Microsoft Power BI vs TIBCO Spotfire comparison

Microsoft and TIBCO are both solutions in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category. Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 7.9, while TIBCO is ranked #16 with an average rating of 8.4. Microsoft holds a 23.0% mindshare in BIT, compared to TIBCO’s 1.1% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of TIBCO users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Microsoft Power BI and TIBCO Spotfire based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two BI (Business Intelligence) Tools solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Power BI vs. TIBCO Spotfire Report (Updated: October 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI vs. TIBCO Spotfire

October 2024

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Categories and Ranking

IBM Cognos

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 TIBCO Spotfire is 1.1%, down from 1.3% 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.

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Amol Rane

Solutions Architect M365 at Sogeti UK

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.

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Fuad Mammadli

Deputy Chief Financial Officer at Unibank

A scalable tool to create dashboards for financial reporting

I have experience with Qlik. Our company moved from Qlik to TIBCO, as the latter provided us with easier options to make dashboards. We consider TIBCO to be better for our company in some of the areas related to automation and analytics. The data monitoring team in our company prefers TIBCO.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Comparing IBM Cognos to other applications, once a person is trained on it or they have developed a skill set to operate the application, it is best in its category."

"The correlation analysis is excellent. It's one of the best that I have used to date."

"IBM Cognos offers tools so that you can design and develop your own test queries and reporting solutions."

"Previously, we were doing static reporting. Management would request a report, and it would take staff a week or more to provide it. With Cognos, we have dynamic reporting, and it has reduced both reporting and decision making times significantly. With the solution's dashboard, the company's management team has updated records at their fingertips. This means that they can directly access the data they need to make decisions."

"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 most valuable feature is developing reports from different data sources, making it a reliable data source."

"The product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report."

"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."

More IBM Cognos pros

"I've seen no issues with BI's stability."

"Key features are its dashboard functionality and ease of integration with various data sources."

"It seems stable. I haven't heard of any difficulties from my clients that utilize Power BI."

"It ingegrates nicely with Office 365."

"In my opinion, Microsoft BI is a low-cost solution, and it could be an interesting solution for a tourism company."

"The most valuable aspect of Microsoft Power BI in my field is the insights it provides from analyzing data. Sometimes, these insights go beyond what traditional analysis can reveal due to the large volume of data involved. In terms of improving our data analysis process, it starts with identifying data sources, followed by cleaning and filtering out irrelevant data. Then, we categorize and structure the data to achieve the best visualization and insights. Regarding Power BI's integration with other tools, although we haven't implemented it ourselves, it's known that Power BI can integrate with systems like SAP or ERP software, which could enhance our analytics capabilities if needed."

"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten."

"We find the solution offers good stability."

More Microsoft Power BI pros

"We used it pretty heavily in gathering data, which goes to our VPs. They are able to base their next revenue planning based on this metric. So, it has been invaluable."

"We particularly like the data angling feature of this solution. This gives us the ability to work on data transformations, join files, and carry out other data preparation tasks all in a single tool."

"The solution is an affordable one."

"It’s stable and straightforward."

"R and automation services."

"The product's initial setup phase was simple."

"This solution allows us to integrate data from across all client departments, for effective reporting via a single dashboard."

"The ability to connect to many different data sources is one of the key features. The other would then be the different ways in which that data can be visualized."

More TIBCO Spotfire pros

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."

"I would like them to reinclude PowerPlay. One thing that I am missing in the current Cognos is what was formally named PowerPlay. They have basically removed PowerPlay from it, which is something that I fail to understand because it was the most wonderful tool for business intelligence that I've ever used. As far as I know, they don't provide this functionality anymore, so this is one thing that I dislike about Cognos."

"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 is quite slow - it's missing the performance of the PowerPlay cubes."

"Extending features on dashboards so it becomes a real dashboard building application, not only a data exploration tool."

"The performance is a bottleneck and something that can be improved."

"Most of our company's customers want to be able to deploy IBM Cognos on a web application and use it as a desktop application, which is not possible currently."

"I would like to see the introduction of mapbooks for supporting some geographical information."

More IBM Cognos cons

"We would like improvements made to the paginated reports so that it produces quality similarly to SSRS."

"I would suggest improvements in visualization standards, particularly in customization and appearance."

"It should be more user-friendly and simple."

"The formatting template could be improved."

"I would prefer that the solution not be shared. I'm concerned that if we make a mistake we could reveal information to people who shouldn't see it. I would like to have my own on-prem server, to buy my own server and have my own infrastructure for Microsoft BI, with only with my data."

"The UI is the main improvement that could be made. Specifically, there is something called DAX, in Power BI, which is complicated compared to calculated fields used in Tableau."

"I think because I'm moving more into RPA, I'd definitely like to see integration across the RPA, Power BI, or Tableau platforms, because that integration could then make automation and mundane reporting much faster."

"I would like to see a more user-friendly interface with Microsoft BI."

More Microsoft Power BI cons

"The design of the UI could be improved."

"I would like to see the visualization library in this solution expanded, so that I can increase what I can offer to our clients."

"The initial setup is complicated and needs experience and knowledge."

"We would like to see some development in the visualization aspect of this solution, as they can currently only be configured in the cloud, which limits us to one endpoint. It would be helpful if this could be integrated with other tools."

"The initial setup of TIBCO Spotfire is in the middle range of difficulty. The initial setup of Power BI is easier."

"One aspect where Spotfire could improve is its global recognition, especially in terms of support."

"We would like to see some improvement in the default properties of the solution, so that there is less need for us to spend our time coding."

"The way TIBCO Spotfire is designed, in my opinion, is the reason why it lags a bit, especially compared to other BI tools like Qlik."

More TIBCO Spotfire cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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."

"The solution is affordable."

"It's more expensive than similar solutions like Tableau and Power BI."

"On a scale from one to ten where one is low pricing and ten is high pricing, I would rate this solution at eight."

"There is some additional licensing that we needed to purchase because we were touching data outside of our core data platform. The cost was approximately $25,000 for the additional licenses, which were approximate 45 licenses. For the application itself, updates, and the core platform it was approximately $50,000. Giving a total cost of $75,000 annually for our usage of IBM Cognos."

"I don't know the exact cost, but I believe Cognos is quite expensive, especially when it comes to the support consultants and the procedures that need to be applied."

More IBM Cognos pricing and cost advice

"It would be better if the price was cheaper."

"Power BI is subscription-based, and you have three options. The Pro edition, which is the standard one, is about $9 per user. The Premium edition, which provides AI and cloud capabilities but at a limited size, is for small to medium enterprises. It is about $20 per user. For large enterprises, such as manufacturing facilities, there is an option for the capacity. The capacity subscription is about $4,000 per capacity level. They also have an option for the on-premises version, but it is not common to see someone going for the on-premises version. The on-premises version requires a specific license that is attached to SQL Server. I believe it is about $17,000, but I'm not sure about it."

"I have not had a customer suggest the solution is too expensive. There are licenses to use the solution."

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

"The pricing for the solution is relatively higher compared to other alternatives."

"Power BI is cheaper for smaller groups when comparing to competitors. It requires a monthly per-user subscription."

"Costs less than most competing solutions."

"You don't need a license for development, but if you want to publish to external users, you need a license. The licensing is very costly, but I think that since the advantages and benefits of Power BI are so high, people are willing to pay. I can't blame them."

More Microsoft Power BI pricing and cost advice

"This product carries a monthly licensing charge, with the amount depending on the features that are to be included. This costs also covers the use of technical support."

"The price-point for this solution is negotiable depending on usage levels."

"In comparison to other solutions such as IBM Cognos, TIBCO Spotfire is more affordable."

"The Tibco sales teams have been very difficult to work with - ignoring requests, misrepresenting level of demand, etc."

"The cost is a few hundred dollars per user per year."

"The pricing seems competitive and reasonable. The value delivered by the product far exceeds the cost."

"The ROI is nearly impossible to calculate."

"The solution is affordable one."

More TIBCO Spotfire pricing and cost advice

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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…

Read full review

Answers from the Community

Esteban Fabiani

Project and Consultant Manager at a consultancy with 1-10 employees

Jan 18, 2022

How would you decide between Microsoft Power BI and TIBCO Spotfire?

Hi @Esteban Fabiani - you may also read this comparative study on peerspot https://www.peerspot.com/produ...

2 out of 3 answers

Evgeny Belenky

Director of Community at PeerSpot (formerly IT Central Station)

Jan 17, 2022

Hi @Sai-Krishna, @Santosh Kurakula, @DenisGauder, @reviewer1441695 and @reviewer1431795, Can you please help answer this question to @Esteban Fabiani? Tnx.

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Ariful Mondal

Global Data Architecture and Data Science Director at FH

Jan 18, 2022

Hi @Esteban Fabiani - Thank you for posting this great question. All the tools have base-level functionalities which could serve your day-to-day data analysis and visualizations. There are various aspects that you would need to consider before choosing these tools such as 1. what are the primary use cases? Who will be using them? (Power BI is more user friendly) 2. Do they require a lot of customisations on the UI/UX ( Spotfire can be more flexible with IronPython scripts for custom UI development, Tableau has the best quality UI and charts) 3. Which cloud platform or server you would be using and what kind of computation power is required (if you are a Microsoft shop then Power BI should be preferred as it can be integrated with many MS applications at ease) 4. Cost - probably one of the key concerns (Power BI will be cheaper (desktop version is free) than Spotfire and Tableau) 5. Availability of talent within an organization as well as in the market (more talent available for Power BI and Tableau) 6. Many Oil & Gas, Manufacturing companies prefer Spotfire, but a slow move towards Power BI or Tableau or other visualization tools based on use cases. Many companies use Microstrategy for enterprise reporting 7. You may download free buyer guide reports from Peerspot, which would help you to choose the right one. All the best.

Read full answer

See all 3 answers

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

56%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Government

Educational Organization

41%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Energy/Utilities Company

11%

Computer Software Company

11%

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 ...

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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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Cognos?

I need improvements, particularly with the Framework Manager, which has an outdated user interface from older version...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

What do you like most about TIBCO Spotfire?

TIBCO Spotfire is easy to use. We initiated Spotfire as POC, with support from a tech team based in South Africa. Whi...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TIBCO Spotfire?

Spotfire is a bit costly in terms of money, but it is value for money if you are installing it and working with it. C...

See all answers

What needs improvement with TIBCO Spotfire?

The hierarchies or the maps to some extent may need some modifications. The layered features within Spotfire can make...

See all answers

Comparisons

Tableau vs IBM Cognos

Compared 10% of the time

Oracle Hyperion vs IBM Cognos

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 17% of the time

Domo vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 10% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 8% of the time

KNIME vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 6% of the time

MicroStrategy vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Power BI Competitors

Tableau vs TIBCO Spotfire

Compared 18% of the time

TIBCO Jaspersoft vs TIBCO Spotfire

Compared 9% of the time

Databricks vs TIBCO Spotfire

Compared 9% of the time

Palantir Foundry vs TIBCO Spotfire

Compared 7% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs TIBCO Spotfire

Compared 7% of the time

More TIBCO Spotfire Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cognos

November 2024

Download IBM Cognos product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI

November 2024

Download Microsoft Power BI product report

Buyer's Guide

TIBCO Spotfire

October 2024

Download TIBCO Spotfire 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

Spotfire

Learn More

IBM

Microsoft

TIBCO

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.

TIBCO Spotfire is a versatile data analytics platform that can handle large datasets and be deployed on-premise or in the cloud. Its dynamic reporting, easy creation of dynamic dashboards, and highly customizable tool make it a valuable asset for process data analysis, industrial performance dashboards, problem root cause analysis, business intelligence, and real-time analytics for IoT devices in the energy sector.

The solution also offers data science functions, map visuals, R and Python integration, and the ability to write HTML and JavaScript text areas. Spotfire has helped organizations deliver projects more efficiently and cost-effectively, allowing for faster data analysis.

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

Allergan, ASSS de Montreal, Avantium, Blue River, Bank of Montreal, Citibank, FrieslandCampina, Hellmann Logistics, Merck, Novartis

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI vs. TIBCO Spotfire

October 2024

Free Report: Microsoft Power BI vs. TIBCO Spotfire

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Power BI vs. TIBCO Spotfire and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.

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