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Microsoft Power BI vs SAP Analytics Hub comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Cognos
Sponsored
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (4th)
Microsoft Power BI
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
315
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (1st)
SAP Analytics Hub
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
28th
Average Rating
7.2
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (47th)
 

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 Microsoft Power BI is 23.0%, up from 22.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Analytics Hub is 0.4%, down from 0.4% 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.
Amol Rane - PeerSpot reviewer
Jul 17, 2024
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.
Hyunwook Kang - PeerSpot reviewer
Jul 25, 2024
Provides efficient data integration features, but the technical support services need improvement
We use the product for analytics across various business processes and sectors. It helps us analyze SAP ERP data The platform's main benefit is its integration with SAP ERP data. It’s effective for data integration and integrity. The platform could easily integrate with other ERP data solutions.…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"IBM Cognos is an excellent solution for tax, planning, budgeting, profit and loss statements and balance sheets."
"It is a stable product."
"The tool can join data from different sources, write back to databases, generate alerts, and be customized to our preferences. It's an enterprise BI tool that's more powerful than just visualization tools like Power BI or Tableau."
"The initial setup is quite straightforward."
"Security administration tools are powerful and flexible."
"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'."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The solution is stable."
"It is good for us for onboarding the data. We can connect to multiple data sources, do transformations to make the data usable, and then model it within the transformation. Someone who has come from a Microsoft Excel environment will easily be able to use this solution. Power query and report modeling are easy to understand in this solution. Their technical support is very good. They are extremely responsive, helpful, and hands-on."
"Being able to transfer data with the Power Query feature is great for teaching with about one to two hundred rows of data. I am also able to see the relationship between multiple tables and create various sheets and dashboards."
"Implementation is very quick and the solution is very user-friendly."
"We have found the product to be scalable."
"Microsoft BI allows us to connect to any database or any dataset."
"It provides good visibility."
"The Microsoft Power BI app is very good. It's also very flexible."
"What I like best about this solution is that it is built into the SAP line, making it easier to integrate with other SAP products."
"SAP Analytics Hub offers a user-friendly interface with effortless configuration, seamless updates, and real-time availability of information. It avoids the complexities associated with batch processing, providing a smooth and efficient experience."
"This product provides good reports using a single pane of glass."
"The platform's main benefit is its integration with SAP ERP data. It’s effective for data integration and integrity."
"Data consistency is also a notable feature; the system takes care of data consistency, so you don't need to handle it manually."
"For report scheduling, I always prefer SAP because it has the most powerful scheduling features, like sending reports to more than 1,000 customers per day. That option is not as good in Microsoft BI and in Tableau it only exists as an add-on option."
 

Cons

"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 flexibility in previous versions, is no longer available in IBM Cognos Analytics 12. These are areas that could be improved to enhance the product."
"It could have more options for themes."
"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."
"The high cost of a license makes it hard to scale up on a budget."
"There are some small features that are missing. It would be nice if the graphics were better. You can use external sources for charts, but it's quite complex to use and not easy to implement. If you want a new chart, you can download it from multiple tools and implement it into IBM Cognos."
"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."
"The data uploads that we do, such as Excel files, have a lot of restrictions. If we can make it a bit more user-friendly, allowing us to have more flexibility it would be a great help."
"This product could use improvement in terms of usability for those with less technical know how."
"The default parameters of the prompt could be improved by including a dynamic option."
"The product doesn't support unstructured data. It doesn't support video, streaming, and strings of files."
"An area for improvement is data refresh functionality"
"There are some limitations in Power BI; you have to work in the Power BI base. However, if you want something not out-of-the-box and you want something custom, you have to do a lot of work."
"Microsoft BI lacks some of the scheme features. It would be beneficial if there were a way to show how we move values in a different way."
"I cannot comment on the stability as we haven't yet used it for a big project."
"I would like to see some AI incorporated into this solution in the future."
"Sluggish performance when handling large amounts of data."
"The technical support for Analytics Hub is limited and could be improved."
"The interface can be simplified because it is not a user-friendly experience."
"Faster implementation of new functions for the new product is an area of improvement in SAP Analytics Hub."
"The analytics part of SAP has not been that good up until now. They're still in the infant stage and development is still going on. SAP has some cloud analytics and they're trying to configure it in Lumira, but it's not that good at this point."
"Pricing and support are integrated into the system. However, the support process can be challenging, particularly when navigating the SAP support site, which lacks user-friendliness and ease of access."
"The platform could easily integrate with other ERP data solutions. Additionally, it should be faster compared to competitors in the cloud space."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It is pretty expensive."
"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."
"The solution is affordable."
"There is need to assess the purchase license accordingly so as to avoid audit penalties."
"It is my understanding that the cost is very low. It's not very expensive."
"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."
"The pricing and licensing policies are comparatively cheaper than other products in the market ."
"Microsoft Power BI has reasonable pricing."
"The solution's costs are quite reasonable given the range of features provided."
"The only other cost, besides the licensing fee, would be to cover support."
"Power BI comes with enterprise Microsoft licensing. So for the user, you don't have to pay, but you do have to pay a one-time cost."
"The solution is priced well for what they offer. However, the premium version is very expensive."
"The cost of this product is very low, at approximately $8 or $9 per month for a developer."
"They have a free Power BI Desktop version, but it has limitations."
"As far as I am aware you do not need a license for the solution."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The product is expensive."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"They are pursuing a highly assertive approach to target businesses of all sizes within the industry."
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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%
Educational Organization
41%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Computer Software Company
19%
Energy/Utilities Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
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 ...
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 SAP Analytics Hub?
Data consistency is also a notable feature; the system takes care of data consistency, so you don't need to handle it...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP Analytics Hub?
The product is expensive. The cost starts from $1,000,000 per year. Moreover, there are additional costs involved for...
What needs improvement with SAP Analytics Hub?
The platform could easily integrate with other ERP data solutions. Additionally, it should be faster compared to comp...
 

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
No data available
 

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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 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
STIB-MIVB
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Power BI vs. SAP Analytics Hub and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
815,854 professionals have used our research since 2012.