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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
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.
RamasamyTelungupalayam - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 12, 2024
Seamless integration, collaborative features, and enhances data exploration
Our primary use cases for SAP Analytics Cloud are dashboarding and planning. It's integrated with our ERP systems, and we use it to pull data, create models, display charts, and develop dashboards SAP Analytics Cloud has improved our organization by providing collaborative features, such as…
Anthony Fiorino - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 14, 2022
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

"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."
"The comprehensiveness or broadness of the software functions or business intelligence functions that it provides is valuable. It is also quite easy to use and user-friendly."
"Using custom controls, it is possible to extend the application with even more functionality and make the application intuitive and attractive."
"If they want dashboarding, storytelling, and analyzing why KPIs are met or not, then Cognos is a better candidate than Qlik Sense."
"I have worked on the features like dashboards and stories, and I do like them a lot."
"The solution's initial setup process is easy."
"The correlation analysis is excellent. It's one of the best that I have used to date."
"Planning is the most valuable feature of the product because it's integrated and that means we don't need to rely on an independent planning environment."
"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."
"Considering the reporting part, I rate the tool a nine out of ten."
"SAP Analytics Cloud is a very good tool. The feature that's most useful for me is the reporting as it can be done via Google Chrome. The solution is also very nice, user-friendly, and easy to build. It's very easy to use the features of SAP Analytics Cloud."
"The product's most valuable features are reporting and planning, driverless planning, business vertical-wise planning, dashboarding, forecasting tools, and business forecasting."
"We mainly use Analytics Cloud because it integrates with other SAP solutions. Our ERP is an SAP product, and our back-end is SAP Business Warehouse, so integration is an essential factor."
"Technical support is helpful."
"The most valuable features of SAP Analytics Cloud are its native integration with SAP data and the ability to leverage SAP artifacts."
"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 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."
"The scalability is good."
"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's easy to drill down or expand data to get more details right out of the box."
"The initial setup was very straightforward."
"It is easy to set up the solution."
 

Cons

"There are a lot of limitations with the out-of-the-box tool."
"It is a costly product; it is comparatively expensive."
"There are many problems with the product's stability part, making it an area where improvements are required."
"IBM Support can be slow at times, but they can usually deliver in a timely manner."
"Cognos is quite slow - it's missing the performance of the PowerPlay cubes."
"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."
"It could have more options for themes."
"The technical support team’s response time is slow and needs to be improved."
"SAP could add more templates to the platform."
"Its integration or connectivity with non-SAP systems, big data, and social media, such as YouTube, LinkedIn, et cetera, can be improved. This is where SAP has limited features as compared to other solutions."
"Some of the standard visualizations, such as a speedometer or a goal chart, are not there and should be added."
"Could have more tabular reporting capabilities."
"Sometimes we have difficulty connecting to a SharePoint list."
"The integration with other vendors and solutions could be improved."
"It is very expensive."
"SAP Analytics Cloud requires a lot of coding and I would like the coding to be somewhat minimal."
"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."
"A customized visualization is lacking in this product."
"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."
"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."
"If I want to order columns, this feature is not there."
"The one area of the solution that I do hear needs improvement is on the visualization front."
"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."
"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

"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 licensing costs are a little bit higher for IBM Cognos. I don't think there is any additional cost apart from the licensing charges."
"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."
"IBM Cognos offers competitive pricing similar to other BI vendors in the market."
"My company uses IBM Cognos with another IBM product, so I think only one license is used."
"It is pretty expensive."
"IBM Cognos is priced reasonable. However, it is more expensive than Power BI and Tableau."
"The solution is affordable."
"It's not that costly as such for the time being."
"The product is expensive."
"Its price is slightly on the higher side."
"Compute and storage features should be sold separately."
"SAP pricing tends to be premium, so it is slightly higher."
"The platform is about 50% more expensive than Power BI."
"Its pricing is okay as compared to its competitors."
"The pricing is based on an annual license and is rated a four out of ten."
"I give the pricing a six out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
57%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
5%
Government
4%
Educational Organization
23%
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.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.