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IBM Cognos vs Salesforce Einstein Analytics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Cognos
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (4th)
Salesforce Einstein Analytics
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 3.8%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Einstein Analytics is 1.4%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Larrad Salgado - PeerSpot reviewer
Jul 27, 2022
Improved the quality of our KPIs, while reducing calls to the IT department
I don't like that when we use Colab packages, we get less functionality. For example, you can make groups of data with Excel or with the data sets from the packages, but when you use the Colab packages directly, you can only group the data when you analyze it with Analysis Studio. I think Cognos needs to improve more on this functionality. The user experience is also very important. Cognos is not very easy to understand sometimes, especially when they change the layout but keep the functionality the same. The help is not very graphic and they have no examples. Cognos has to make a big effort to help with understanding the functionality by improving the documentation. There is a lot of documentation, but the examples are hard to find and they should make their help section easier to understand for non-technical users.
Parker Goodson - PeerSpot reviewer
May 22, 2023
Helpful consistent measurements, high availability, and scales well
As a sales representative, my primary tool for data analysis is Salesforce Einstein Analytics, which I predominantly utilize for sales-related activities near Rina. Additionally, I regularly review the tracked figures within the platform to ensure that I meet all the required performance metrics…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a stable product."
"When it comes to decision-making, the product is very useful and used in many departments since a lot of people prefer the reports to be generated by IBM Cognos."
"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."
"Integration with Office can enable the 'download' mode of storytelling.​"
"IBM Cognos is an excellent solution for tax, planning, budgeting, profit and loss statements and balance sheets."
"The solution's initial setup process is easy."
"Using custom controls, it is possible to extend the application with even more functionality and make the application intuitive and attractive."
"It has a very powerful edit feature which allows users to back out of changes (undo) without forcing them to recreate entire reports."
"The solution scales extremely well."
"The inbuilt features, like pictorial representation of the data and the ability to remap and realign the data, provide clarity in understanding sales perspectives."
"Salesforce Einstein Analytics is a simplified CRM. It's integration is good."
"Transparency is the most valuable feature of this solution."
"The out-of-the-box features are good for companies that want to try analytics and data science interventions."
"The most valuable features of Salesforce Einstein Analytics are the flexibility around the deployment, overall capabilities, user-friendliness, and interactiveness with the tools that came built with it."
"The most valuable feature of Salesforce Einstein Analytics is the reporting tools."
"The way Salesforce Einstein Analytics is structured in terms of the work assignments and the user profile is very good."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"I would like to see the introduction of mapbooks for supporting some geographical information."
"Cognos charts are not as fast as those of the other tools, even with DQM (dynamic query mode)."
"This product could use improvement in terms of usability for those with less technical know how."
"Cognos is quite slow - it's missing the performance of the PowerPlay cubes."
"I would like to have predictive and forecasting capabilities in Cognos. It's one thing to do reporting, and another thing to easily predict or forecast certain data points, which is very important for all the clients."
"It would be better if it is was easier to implement without extensive training for it."
"When it comes to generating reports, it appears that many users rely on experts to handle technical aspects. For instance, if you require a weekly report displaying accounts transitioning in and out of your modules, it seems challenging to accomplish without consulting experts for assistance. Such tasks should be user-friendly and easily achievable without external assistance."
"The product is expensive."
"There are some offerings like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Marketing Cloud that have very useful online learning options. There need to be more avenues for self-learning with this particular solution. That would be useful."
"The product is natively integrated into the Salesforce ecosystem. You also need a CRM license. It should be more flexible with other platforms."
"The tool needs to simplify its features."
"I would advise others not to customize because they rolled out the newer versions, which are every six months. There had to be some significant testing and verification that happened. It is important to have a strong third-party provider that is very experienced. We used Deloitte, but we evaluated Accenture, KPMG, and IBM, but we decided on Deloitte and that was a good decision for us. Having a partner who has a center of excellence or experts that could give you a lot of the tips that they've learned could jumpstart your deployment and stick to the standards."
"Einstein Analytics could incorporate something like SFIA 8 to help users understand the underlying skill sets."
"All of the timesheets and appraisal management I have not been happy with. There should be some improvements. For example, as a management team, our managers do not have access to see a summary report, such as who is on leave today or how many hours each person logged in. You have to get into individual users and see. You cannot see a summary report, the reporting is missing. There should improve the reports."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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's more expensive than similar solutions like Tableau and Power BI."
"There is need to assess the purchase license accordingly so as to avoid audit penalties."
"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."
"The solution is affordable."
"On a scale from one to ten where one is low pricing and ten is high pricing, I would rate this solution at eight."
"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."
"I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
"Price-wise, Salesforce Einstein Analytics is an expensive tool."
"Although it was deemed slightly expensive and failed the cost analysis we conducted in our company, we proceeded with the purchase because we desired to have a leading CRM system in the industry."
"Salesforce has a subscription-based licensing structure, where it's between $20 to $75 per month, per user."
"The biggest challenge we had was the cost and the licensing. We ended up getting an enterprise licensing agreement(ELA). That took a lot of negotiations and a lot of pressure. We were able to receive a good price for the community licensing they bundled Salesforce Einstein Analytics. They bundled a lot of capabilities with us with the ELA."
"Salesforce Einstein Analytics can be considered somewhat expensive, depending on the company's needs. If they want the complete package with all the features, it's pricier. It all comes down to what the company requires from the platform."
"The solution is expensive."
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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
57%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
5%
Government
4%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
5%
 

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?
I need improvements, particularly with the Framework Manager, which has an outdated user interface from older versions like IBM Cognos 10 or 8. Additionally, the Event Studio, which offered great f...
What do you like most about Salesforce Einstein Analytics?
The tool is valuable. It's one of the greatest programs I'm currently working with, and I believe it will continue to be crucial in the next four to five years. It's the future of our operations. I...
What needs improvement with Salesforce Einstein Analytics?
Salesforce is working very rigorously on improvements with each release.
What is your primary use case for Salesforce Einstein Analytics?
I am a Salesforce CPQ developer. I have also worked on Einstein Analytics for reporting purposes.
 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
Einstein Analytics, Salesforce Wave Analytics
 

Learn More

 

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.
ADS Securities, Alstom Grid, American Express, Barclays Bank, Coca-Cola, CoderDojo, Dubai Multi Commodities Centre, Financial Conduct Authority
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Cognos vs. Salesforce Einstein Analytics and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
815,854 professionals have used our research since 2012.