Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Sisense vs Tableau comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Cognos
Sponsored
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
7th
Ranking in Reporting
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sisense
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
22nd
Ranking in Reporting
17th
Average Rating
8.8
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Analytics (4th), Data Visualization (16th), Embedded BI (9th)
Tableau
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
2nd
Ranking in Reporting
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
294
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (1st), Embedded BI (1st)
 

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 Sisense is 1.5%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tableau is 20.6%, up from 18.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Q&A Highlights

it_user137202 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 07, 2014
 

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.
FernandoMorote - PeerSpot reviewer
Business intelligence solution that has improved automation and provided meaningful insights
This solution does not have tabs. In order to have tabs, you have to download an add-on to mimic the tabs. They should be integrated to improve the solution. We have also experienced bugs in the widget which has required us to delete the widget and recreate it. When one user adds filters to data, the next user sees the same results which can cause confusion. The next user can also make changes to the data.
ROMIL SHAH - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides fast data access with in-memory extracts, makes it easy to create visualizations, and saves time
When it comes to visualizations, Tableau has a limitation as compared to Power BI. It has a limited set of visualizations. Power BI has the entire marketplace, so you can connect and import many visualizations and use them, whereas Tableau has only 10 or 15 visualizations. There should be more visualizations, and there should also be data integration with more cloud providers. Tableau has recently launched a paid version for the documentation. So, documentation has become a little bit challenging when it comes to Tableau development because we do not have any tool to export the data out of it. It is a license-based feature that you need to purchase to prepare documentation. So, on the documentation front, for preparing clear documentation for any dashboard, it would help if we get an embedded option, rather than buying a license for each user for the documentation. To document anything, if I have to connect to each workbook and see what has been written as a formula and then document in the Word document, it is pretty time-consuming. We have the Microsoft stack, and we are currently evaluating Power BI because Tableau has a limitation of 50 columns for a drill-down report. If we want more than 50 columns, we have found a hack, but there is no ready-made option for doing it. So, we have to use another tool in case we need a drilled report with more than 50 columns. There are many instances where users need 80 or 90 columns for their analysis, and switching between two technologies becomes a challenge. It is not a cost-effective approach for us. Their support should be improved. We are not happy with their support. Whenever we raised queries, we were pointed to a few blogs, and we didn't get a proper solution from them. Their licensing should also be improved. They want us to purchase a Tableau Creator license for business users, whereas Power BI Desktop is free for business users. They should come up with a basic license with one or two connectors that our business users can use for preparing their visualizations. Tableau also charges us per user for users who want the data only through email.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Security administration tools are powerful and flexible."
"The product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"It has a very powerful edit feature which allows users to back out of changes (undo) without forcing them to recreate entire reports."
"Report Studio: This is the most powerful and sophisticated tool for professional reporting."
"Dashboarding, reporting, and ad hoc reporting are the valuable features of IBM Cognos."
"IBM Cognos is an excellent solution for tax, planning, budgeting, profit and loss statements and balance sheets."
"No issues with stability. It is a very stable solution."
"Allows us to execute heavy, complex computations on the fly so customers can slice and dice the data based on their business needs."
"ElastiCube Manager is a very easy to use ETL tool, which includes the ability to easily transform raw data into reusable data."
"The most valuable thing I have found is the ability for Sisense to connect data from totally different sources."
"The dashboard design interface is very intuitive and allows you to quickly and easily produce professional, innovative dashboards."
"Whenever we have an issue or are unsure how to proceed, they manage to simplify the issue and help us execute it in a graceful and scalable way."
"Visually displaying data."
"The best part about this solution is how easy it is to mash up the data from many sources. Sisense is fast compared to other solutions."
"Better interaction and less time spent with end users."
"It has a shallow learning curve and so you can go to market very, very, very quickly."
"Its performance is pretty good, and the development time is very low."
"It has been the best tool to work with from a self-service point of view."
"The action feature which Tableau has is very useful for us. If we click on one visualization, it will pass the value to another visualization. That interactivity within different visualizations is the most valuable feature of Tableau."
"The number one thing was just the ease of getting something up quickly. The other thing that was good about it was that it was fairly fast for decent-sized data sets in terms of performance and run time."
"We frequently utilize visualizations using maps and different objects, all with rich coloring options. And tooltips are absolutely essential for us. Tooltips, like the pop-up descriptions when you hover over some object or graph. Those tooltips in Tableau are great features."
"The most valuable features are data discovery and fine visualizations."
 

Cons

"It would be better if it is was easier to implement without extensive training for it."
"This product could use improvement in terms of usability for those with less technical know how."
"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."
"Need improvement towards Visualization."
"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."
"Tableau and Power BI are faster than Cognos."
"Extending dynamic cubes aggregate awareness with calculated measures."
"I think the GIS pieces maybe not as good as we would like."
"At present there are additional costs involved if we wish to share our data queues within this solution, which we would like to see removed."
"I would also like to be able to run a bursts of reports based on different field values with PDF output right in the tool, rather than filtering on each field value and generating each PDF manually."
"The initial version we purchased only ran on Windows servers, which was less than ideal for our DevOps team. I believe that has been remedied in the latest release."
"I would love to have more customization capabilities for building dashboards, especially in creating custom widget sizes."
"I would like Sisense to improve its performance, particularly when we are dealing with large-scale data."
"They should improve the filters to create downloaded data by moving them to the top of the dashboard."
"Larger datasets will sometimes give a "Accumulated logs" error when trying to make minor changes. T"
"I would like to see more development and growth for the support of Knowledge Base and Community forums."
"The only issue with the solution is with its prices at a regional level."
"Licensing and pricing options could be made better so that more users would be able to use it."
"Creating empty extracts is not easy."
"There should be stronger data modules for the platform."
"The product needs to allow for better ways to drill down more effectively on the information at hand."
"Its price is a concern. It is more expensive than Power BI. The other thing that I never liked about Tableau is its ability to handle large sets of data. To present the data in the dashboards, we have to stage it up exactly like it is going to come into the dashboard. We use another tool called Alteryx that does that for us. So, we manipulate the data, get it staged, and then push it into Tableau. Tableau is terrible at handling large data sets, and we knew right away that we couldn't use Tableau to do data manipulation."
"The price could be better."
"The data processing in Tableau is pathetic compared to Qlik."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"IBM Cognos is priced reasonable. However, it is more expensive than Power BI and Tableau."
"IBM Cognos offers competitive pricing similar to other BI vendors in the market."
"The pricing of this product is meant for medium to large-scale enterprises."
"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."
"On a scale from one to ten where one is low pricing and ten is high pricing, I would rate this solution at eight."
"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."
"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."
"It is pretty expensive."
"Compared to Power BI or Tableau, Sisense is much more expensive."
"This solution is more expensive than Tableau, Qlik and Dundas. It is an expensive tool. They charge $75,000 while Tableau is $45,000."
"Buy 50 at a time. Project your use base every three months, and project your requirements forward."
"Tableau is not as cost-effective as Microsoft BI."
"At $70 per month, I think the price is a bit scary. I have a small consulting firm in Ghana, working in about 15 different African countries, and when it comes to our part of the world, $70 a month is a lot of money for software."
"The license is very expensive."
"I believe it has a lifelong license, and once you purchase it, you don't have to renew it, but I'm not sure."
"The solution is very expensive. If you have many users then it is going to cost your company a lot of money."
"Pricing could be better. I believe they should offer better pricing for deployment in small to mid-sized companies."
"We are on an annual license which costs us $1,400 which is very expensive. Microsft BI is less expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which BI (Business Intelligence) Tools solutions are best for your needs.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user6330 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 2, 2013
MicroStrategy vs. Tableau
After a recent presentation, several attendees asked me about the applications of Visual Insights and Tableau. Many companies are investing in both tools and are trying to figure out the right tool for specific applications Tableau has found its sweet-spot as an agile discovery tool that analysts…
 

Answers from the Community

it_user137202 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 7, 2014
Aug 7, 2014
Thanks everyone for the great input... I have zeroed down to Tableau; and will shortly post my reasons for doing so. I DO hope they will help future products selectors. Regards pete
2 out of 15 answers
it_user134976 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 30, 2014
Afraid I'm not that familiar with either of them Sent from my Windows 8 Phone ________________________________
it_user4008 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 30, 2014
Self service Visual Intelligence left the station some time ago. Tableau became the standard years ago but more importantly since going public Tableau's investment into R&D as a % of revenues is always north of industry standards thus Tableau reinvests for the future consistently. Do not base your assessment on "feeds and speeds" (read features) only. Pretend that you are the owner of the company picking a vendor and base you selection on business issues and reference calls to clients
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
56%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
5%
Government
4%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
6%
University
6%
Educational Organization
40%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
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...
What do you like most about Sisense?
The solution's technical support team is good.
What needs improvement with Sisense?
I would say that using Sisense on Linux's platform might not be advantageous for everyone. I am more familiar with Wi...
What is your primary use case for Sisense?
For the use case, the tool is mostly used from an analytic point of view. We are focused on huge data size because th...
Tableau vs. Business Objects - Which is a better solution for visualization and analysis?
Both tools have their positives and negatives. First, I should mention that I am relatively new to Tableau. I have be...
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 Tableau?
Tableau is a fantastic tool that provides impressive dashboards and customized reports.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
No data available
Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online
 

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.
Ebay, WIX, Wave Accounting, ESPN.com, Magellan Luxury Hotel, Paylogic, Sony, Merck, EDA, One Hour Translation, NASA, Plastic Jungle, Philips, Yahoo
Accenture, Adobe, Amazon.com, Bank of America, Charles Schwab Corp, Citigroup, Coca-Cola Company, Cornell University, Dell, Deloitte, Duke University, eBay, Exxon Mobil, Fannie Mae, Ferrari, French Red Cross, Goldman Sachs, Google, Government of Canada, HP, Intel, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Macy's, Merck, The New York Times, PayPal, Pfizer, US Army, US Air Force, Skype, and Walmart.
Find out what your peers are saying about Sisense vs. Tableau and other solutions. Updated: November 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.