Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services vs Windward Core comparison

Microsoft SQL Servering Services vs. Windward Core

Download the complete report

Helped 824,067 peers since 2012

Categories and Ranking

IBM Cognos

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 Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is 3.7%, down from 5.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Windward Core is 0.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Reporting

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.

Read full review

Gnanavel-Chakkarapani

Junior Consultant at CMA CGM

Offers useful templates but needs to improve the connectivity offered

In Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services, not much of the interface part is used. With Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services, its users face issues with the interface after they use Excel or create Microsoft SSIS Packages. The tool's interface is an area of concern requiring improvement. There needs to be an improvement in the product's connectivity so that the tool can connect easily with other third-party databases. In the dashboard, drag and drop functionality needs to improve, especially when compared to other tools like IBM Cognos Analytics and Qlik Sense. Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is useful only for standard reports. In IBM Cognos Analytics, query studio can be used by users to drag the data and simply download the reports, so the user doesn't need to have any technical knowledge like developers. Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is to be improved to offer features like query Studio, which is provided in IBM Cognos Analytics.

Read full review

Hit Mistry

Vice President at PSC Group, LLC

It has streamlined a lot of our reporting processes

Their PDF needs improvement. We've run into some issues when we tried to generate a Word document. If we try to generate the same document in PDF, sometimes it doesn't look exactly the same. We have gone back to Windward support a couple of times on a few issues, e.g., we had some issues with reports that had barcodes on them. The barcode wasn't displaying properly. It was displaying as a skewed image as opposed to an actual barcode. Therefore, we worked with Windward support, having some daily calls with them. Then, within the next release, they were able to resolve the issue. They even gave us a pre-release, so we could implement it into our code before the actual official release on the website. It would be nice to have some sort of workflow capability within the product. Anytime you generate a document, nine out of ten times there is something which precedes that document, whether it's entering parameters in, e.g., if I'm requesting the status report for a project. The first thing that I usually want from a status perspective is which project is the status report for and which week is it for, as those are some of the things that I have to supply before I can generate a document. From a workflow perspective, it would be nice to say, "This project belongs to this person, and this person is okay with me pulling information out of this document for whatever need I have." From a workflow perspective, I would like a wizard interface that goes step-by-step, like a questionnaire, where there are a bunch of things that you have to answer, "Yes or no," before it knows what to do or how to produce the document. Right now, we write our own custom UI for this.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"The three IBM Cognos features I find the most valuable are Dynamic Cubes, PowerPlay, and Watson."

"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."

"Report Studio: This is the most powerful and sophisticated tool for professional reporting."

"If they want dashboarding, storytelling, and analyzing why KPIs are met or not, then Cognos is a better candidate than Qlik Sense."

"The initial setup is quite straightforward."

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

"One of the strong suits of Cognos is its robust corporate reporting capability."

More IBM Cognos pros

"We can create quality reports in real time."

"In Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services, the installation and configuration are easy."

"I am impressed with the product's seamless integration. It can work with different databases like Oracle."

"I'm very satisfied with the customer service. And usually, whenever we have any issue or details, we get to the person for the support. I'm really satisfied with the service. Within a few minutes or within a few hours, the support person will be available."

"The solution is known for its robust security features."

"The initial setup is easy."

"The stability of SSRS has been reliable, with minimal issues encountered during our usage."

"The SQL Server Reporting Services makes it very easy to get the data whenever we need it."

More Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services pros

"Some of our clients are looking at the nested filtering which is coming out. That's going to be a huge benefit for them because they're going to be able to nest and loop while they're also looking at filtering out certain data elements."

"The most valuable feature is the fact that it uses Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel as base templates, so when you generate, it's easy for clients to upgrade, and maintain, and generate out either a PDF or an actual Excel spreadsheet."

"You can use Microsoft Office as your designer interface. There is very little programming. You can have nontechnical people create reports."

"Creating dynamic table of contents (TOC) based on dynamic data in different reports."

"We can develop any report at least five times faster."

"We ended up going with Windward for the level of support we got from them during our proof of concept."

"It's easy to create templates and reports using Microsoft Word, so we don't have to learn something new to create a template. That makes it very user-friendly... they have integrated the product with Microsoft Word. People can easily start working on it without too much training."

"The usually the response is within one hour. The technical support will WebEx with you. I rate them as a 10 out of 10."

More Windward Core pros

Cons

"It could have more options for themes."

"It would be nice to offer free online training on the tool for end-users."

"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."

"The technical support team’s response time is slow and needs to be improved."

"It would be good if the solution had conditional formatting."

"The AI-based features could be further enhanced by the solution."

"There are a lot of limitations with the out-of-the-box tool."

"We need more predictive analytical functions, not only diagnostic or decryptic analytics."

More IBM Cognos cons

"It would be really nice to have better integration between the solution and Power BI."

"The complex tuning for report performance is complicated. There is a lack of native support for source code control. We often need to use separate tools like VS Code or other software to manage version control and changes in the database. It would be beneficial if source code management were integrated directly into SSRS, thus eliminating the need to rely on external tools. While CLI-based operations are exemplary, the trend is towards GUI for a better user experience. Integrating both visualization and source code management within SSRS would simplify the process for users."

"I would like the solution to add the scheduling feature for reports."

"The product could be improved by reducing the time it takes to build and deploy reports."

"There is room for improvement in the pricing model."

"We have had issues with the refresh interval since we have too many reports scheduled. Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is also expensive."

"The product should improve its performance."

"Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services needs to improve performance."

More Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services cons

"There is always room for improvement in the speed, especially with the complex, multi-line Excel spreadsheets. They made some improvements in the last version that are quantum-fold faster than when I first started. But there is always room for improvement there. You always want reports faster and faster."

"The error reports also need improvement. If you don't key it in right, it's a little hard to find the root cause. It gives you information as much as it can, but it doesn't really hone in and tell you explicitly what you should do to correct the problem."

"We would like to shrink these reports into one page, because there is a lot of free space on one page, but we cannot shrink it into the one page to be shorter. This is one thing we would like to change."

"It would be nice to have a black-and-white, ideal setup for servers, to maximize capabilities. We went through a lot of scenarios to get something that is scalable. An ideal AWS-package server setup could have saved us a lot of time. But I understand this is very company specific."

"They could make the document creation performance faster. I'm not saying it's slow but it takes time to create the PDFs. If they could make it faster, that would be one area for improvement."

"There are some Excel formatting things that you lose when you implement a template: some default Excel validation scripts, macros. You could create them in Excel if you were just using Excel, but in creating a template that generates a report, some of those validation things are lost."

"It needs better support for upgrades and more control over layout of elements. Upgrades tend to break existing output. Elements do not position where expected due to insertion of blank lines and page breaks. It takes time to fix these through trial and error."

"It needs the ability to drill down in a single report (i.e., interactive) into data."

More Windward Core cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing and licensing policies are comparatively cheaper than other products in the market ."

"Pricing should be improved."

"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."

"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."

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

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

"It is averagely priced."

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

More IBM Cognos pricing and cost advice

"The price is pretty good."

"The solution is cheaper than its alternatives."

"The tool's licensing costs are expensive."

"The solution is free to use for developers."

"The product pricing is reasonable in terms of suitable features for business."

"The solution is expensive."

"Value-wise, the solution's pricing is good for the price that we pay."

"The pricing is high."

"Pricing is something I complain about. Production pricing is okay, but for a testing environment the pricing looks a bit high to me."

"I can't advise anybody about pricing and licensing, but it was competitive. A lot of things we did look at were all volume-based, so it was a case of you buy a license to generate this many reports a year, and that's not something that I'm particularly interested in because it doesn't give you any idea - if we have future growth, or if we have a lean year - for budgeting reasons it's more difficult. With Windward it's a straight out license fee, whether we generate one page or we generate a million, it makes no difference."

"For what you're getting, it's an extremely good value."

"They are fair and flexible. They are willing to work with your current architecture to make sure you have the best deal."

"The cost is reasonable."

"The pricing is very reasonable for what it provides. The report builder is about one grand per user... We are paying for a support contract, which is 20 percent of the price, but because the licenses are perpetual, I think the pricing is very reasonable."

"It is absolutely worth the value. They have flexibility, depending on what you're looking for from a buying standpoint. The current pricing models are quite flexible, with the ability to use it on an as-needed basis, or to get a perpetual license that covers a customer that might have extensive needs. I think it's pretty good."

"Pricing is a bit higher than normal desktop applications, but it's well worth it. The ROI is simple to understand and the monthly payment for an annual license is affordable and worth it."

More Windward Core pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Reporting solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

55%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Government

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Real Estate/Law Firm

Manufacturing Company

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 Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services?

I mainly use the solution for the ease of reporting and for executive dashboards.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services?

Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services should be okay if you're within the budget. We're just using open-source solu...

What needs improvement with Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services?

QL Server can support the customer language in the long term, so we can use another language to build some components.

Microsoft Power BI vs IBM Cognos

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

Comparisons

Compared 13% of the time

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

QlikView vs IBM Cognos

Compared 3% of the time

More IBM Cognos Competitors

TIBCO Jaspersoft vs Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services

Compared 24% of the time

Tableau vs Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services

Compared 15% of the time

Oracle OBIEE vs Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services

Compared 12% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services

Compared 10% of the time

SAP Crystal Reports vs Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services

Compared 9% of the time

More Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services Competitors

SAP Crystal Reports vs Windward Core

Compared 57% of the time

Docmosis vs Windward Core

Compared 43% of the time

More Windward Core Competitors

Product Reports

IBM Cognos

Download IBM Cognos product report

Microsoft SQL Servering Services

Download Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services product report

Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services report

Download Windward Core product report

Windward Core

November 2024

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics

SQL Server Reporting Services, Microsoft SSRS, SSRS, MS SQL Server Reporting Services

Windward, Windward Studios

Learn More

IBM

Microsoft

Windward Studios

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.”

At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Our mission is grounded in both the world in which we live and the future we strive to create. Today, we live in a mobile-first, cloud-first world, and the transformation we are driving across our businesses is designed to enable Microsoft and our customers to thrive in this world.

We do business in 170 countries and are made up of 114,000 passionate employees dedicated to fulfilling our mission of helping you and your organization achieve more.

What is Windward Studios?

For over a decade, Windward has been a leader in the software development industry by creating the most innovative and advanced document automation and reporting software on the planet.

Data-Driven Document Automation

Generate stunning documents that incorporate relevant data easily and seamlessly.

Visually Striking Designs

Our software provides innovative tools and features to build beautiful designs and stunning layouts, all within the familiar Microsoft Office Suite. Your imagination is the only limitation.

Agile Document Logic

We offer the best document automation software for the new millennium. With our conditional logic functionality, you can swiftly personalize the document content to gratify your end users.

Huge Time Saver

Looking for faster template creation that enables you to keep pace with your business? With our software, template creation takes minutes and you do not need any programming experience to get it done.

Exceptionally Intuitive Interface

Our program's design offers documents that can be edited, customized and designed using MS Office. Enjoy a stress-free document automation experience in programs you already know.

Efficient Savings

Significantly reduce the resources and time required for template development by using our streamlined template design and document automation tools.

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.

CMS Wire, The New York Times

HAL, Inc., Axe Group, White Clark Group, Blueprint Software, Aspect Security, Nucleus Software, LeBlanc’s Food Stores, South Sound 911, Aegon, Barclays, Fidelity Investments, ArisGlobal LLC, USDA, RepLink, AON Hewitt

Microsoft SQL Servering Services vs. Windward Core