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IBM Cognos vs Tableau comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.7
IBM Cognos offers mixed returns; some save significantly, others find it costly, but generally enhances insights and processes.
Sentiment score
7.2
Tableau offers rapid insights and cost reductions, enabling users to recoup investments quickly despite some viewing it as costly.
This saves a significant amount of time, particularly for reports that would have needed around fifty people.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
IBM Cognos support is responsive and expert but criticized for high costs, slow resolutions, and complexity in customer service.
Sentiment score
7.0
Tableau's customer service is responsive and professional, with praised technical support, though some note wait time concerns.
I rate technical support from IBM as eight out of ten, indicating a high quality of service.
The technical support for Tableau is quite good.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
IBM Cognos offers scalable solutions, supporting large deployments with proper server architecture, powerful hardware, and seamless software integration.
Sentiment score
6.7
Tableau effectively scales with optimized configurations, but performance may decline with extremely large datasets, impacting scalability and cost.
It can be scaled out to other teams, but requires building cubes and implementing policies.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
IBM Cognos is praised for stability and performance, surpassing competitors, with minor issues often due to server configuration.
Sentiment score
7.4
Tableau is generally stable, efficient with varying data sizes, but may struggle with complex datasets or insufficient infrastructure.
I rate the stability of this solution as nine out of ten, indicating it is highly stable.
 

Room For Improvement

IBM Cognos needs UI upgrades, better data visualization, improved performance, and advanced self-service features to compete with rivals.
Tableau users seek faster data processing, better customization, machine learning integration, and affordable pricing, plus enhanced support and training.
There is room for improvement in self-service analytics and predictiveness.
We cannot send the entire Excel file reports via email within Tableau.
 

Setup Cost

IBM Cognos is costlier but offers extensive features, complex licensing, and competitive SaaS options for SMEs, emphasizing negotiation.
Tableau's licensing is costly but offers valuable functionality, yet smaller firms find its pricing prohibitive and complex based on roles.
I rate pricing as a four, meaning it is more expensive compared to other solutions.
The cost for viewer rights is around $60, but it can vary based on the business and is usually for a year.
 

Valuable Features

IBM Cognos offers powerful analytics, flexible reporting, strong visualization, and robust security with scalability and ease of use.
Tableau excels with interactive visuals, diverse data connections, and user-friendly interface, driving efficiency and insights alongside strong community support.
IBM Cognos is a robust governed platform with significant security features and provides excellent graphics and reporting.
The platform supports live connections and real-time data processing, which is crucial for our reconciliations that need frequent updates.
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Cognos
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
7th
Ranking in Reporting
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Tableau
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
2nd
Ranking in Reporting
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
296
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (1st), Embedded BI (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 3.6%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tableau is 17.5%, down from 19.1% 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.
ROMIL SHAH - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides fast data access with in-memory extracts, makes it easy to create visualizations, and saves time
When it comes to visualizations, Tableau has a limitation as compared to Power BI. It has a limited set of visualizations. Power BI has the entire marketplace, so you can connect and import many visualizations and use them, whereas Tableau has only 10 or 15 visualizations. There should be more visualizations, and there should also be data integration with more cloud providers. Tableau has recently launched a paid version for the documentation. So, documentation has become a little bit challenging when it comes to Tableau development because we do not have any tool to export the data out of it. It is a license-based feature that you need to purchase to prepare documentation. So, on the documentation front, for preparing clear documentation for any dashboard, it would help if we get an embedded option, rather than buying a license for each user for the documentation. To document anything, if I have to connect to each workbook and see what has been written as a formula and then document in the Word document, it is pretty time-consuming. We have the Microsoft stack, and we are currently evaluating Power BI because Tableau has a limitation of 50 columns for a drill-down report. If we want more than 50 columns, we have found a hack, but there is no ready-made option for doing it. So, we have to use another tool in case we need a drilled report with more than 50 columns. There are many instances where users need 80 or 90 columns for their analysis, and switching between two technologies becomes a challenge. It is not a cost-effective approach for us. Their support should be improved. We are not happy with their support. Whenever we raised queries, we were pointed to a few blogs, and we didn't get a proper solution from them. Their licensing should also be improved. They want us to purchase a Tableau Creator license for business users, whereas Power BI Desktop is free for business users. They should come up with a basic license with one or two connectors that our business users can use for preparing their visualizations. Tableau also charges us per user for users who want the data only through email.
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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
44%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

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.
Tableau vs. Business Objects - Which is a better solution for visualization and analysis?
Both tools have their positives and negatives. First, I should mention that I am relatively new to Tableau. I have been working on and off Tableau for about a year, but getting to work on it consta...
Which would you choose - Tableau or SAP Analytics Cloud?
Tableau is easy to set up and maintain. In about a day it is possible for the entire platform to be deployed for use. This relatively short amount of time can make all the difference for companies ...
What do you like most about Tableau?
Tableau is a fantastic tool that provides impressive dashboards and customized reports.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online
 

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.
Accenture, Adobe, Amazon.com, Bank of America, Charles Schwab Corp, Citigroup, Coca-Cola Company, Cornell University, Dell, Deloitte, Duke University, eBay, Exxon Mobil, Fannie Mae, Ferrari, French Red Cross, Goldman Sachs, Google, Government of Canada, HP, Intel, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Macy's, Merck, The New York Times, PayPal, Pfizer, US Army, US Air Force, Skype, and Walmart.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Cognos vs. Tableau and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
847,625 professionals have used our research since 2012.