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Looker Studio vs MicroStrategy comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Cognos
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (7th), Reporting (4th)
Looker Studio
Average Rating
7.6
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (12th)
MicroStrategy
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
159
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (8th), Embedded BI (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Reporting
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.
Srini-Dhanaraj - PeerSpot reviewer
May 28, 2024
Available for free and can help businesses resolve their data migration problems
It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten. Google Data Studio is a cloud-based tool. With cloud-based tools, there can be two challenges, the first one being associated with the bandwidth of your data strength. If I run a report from my home because of the wi-fi connection, it may give an excellent response. When I run the reports, Google Data Studio develops reports from my home, and because of wi-fi, it works in an excellent manner. When I am on the road or at the wheel, if I use the internet data from my mobile to browse my reports, the performance may not be good, and this issue is not because of the product but because of the bandwidth. The second issue arises when you connect Google Data Studio to a source system to extract the data to do the visualization. If the source system is not responding as quickly as expected, it could be the reason why the report may be printed slowly. Considering the aforementioned aspects, the problem may not be because of Google Data Studio but because of the source system.
Pietro Saglietti - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 26, 2023
A robust solution for powerful data analytics
I use its Discovery Analytics feature, particularly in the context of KPI analysis for management It plays a vital role in establishing a connection with predictive continuous improvement. This approach proves highly valuable for teams involved in continuous improvement efforts, especially in…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"It is a stable product."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The most valuable feature of IBM Cognos is security. The solution has updated features that other competitors' solutions come out with long after IBM Cognos has had them."
"Using custom controls, it is possible to extend the application with even more functionality and make the application intuitive and attractive."
"In terms of stability, I think that Cognos is more stable than Tableau and Power Bi because of its framework manager concept that allows us to import metadata and store it in the framework manager."
"For planning, forecasting, in-boxing, modeling in general and for predicting numbers and doing work analysis, they are excellent."
"It's enabled us to report directly from our main application systems. We're removing islands of data and we're removing inefficiencies, where people or small divisions had their own store of information."
"The ability to integrate with a great variety of data sources."
"Data Studio integrates seamlessly with other Google products, and we can use it with other APIs if we like."
"The best thing about the tool is that it allows you to share information easily and dashboards with colleagues and teammates because it's all online. No matter where you are, as long as you have the Internet, you can connect and use these dashboards. Google made good documentation for this tool. There are many examples of how to use and create dashboards and videos on YouTube. So, I think it's easy to learn."
"I find it favorable regarding speed of development, ease of building, and flexibility."
"I am impressed with the tool's scheduling mechanism, refresh mechanism, and different types of charts."
"The solution is free so that is a good feature."
"This has improved our organization by allowing people to see their data and develop visualizations themselves."
"Valuable features include advanced integrated analysis and easy implementation."
"Tech support has been great, very responsive. We usually hear back within a day.​ We usually email them and that works out perfect. The right person always gets back to us."
"Dependency on development teams, as well as managing the platform, has reduced a lot with Visual Insight.​"
"​Scalability is the best thing. You can really scale."
"We prefer having the analytic capabilities in a single platform, like MicroStrategy provides, because it is easier. The customer gets used to one type of tool, then sticks with it."
"Stability is great, especially with package deployments. It is very consistent and stable."
"I find MicroStrategy the most suited to the enterprise-wide BI platform, because of its scalability and stability.​"
"It has landing pages, and that makes life easy for exhibiting things."
"It's an open platform. That's also important. You can create your own data connectors. There's everything you can do with APIs. It's not closed like, perhaps, an SAP system might be."
 

Cons

"There are a lot of limitations with the out-of-the-box tool."
"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."
"The solution's support could be better."
"The AI-based features could be further enhanced by the solution."
"Cognos charts are not as fast as those of the other tools, even with DQM (dynamic query mode)."
"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."
"In terms of what could be improved, I would say, monitoring, monitoring, monitoring. Some improvements in monitoring would be helpful. I'd like to see more monitoring of specific reports and fields. The way the auditing is now is very limited, so I'd like to see more of that - of the monitoring."
"There are some problems with how Cognos handles huge data sets and when connecting with multiple sources and searching the data."
"Insisting on forums, blogs and community outreach in communications, and posting videos on an established calendar would be useful."
"When you physically install a product on one machine instead of the cloud, you have a better visibility, best icon quality, etc.. It's more of an issue with how we are adapting to the transition. We are still in the early moments of using this tool, and we need to go deeper to discover some improvements."
"The tool should come up with data modeling layer features that are present in other products like Power BI."
"Panels are not as easy to use as other data extraction UIs."
"Stability and scalability an be improved for a full ten."
"Other tools might be worth considering if you need more advanced features or support for a larger user base."
"It's not yet a replacement for a complete BI tool."
"There are issues with integration and I encountered limits and warnings, especially with my pivot table size."
"Needs more visual essence and connectors for the ecosystems, which would be easy to use."
"Another feature to consider in the future would be adding some additional offline capabilities without using desktops."
"If they can make it more stable, in terms of the connectivity, that would help."
"We would really like to see MicroStrategy have some support teams based more in Europe, because for now it seems that there is one person for the whole CE region. That is not exactly what we would like to see. We do know that MicroStrategy supports most places, either in the US or India, but those are different time zones, people, and cultures."
"We have seen some stability issues with MicroStrategy on cloud. We have a few unhappy customers."
"In the developer, there are things that you able to do in a document or a report that you are not able to do in the Dossier."
"Needs ​tighter mapping integration."
"They need to improve on distribution services. There are lack of features which were there earlier with Narrowcast, but they are not there in the distribution services."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 is pretty expensive."
"It is my understanding that the cost is very low. It's not very expensive."
"It is averagely priced."
"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."
"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."
"Cognos is super expensive compared to Tableau ($70/month) and Power BI ($20/month) — I think Cognos is roughly $200 a month."
"The solution is free but the Google Looker is expensive."
"I think the tool is cheap because you don't need to pay anything for using the tool. However, when connecting and analyzing other data sources, you should consider where to analyze this information because Google Data Studio doesn't handle much data well. You must also consider how you will connect this data to it. In this case, you might need to hire DevOps or a data team to help with these issues."
"The tool is free."
"The product is available for free."
"The cost is quite affordable based on feature analysis."
"While initial cost of MicroStrategy is still on the higher side, the long-term benefits brings down overall cost of ownership significantly as compared to other tools like Tableau/Cognos."
"Pricing, in general, is high. With Power BI, you get mobile with the license, whereas with MicroStrategy, you have to purchase mobile for extra."
"They offer yearly as well as perpetual licenses."
"​They gave us a good deal.​"
"The pricing for MicroStrategy is always on the higher side. They should seriously start thinking about their pricing and licensing strategy."
"There is no subscription, I am using the free version."
"The pricing list itself is not publicly accessible, so it's a bit opaque."
"MicroStrategy's licensing cost is higher than that of other tools in the market. My company uses the enterprise edition of the product."
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Comparison Review

it_user6330 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 2, 2013
MicroStrategy vs. Tableau
After a recent presentation, several attendees asked me about the applications of Visual Insights and Tableau. Many companies are investing in both tools and are trying to figure out the right tool for specific applications Tableau has found its sweet-spot as an agile discovery tool that analysts…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
57%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
5%
Government
4%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Retailer
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
10%
Retailer
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 ...
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 version...
What do you like most about Google Data Studio?
The company dashboard is useful because we could share it via a link as a reminder for everyone to check it weekly. W...
What needs improvement with Google Data Studio?
The tool has a lot of room for improvement. It's not very professional and allows for only simple tasks like indicati...
What is your primary use case for Google Data Studio?
The solution is a visualization tool that helps to make dashboards.
What do you like most about MicroStrategy?
The stability of the product is good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MicroStrategy?
For larger businesses, I think the pricing is logical, but for smaller companies, it can be a bit costly.
What needs improvement with MicroStrategy?
There is room for improvement in data visualization. Compared to other BI tools like Power BI, MicroStrategy is stron...
 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
Data Studio
No data available
 

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.
Genesys, Shueisha
Allstate Insurance, Barneys New York, Boston Children's Hospital, Buenos Aires Department of the Treasury, Campbell Soup Company, DHL, eBay, eHarmony, Facebook, Four Seasons Hotels Inc., Godiva, Hard Rock International, LinkedIn, Netflix, Pfizer, SECO (Swiss Government Unemployment Agency), Starbucks, Texas A&M University, Thomson Reuters Markets, US House of Representatives, and the US Postal Service.
Find out what your peers are saying about Looker Studio vs. MicroStrategy and other solutions. Updated: February 2023.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.