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SAP Analytics Cloud vs ThoughtSpot 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)
SAP Analytics Cloud
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
Predictive Analytics (2nd)
ThoughtSpot
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
17th
Average Rating
7.6
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (11th), Embedded BI (7th)
 

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.
RamasamyTelungupalayam - PeerSpot reviewer
Seamless integration, collaborative features, and enhances data exploration
There are several areas for improvement in SAP Analytics Cloud. Firstly, features available in SAP Lumira are missing in SAP Analytics Cloud. Secondly, the predictive analytics functions, although promising, are currently only suitable for Proof of Concepts (POCs) and not for industrial-scale use. Lastly, the pricing model for the planning functionality is quite high and presents an entry barrier.
Anthony Fiorino - PeerSpot reviewer
You can drill down into any data right out of the box, with a straightforward deployment, and great support
The most valuable feature is probably the core functionality itself, which is the ability to search and drill down into any data right out of the box. Of course, there's data modeling needed, and things like that, but I can throw it at a set, and I can get up and running in a matter of hours. If a new group comes to me and says, "Hey, I've heard about ThoughtSpot. I have some data and I want to be able to do some analytics, do some profiling, do some BI against it." In a couple of hours, I connect to their source and I just do it. Now for a production product, we have to model and perform it over time, but at least I can get people up and running extremely fast with a tool that's intuitive and easy to use.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cognos' most valuable features are the bundled studios, simple UI, and advanced features like the ability to create data modules."
"Dashboarding, reporting, and ad hoc reporting are the valuable features of IBM Cognos."
"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."
"The Report Studio that is aimed at professional report writers."
"For planning, forecasting, in-boxing, modeling in general and for predicting numbers and doing work analysis, they are excellent."
"The dashboarding offered by this solution is very valuable to us."
"IBM Cognos improves the effectiveness of the sales team."
"It has a very powerful edit feature which allows users to back out of changes (undo) without forcing them to recreate entire reports."
"SAP Analytics Cloud allows you to quickly perform various tasks in terms of virtualization. CyberArk itself requires some enhancements to better connect with other technologies. While it's easy to connect with SAP, using analytics tools may sometimes necessitate sourcing information from different platforms. You might need data from SAP or other technologies/platforms to access specific information not available within SAP. SAP is effective for managing storage and enhancing virtualization capabilities."
"The SKU, the story build all are user- friendly. For the story build one just has to drag and drop it. And for the table, you just need some sort of selections and everything there."
"The solution is stable."
"The visualization feature is the most valuable. SAP Analytics Cloud is also very easy to use."
"In the data warehouse, you're free to make changes. You can make everything text, meaning it's always a string. Even numbers appear as text, giving you the flexibility to work with all columns."
"Easy to use."
"The user interface is quite good for developing reports out of models."
"The Smart Predict, Smart Insights, and Smart Discovery predictive analysis features are quite good."
"It's easy to drill down or expand data to get more details right out of the box."
"The scalability is good."
"The initial setup was very straightforward."
"I would say the return on investment is good. Whatever we invested, we got results. We have been finding it easy to use and onboard new use cases."
"ThoughtSpot takes the modifying of existing reports out of our hands."
"The ability to do ad hoc explorations of data has been most valuable."
"I like ThoughtSpot's search capabilities. You can also create custom analytics even if you aren't an experienced data analyst. We have users with no data analytics experience making some of the dashboards we've created, copying components, and customizing them to their specific use cases."
"It is easy to set up the solution."
 

Cons

"It would be good if the solution had conditional formatting."
"The high cost of a license makes it hard to scale up on a budget."
"Cognos charts are not as fast as those of the other tools, even with DQM (dynamic query mode)."
"I would like for the platform to become more standard. If we make a development on our report and our dashboard, it will not be used in another solution. That means there is no portability for the developers."
"They should provide improved visual reporting."
"IBM Cognos's error messages seem to be a bit ambiguous. An error will be encountered and a message will be sent out very ambiguous and after investigating the error message it could be any number of issues. There was never a direct answer to the question or a direct answer to the error messages. Sometimes it would be a generic error message for 21 different solutions. It wasn't very specific, which required a lot of digging around and trial and error trying to fix the problem. The messaging in their error messaging is something needing improvement."
"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."
"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."
"I would like to see reporting to the Analytics cloud directly."
"The predictive analytics functions, although promising, are currently only suitable for Proof of Concepts (POCs) and not for industrial-scale use."
"However, there are areas of improvement, particularly in terms of visualization. The front-end interface of SAP Analytics Cloud is not as impressive as Tableau and Power BI. The charts in other solutions have a more visually appealing and customizable look, while in SAP Analytics Cloud, there's a lack of alignment between numbers and charts. This graphical aspect, especially concerning charts, is not as satisfactory in SAP Analytics Cloud compared to its counterparts."
"All the features are there, maybe except for the one-gauge visualization."
"Custom visuals is another area of improvement. There are also some mobile features that are missing. There are features that aren't available on the mobile."
"An area for improvement in SAP Analytics Cloud is its planning feature because it's not that efficient when compared to BPC. Another area for improvement in the solution is the difficulty in building reports or dashboards, particularly if you don't have proper knowledge of the BI system. SAP Analytics Cloud technical support also needs improvement."
"One potential improvement is how we can transpose data. With SAP, if you have data from one system with a declared data type and a different system with another data type, the transfer is tricky."
"Improvements are coming quarterly whereas previously it was on a monthly basis."
"The one area of the solution that I do hear needs improvement is on the visualization front."
"A customized visualization is lacking in this product."
"In terms of features, I'd like to be able to pivot data - for example, going from rows to columns. It's not easy to do."
"I would like to see more flexibility in adding the pins. Currently, we have four different sizes in which I can add pins, but I would like to be able to resize my pins."
"The dashboards could give you more ability to fine tune the appearance. You get a great deal more control over how something looks in Power BI than you do in ThoughtSpot."
"ThoughtSpot is a fairly new product, so some usability aspects aren't as mature as we'd like them to be. One example is their organizational methodology, like how objects are organized in their dashboards inside the product. They're all on a flat list, which works if you've got five or 10 dashboards. However, it's insufficient when you're a large enterprise with multiple groups looking at the same dashboards. It isn't organized well."
"If I want to order columns, this feature is not there."
"The most difficult thing I found is that it only deals with the files and does not have direct connectivity to databases."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is affordable."
"IBM Cognos offers competitive pricing similar to other BI vendors in the market."
"It is averagely priced."
"Pricing should be improved."
"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."
"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 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."
"The pricing of this product is meant for medium to large-scale enterprises."
"The premium option is very expensive at five thousand dollars. I use the nine hundred and ninety-nine dollar option."
"Compute and storage features should be sold separately."
"The platform is about 50% more expensive than Power BI."
"Its price is slightly on the higher side."
"The product is expensive."
"SAP Analytics can be very costly to license, which can make it difficult for organizations to implement."
"The pricing is based on an annual license and is rated a four out of ten."
"It Wasn't directly involved in the pricing discussions, but when I joined the organization, they had already purchased the SAP Analytics Cloud solution. The organization faced challenges due to its perceived expense, leading to restrictions on granting access to many users."
"I give the pricing a six out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
56%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
5%
Government
4%
Educational Organization
24%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

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...
Which would you choose - Tableau or SAP Analytics Cloud?
Tableau is easy to set up and maintain. In about a day it is possible for the entire platform to be deployed for use....
What do you like most about SAP Analytics Cloud?
In the data warehouse, you're free to make changes. You can make everything text, meaning it's always a string. Even ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP Analytics Cloud?
The pricing model for SAP Analytics Cloud is quite competitive, but the cost for the planning functionality is high a...
What do you like most about ThoughtSpot?
It's easy to drill down or expand data to get more details right out of the box.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ThoughtSpot?
I like the pricing structure. I get billed by how much data I put in, not how many people are looking at the data. It...
What needs improvement with ThoughtSpot?
We'd like more flexibility with the calendar as our fiscal year does not align with the calendar year. We have to loa...
 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
SAP BusinessObjects Cloud
No data available
 

Learn More

 

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.
Live Oak Bank
Primary Capital Mortgage, Sterling Backcheck, RichRelevance, Rambus, Batteries Plus Bulbs
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP Analytics Cloud vs. ThoughtSpot and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,192 professionals have used our research since 2012.