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ManageEngine Exchange Reporter Plus vs Microsoft Power BI comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Cognos
Sponsored
Ranking in Reporting
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (7th)
ManageEngine Exchange Repor...
Ranking in Reporting
15th
Average Rating
9.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Power BI
Ranking in Reporting
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
315
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 4.6%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ManageEngine Exchange Reporter Plus is 0.1%, down from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 26.7%, up from 25.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Reporting
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Larrad Salgado - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
reviewer2017023 - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficiently keeps track of how many mailboxes are created, how many are deleted, and things like that
We can keep track of how many mailboxes are created, how many are deleted, and things like that. It's a necessity for auditing to use a tool to monitor email tracking. So, it helps a lot with compliance. We can use the dashboard to see which Exchange servers are currently having issues, their health, and other details. The GUI is very good.
Amol Rane - PeerSpot reviewer
Supports AI initiatives in terms of predictive analytics
The only issue is with permissions. Sometimes, despite granting granular permissions, dashboards are visible to people who shouldn't have access. It's difficult to understand why the permissions slip out. Sometimes dashboards are visible to stakeholders even though they should not have permission. It's a bit difficult to understand why the permissions slip out. The dashboards lack a user-friendly appearance, and the permissions should be easier to understand. At this point, we have to go through a lot of details. It takes a lot of time to understand the permissions, so if there were better options available within the Power BI setup, it would be quite beneficial, especially for admins. So, there should be a more user-friendly dashboard appearance and easier-to-understand permissions.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The main difference that I like about Cognos compared to other solutions is its data splitting functionality. We have all our company data inside the Cognos environment and so we prefer to split the information Cognos itself. It's more efficient this way."
"IBM Cognos offers tools so that you can design and develop your own test queries and reporting solutions."
"Report Studio: This is the most powerful and sophisticated tool for professional reporting."
"The most valuable features are Report Development (Functionality) and Information Distribution (Flexibility)."
"The most valuable feature is developing reports from different data sources, making it a reliable data source."
"Dashboarding, reporting, and ad hoc reporting are the valuable features of IBM Cognos."
"Even while a user is using a cube for reporting, there will not be a situation as ' Cube file locked; unable to build or deploy'."
"A positive feature is Report Studio, where we create beautiful, complex reports."
"The email traffic analysis feature is very useful."
"We can use the dashboard to see which Exchange servers are currently having issues, their health, and other details. The GUI is very good."
"Good CS and administration."
"Its seamless integration with Microsoft products, such as Microsoft SQL Server or Microsoft Excel, is the most valuable."
"The tool's most valuable features are slicer and Microsoft Copilot integration. It also allows users to see reports on mobile devices. The solution can also integrate with various data sources."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Power BI is the drill-through feature that takes you to a details page the users want to see."
"What I liked most about the tool is that we can use text queries to create projects and modify columns according to our needs. There are hundreds of YouTube courses on how to use it."
"This is a self-service BI tool, so it doesn't require a huge amount of technical training, knowledge, or a background in BI in order to induct new people into it."
"Considering that it's Microsoft, it can be integrated with the Power Platform, which is also Microsoft-based, like SharePoint, Power apps, Power Automate, and Power BI, which is the most user-friendly."
"It has greatly improved our reporting capabilities."
 

Cons

"There are some problems with how Cognos handles huge data sets and when connecting with multiple sources and searching the data."
"The tool needs to improve the connectivity since I see that, at times, there is a need to increase the memory in the database."
"The technical support team’s response time is slow and needs to be improved."
"It would be good if the solution had conditional formatting."
"They should provide improved visual reporting."
"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."
"I am primarily interested in reporting and automation improvements."
"There is room for improvement in the reporting, maybe having more customizable reports would be good."
"The solution doesn't integrate well with third-party tools."
"We did have some issues building the Microsoft blog."
"We would like improvements made to the paginated reports so that it produces quality similarly to SSRS."
"Maybe they can enhance the UI a bit. Right now, it's very basic, I would say, compared to the MicroStrategy or Qlik."
"Some kind of expression wizard, where the user can build a complex expression without any knowledge of DAX, can be a good addition to the product."
"It is getting better but still, there are opportunity areas in some aspects, especially the Windows OS dependency."
"The look and feel should be updated in terms of the types of dashboards and graphs that you can produce. They aren't as visual as some of its competitors."
"Defining a relationship was very confusing. There were circular directions for which I had to do a lot of adjustments in the data. They can do something to make it easier."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cognos is super expensive compared to Tableau ($70/month) and Power BI ($20/month) — I think Cognos is roughly $200 a month."
"It is quite pricy. I think Microsoft BI is cheaper. Tableau might also be cheaper, but it also depends on the usage. If you have very many users, Cognos can be a problem. It could be cheaper than Tableau but not for so many users. If you have a few thousand users, Tableau, which is generally quite expensive, can be cheaper than Cognos."
"IBM Cognos offers competitive pricing similar to other BI vendors in the market."
"There is need to assess the purchase license accordingly so as to avoid audit penalties."
"It is averagely priced."
"My company uses IBM Cognos with another IBM product, so I think only one license is used."
"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."
"There is a standard license required to use this solution. There are some additional tools but I am not sure if they are an extra cost."
"The pricing of Exchange Reporter Plus is very reasonable."
"I would rate the pricing a four out of ten, where one is low price and ten is high price. It is affordable."
"Microsoft BI is not expensive. Compared to the price of other BI products, the price is very fair."
"I rate the product pricing a ten."
"The licensing can be complicated."
"They are charging us by users in storage, and there is a license fee. My financial people handle all that. The client has already worked out a contract with Microsoft, and basically, we're getting government prices."
"I have never worked on licensing, but I have heard that it is reasonable."
"Both cost-wise and implementation-wise, this product is a good choice."
"As far as I am aware you do not need a license for the solution."
"Microsoft BI is free for the personal edition, but there is also a paid-for professional version."
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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
55%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
4%
Manufacturing Company
4%
No data available
Educational Organization
42%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 ManageEngine Exchange Reporter Plus?
We can use the dashboard to see which Exchange servers are currently having issues, their health, and other details. ...
What needs improvement with ManageEngine Exchange Reporter Plus?
There is room for improvement in the reporting, maybe having more customizable reports would be good. ManageEngine ER...
Seeking lightweight open source BI software
There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I wou...
Is Power BI a complete platform or only a visualization tool?
Power BI is an advanced visualization tool oriented to big data with a very complete set of widgets to visualize info...
How does Oracle OBIEE compare with Microsoft BI?
Oracle OBIEE is great in allowing design and creativity per the individual needs of the organization. Dashboards are ...
 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
No data available
SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI
 

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.
Sunbelt Rentals, Inc, Life Management Center, IBTS 
Accenture Adidas Aetna AIG Airbus Alibaba Allstate Amazon American Express Aon AT&T Audi Bank of America BASF Bayer Berkshire Hathaway Boeing Coca-Cola Comcast Cisco Coca-Cola Dell Disney Emirates Equinix FedEx Ford GE Google H&M Home Depot Honda IBM Intel JPMorgan Chase Kellogg's Kroger L'Oréal McDonald's Merck MetLife Microsoft Nike Oracle P&G PepsiCo Procter & Gamble Prudential Financial SAP Siemens Snapchat Spotify Starbucks Target Toyota T-Mobile Unilever Visa Walmart WeWork World Bank Xerox
Find out what your peers are saying about ManageEngine Exchange Reporter Plus vs. Microsoft Power BI and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.