. It doesn't store data in tables in the back end. To load data into Essbase, we need to prepare it in a table format. When we find the data in the table, we need to verify it. This way, you can rate the data. But Essbase stores multidimensional data. We have dimensions, which means the data belongs to some company or some time period. For example, if you work for three years, your salary should be something. In this way, we prepare top-level members called dimensions. The dimension defines your position, the year, and the section you were working in the company. We get an intersection of all these dimensions for certain data, and fetching that data is very fast in Essbase compared to normal SQL. If you store this data in a normal SQL table, you need to prepare a row with your company name, employee name, employee ID, joining date, and everything, and then you need to push it into a SQL table. You can search it using your query, but here, that thing is different. Here, you can collect data using forms, reports, and we use a Microsoft tool, which is an add-in called Smart View. Using that, you would just take that data. Here, you need to just create an integration of all these dimensions, and then only you can find the data.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution's initial setup process is easy."
"It is a stable product."
"I have worked on the features like dashboards and stories, and I do like them a lot."
"This solution allows you to input a wide range of file formats."
"Integration with Office can enable the 'download' mode of storytelling.​"
"A drag-and-drop interface for selecting creating ad hoc reports makes this product very easy to use."
"The correlation analysis is excellent. It's one of the best that I have used to date."
"The most valuable features are Report Development (Functionality) and Information Distribution (Flexibility)."
"The solution can handle a large volume of data."
"The solution is stable and reliable."
"Essbase is extremely stable and low-maintenance."
"It is highly efficient and easily scalable, particularly for handling large databases."
"It is very fast compared to other normal databases, like SQL and MySQL."
"I have found the most valuable aspect is the user-friendly environment and current features."
"Oracle Essbase is a web integration system that integrates with other data systems."
"Unlike relational, where you're linking together multiple tables, with Essbase, you basically define what the dimensions are beforehand, and you define the hierarchy, and then load the data. This allows you to do a pretty sophisticated analysis so that you can drill into it and slice and dice the data."
 

Cons

"We need more predictive analytical functions, not only diagnostic or decryptic analytics."
"I would like them to reinclude PowerPlay. One thing that I am missing in the current Cognos is what was formally named PowerPlay. They have basically removed PowerPlay from it, which is something that I fail to understand because it was the most wonderful tool for business intelligence that I've ever used. As far as I know, they don't provide this functionality anymore, so this is one thing that I dislike about Cognos."
"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."
"Data modeling needs to be improved. We use the ETL process, and when we get errors, we then need to identify which structural change is required. The error messaging should be better. They should be descriptive rather than semantic."
"Extending dynamic cubes aggregate awareness with calculated measures."
"The technical support team’s response time is slow and needs to be improved."
"Cognos is quite slow - it's missing the performance of the PowerPlay cubes."
"IBM Cognos's error messages seem to be a bit ambiguous. An error will be encountered and a message will be sent out very ambiguous and after investigating the error message it could be any number of issues. There was never a direct answer to the question or a direct answer to the error messages. Sometimes it would be a generic error message for 21 different solutions. It wasn't very specific, which required a lot of digging around and trial and error trying to fix the problem. The messaging in their error messaging is something needing improvement."
"The main concern is that Oracle is ending on-premises server support, so it would be better if there was a cloud platform available for Oracle Essbase."
"The reporting tool of Essbase needs improvement."
"The initial setup is pretty complex."
"The consolidation engine, which is HFM or FCCS, needs some room for improvement."
"There is room for improvement in terms of cost-effectiveness."
"Essbase has a programming language, and it has a couple of functions to do forecasting, however, their feature set for that is not that good."
"The solution could enhance business analytics. I delved into the data using Oracle Essbase to create a new support tool."
"It's an expensive product to use."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"IBM Cognos price is on the higher side of the spectrum. However, with the features that it brings, such as correlation analysis, it's worth the money. They should look at the pricing more clearly because it's a little on the higher side."
"It is pretty expensive."
"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."
"It's more expensive than similar solutions like Tableau and Power BI."
"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."
"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."
"Pricing should be improved."
"The solution is expensive."
"It is a costly solution."
"Essbase is competitively priced."
"I believe the licensing is on a monthly base."
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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%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Essbase?
It's not that expensive, but also not cheap. I'm not sure because it's a private license.
What needs improvement with Oracle Essbase?
If I got the opportunity to work with Hyperion, which is the best product, I would definitely go with that. The main concern is that Oracle is ending on-premises server support, so it would be bett...
What is your primary use case for Oracle Essbase?
We provide complete ownership of this application to Walmart projects. In the UK system, we support and develop for the Asda account, known as Eltham. We provide installation and support to over 50...
 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
Essbase
 

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.
CHU de Rennes, Bellco Credit Union, Akindo Sushiro Co. Ltd, Deutsche Telekom AG, Samarco MineraÊo S.A., PCCW Ltd., QDQ media S.A.U., Boiron Italia, Specialized Bicycle Components Inc., Akindo Sushiro Co. Ltd., Air Canada, Daelim Industrial Co. Ltd.
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