Microsoft Power BI vs Salesforce Einstein Analytics comparison

Microsoft Power BI vs. Salesforce Einstein Analytics

December 2024

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Categories and Ranking

IBM Cognos

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 3.8%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 22.4%, up from 22.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Einstein Analytics is 1.3%, 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

Deputy Director Operations Management Control at Mapfre

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.

Supports AI initiatives in terms of predictive analytics

Amol Rane

Solutions Architect M365 at Sogeti UK

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.

Helpful consistent measurements, high availability, and scales well

Parker Goodson

Enterprise Account Executive at T-Mobile

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. It would be beneficial to have visibility into any changes made to your account by individuals other than yourself or your team. It is also important to clearly track the history of these modifications and identify the responsible parties.

More Microsoft Power BI pros

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Self-service is possible through the use of dashboards, which are also very intuitive. Stories can be used to pin snapshots, tell the story for meetings, etc."

"Mapbox integration for geospatial analytics down to longitude/latitude layers."

"IBM Cognos is an excellent solution for tax, planning, budgeting, profit and loss statements and balance sheets."

"It has a very powerful edit feature which allows users to back out of changes (undo) without forcing them to recreate entire reports."

"The basic platform comes with several meta-modelling tools."

"The initial setup is quite straightforward."

"We are able to generate quality reports easily which allows us to decrease response time."

"The most valuable features of IBM Cognos are governance and enterprise reporting."

More IBM Cognos pros

"The initial setup is relatively simple."

"It gives us, the ability to do a lot of analysis quickly, similar to ad hoc analysis."

"The uploading of information is very easy, as you just use an Excel sheet to start work right away and obtain the benefits of Power BI."

"It's a great tool for visualization data, and it's free for engineers."

"The stability is good."

"My primary use is for view of the dashboard."

"Microsoft B's beneficial features are that it is a Microsoft product and it is well known by the staff here in the company. It suited the available skills."

"The most valuable features in Microsoft BI are the analysis using the feature drag and drop function. It's very easy to load and use different data sources."

"The inbuilt features, like pictorial representation of the data and the ability to remap and realign the data, provide clarity in understanding sales perspectives."

"The most valuable feature of Salesforce Einstein Analytics is the reporting tools."

"The tool is a cloud-based solution capable of integrating any kind of data in the world."

"Salesforce Einstein Analytics is a simplified CRM. It's integration is good."

"Tableau CRM is a very capable solution. It is easy to use, user-friendly, and integrates well."

"We have found the scalability to be very good."

"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."

"he most valuable feature of the solution is its ease of use."

More Salesforce Einstein Analytics pros

Cons

"There are some problems with how Cognos handles huge data sets and when connecting with multiple sources and searching the data."

"I would like to see is more easy building, movement in the reports, and dashboard functionality within reporting. Overall more simple elements within reports. If the elements are simple then you don't have to render a full page, but you can move separate parts in the page."

"Cognos charts are not as fast as those of the other tools, even with DQM (dynamic query mode)."

"They were lacking in the initial phases of development in the area of big data, and they still need to improve that aspect of the product."

"We would like to see development of the product's UI function, to make it more of a UI tool that can be configured as required."

"It could have more options for themes."

"The high cost of a license makes it hard to scale up on a budget."

"There are many problems with the product's stability part, making it an area where improvements are required."

More IBM Cognos cons

"The visual outlet or the visualization aspect can be improved because the settings piece is quite problematic. It requires a lot of time to set the visuals and check. It is quite fiddly to change all the settings and font sizes. It just needs better ability in terms of using templates or visualization templates to get the vision. Our users always benchmark based on the product, and they don't appreciate everything under the bonnet. The only rating is based on the actual reports in the settings for the dashboard. They should make it look a bit funky and a bit more aesthetically pleasing on the eye. It is quite a fiddly tool, but other than that, it is pretty slick. Because it is community-driven, the marketplace tends to be changing forever. You get the standard visualizations, and you've also got all other marketplace visualizations that require you to spend a bit more money and purchase things in the marketplace. With certain visualizations, there is no longevity. I had used certain visualizations, but they discontinued them, and I had to rebuild my reports, which is obviously very frustrating. There should be some sort of stabilization around how the marketplace visuals impact the users when they expire."

"Not having to login again after a mobile app upgrade. A simple login on mobile would be great."

"This solution is resource-heavy."

"The smart phone application could be improved, along with better graphics and faster updating."

"The report server feature is quite limited."

"I would like to see more visualization options."

"I would like to be able to use SQL properly within the reports and allow multiple people to work on the same report at the same time. If one person is working on it, then it causes issues for anyone else wanting to make reports."

"The biggest thing with Microsoft right now is better support. There should be more timely support. We can do 90% of it ourselves by the same token. When we're into the 10%, we do not get timely support via Microsoft's support team."

More Microsoft Power BI cons

"The product is natively integrated into the Salesforce ecosystem. You also need a CRM license. It should be more flexible with other platforms."

"Einstein Analytics could incorporate something like SFIA 8 to help users understand the underlying skill sets."

"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."

"They can provide more end-user customizations. There should be the possibility for the end-users to change some elements in the interface. I have a way of doing my job. My colleague may have his own way of doing his job. If I ask for a change, it'll change for everyone. It'll be good to have some end-user personalizations. I can't see many in Salesforce right now."

"The tool needs to simplify its features."

"Better pricing would make it available to more users and we would likely use it more broadly within the organization."

"The product must be more transparent."

"If I could improve Tableau CRM I would make it as powerful as Tableau. Tableau CRM is more integrated and it's on the web, but it has less functionality. It is lacking functionality at this time."

More Salesforce Einstein Analytics cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of this product is meant for medium to large-scale enterprises."

"There is need to assess the purchase license accordingly so as to avoid audit penalties."

"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."

"Pricing should be improved."

"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 rate the product price as four or five on a scale from one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."

"It is my understanding that the cost is very low. It's not very 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."

More IBM Cognos pricing and cost advice

"We have enterprise licenses and some of the other tools or features come as a package and others you have to purchase separately."

"The solution is less expensive than other PowerBI tools, which is why most people go with it, although it does cost more than MSBI tools."

"There is room for at least 45% discount as compared to the initial price."

"The solution's pricing is medium."

"I think it's a good price, from what I've heard. I know it's competitive with other Power BI tools."

"Pricing is a big advantage that Power BI has over Tableau. Power BI is three or four times cheaper than Tableau. For my personal use, I will definitely prefer a $20 monthly fee of Power BI rather than a $70 monthly fee of Tableau. If you pay altogether for Power BI, they give you a discount, whereas, with Tableau, there is no discount. There are three versions of Power BI: Free, Pro, and Premium. The Premium version comes with a lot of things. There is no extra or hidden fee. You pay every month, and the software is with you. If you upgrade, there will be some extra charges."

"The premium capacity is very costly in respect of the market in Egypt, amounting to $5,000 monthly."

"I very much recommend the free trial mode."

More Microsoft Power BI pricing and cost advice

"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."

"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."

"I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."

"The solution is expensive."

"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."

"Salesforce has a subscription-based licensing structure, where it's between $20 to $75 per month, per user."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which BI (Business Intelligence) Tools solutions are best for your needs.

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823,795 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Comparison Review

it_user79932

Senior Manager - BI Head at NVidia

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…

Seeking lightweight open source BI software

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

55%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Government

Educational Organization

42%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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...

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 ...

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...

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.

Oracle Hyperion vs IBM Cognos

Comparisons

Tableau vs IBM Cognos

Compared 10% of the time

Compared 10% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs IBM Cognos

Compared 8% of the time

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs IBM Cognos

Compared 7% of the time

SAP Analytics Cloud vs IBM Cognos

Compared 5% of the time

More IBM Cognos Competitors

Tableau vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 16% of the time

Domo vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 9% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 8% of the time

Databricks vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 6% of the time

Workday Prism Analytics vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Power BI Competitors

Databricks vs Salesforce Einstein Analytics

Compared 15% of the time

IBM Watson Explorer vs Salesforce Einstein Analytics

Compared 11% of the time

SAP Analytics Cloud vs Salesforce Einstein Analytics

Compared 10% of the time

Tableau vs Salesforce Einstein Analytics

Compared 8% of the time

Qlik Sense vs Salesforce Einstein Analytics

Compared 5% of the time

More Salesforce Einstein Analytics Competitors

Product Reports

Download IBM Cognos product report

IBM Cognos

December 2024

Download Microsoft Power BI product report

Microsoft Power BI

November 2024

Salesforce Einstein Analytics

November 2024

Download Salesforce Einstein Analytics product report

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics

SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI

Einstein Analytics, Salesforce Wave Analytics

Learn More

IBM

Microsoft

Salesforce

Overview

IBM Cognos Business Intelligence provides a wide range of tools to help you analyze your organization's data. IBM Cognos BI allows businesses to monitor events and metrics, create and view business reports, and analyze data to help them make effective business decisions.

IBM Cognos applies techniques to describe, summarize, and compare data, and draw conclusions. This allows users to see trends and discover anomalies or variances that may not be evident by simply reading data. Data sources that contain information from different areas of a business can be stored in separate packages. Users can see only information that they have been granted access to, based on their group or role.

IBM Cognos BI consolidates the following business intelligence functions into a single web-based solution:

IBM Cognos Insight: Create personal and managed workspaces for data analysis. Using these interactive workspaces, you can share insight results with managers. Cognos Insight supports write-back, and you can also use these workspaces to capture and integrate management goals, commitments, and forecasts.
IBM Cognos Workspace: With IBM Cognos Workspace, you can create rich, interactive workspaces using IBM Cognos content as well as data from external sources. You can view and open your favorite workspaces and reports, edit content in your workspaces, and share your workspaces via email.
IBM Cognos Analytics: IBM Cognos Analytics utilizes built-in AI and intuitive searches which helps users to quickly create the visualizations and a wide range of reports. Cognos Analytics provides cognitive and managed self-service, enabling you to gain insights from controlled and trusted data.
IBM Cognos Report Studio and IBM Cognos Query Studio: Easily create structured and query reports. IBM Cognos allows users to create application and report templates. In addition, report authors can reuse report objects to apply filters, fields, and styles to reports. Users can set the language of the user interface and report content according to the user's native language.
IBM Cognos Event Studio: Receive notifications of events that occur within your organization in real time. Event Studio enables the creation of agents that detect the occurrence of business events, failures, or anomalies, based on the change of specific events or data conditions. Notification can be sent via email, publication in the portal, or by triggering reports.
IBM Cognos Connection: This is the Web portal for IBM Cognos BI and is the central area for accessing all the IBM Cognos functions. In the web portal, users can schedule and distribute reports, create tasks, administer the server and the access permissions, and more.

Reviews from Real Users

IBM Cognos stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its powerful analysis tool and its reporting capabilities.

Prasad B., a senior software engineer at a financial services firm, notes, “The product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report. We can receive automated reports as well. They are easy to schedule on a weekly or monthly basis. It is very fast. I mean in means of report output, it's very fast compared to the actual clients involved.”

Microsoft Power BI is a powerful tool for data analysis and visualization. This tool stands out for its ability to merge and analyze data from various sources. Widely adopted across different industries and departments, Power BI is instrumental in creating visually appealing dashboards and generating insightful business intelligence reports. Its intuitive interface, robust visualization capabilities, and seamless integration with other Microsoft applications empower users to easily create interactive reports and gain valuable insights.

Salesforce Einstein Analytics is a customer and business analytics platform that’s optimized for mobile use and brings flexible customer analytics to everyone in the company. It works with many types of data, from many data sources, and it can change the way your company answers critical questions. Einstein Analytics allows you to:

Connect directly to your CRM data and execute on insights directly in Chatter.
Automatically analyze millions of rows of data and get predictive analytics with Einstein Discovery.
Explore data quickly and automate actions with prebuilt apps.
Use mobile to act, whether you're on Android or iOS.

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 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

ADS Securities, Alstom Grid, American Express, Barclays Bank, Coca-Cola, CoderDojo, Dubai Multi Commodities Centre, Financial Conduct Authority