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TIBCO Spotfire 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)
ThoughtSpot
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
17th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (11th), Embedded BI (7th)
TIBCO Spotfire
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
16th
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
68
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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.
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.
Fuad Mammadli - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup was straightforward."
"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 tool can join data from different sources, write back to databases, generate alerts, and be customized to our preferences. It's an enterprise BI tool that's more powerful than just visualization tools like Power BI or Tableau."
"Cognos' most valuable features are the bundled studios, simple UI, and advanced features like the ability to create data modules."
"The initial setup is very straightforward."
"A positive feature is Report Studio, where we create beautiful, complex reports."
"I have worked on the features like dashboards and stories, and I do like them a lot."
"We are able to generate quality reports easily which allows us to decrease response time."
"It's easy to drill down or expand data to get more details right out of the box."
"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."
"It is easy to set up the solution."
"The ability to do ad hoc explorations of data has been most valuable."
"The scalability is good."
"ThoughtSpot takes the modifying of existing reports out of our hands."
"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."
"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."
"It allows users to quickly analyze data from a variety of sources and visualize it with powerful, interactive graphs, and charts."
"TIBCO Spotfire is easy to use. We initiated Spotfire as POC, with support from a tech team based in South Africa. While they assisted with the setup, we conducted the POC ourselves."
"I appreciate Spotfire's range of visualization options, advanced analytics features, and seamless integration with other TIBCO products."
"Spotfire is excellent for scientific applications, especially because of its integration with RNG."
"The product's initial setup phase was simple."
"It’s stable and straightforward."
"The flexibility, data preparation, and data wrangling abilities of the platform are exceptional."
 

Cons

"In terms of what could be improved, I would say, monitoring, monitoring, monitoring. Some improvements in monitoring would be helpful. I'd like to see more monitoring of specific reports and fields. The way the auditing is now is very limited, so I'd like to see more of that - of the monitoring."
"Data modeling needs to be improved. We use the ETL process, and when we get errors, we then need to identify which structural change is required. The error messaging should be better. They should be descriptive rather than semantic."
"Compared to Tableau and PowerBI, the IBM interface is easier to use. However, the drag-and-drop functionality isn't as straightforward. Formatting is also more challenging in the cloud than in other applications, like Power BI. Also, if you encounter an issue, it takes more time to resolve it on the formatting side."
"One key area for improvement is the need to improve the self-service nature and functionality of the product in terms of visual analytics."
"Extending dynamic cubes aggregate awareness with calculated measures."
"IBM Support can be slow at times, but they can usually deliver in a timely manner."
"There are a lot of limitations with the out-of-the-box tool."
"Tableau and Power BI are faster than Cognos."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The most difficult thing I found is that it only deals with the files and does not have direct connectivity to databases."
"If I want to order columns, this feature is not there."
"A customized visualization is lacking in this product."
"The design of the UI could be improved."
"The Text Area feature needs to be more user-friendly. It is a little clunky to use, and it is difficult to consistently format text."
"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."
"One aspect where Spotfire could improve is its global recognition, especially in terms of support."
"I would like more easy-to-implement analytical algorithms. At the moment they include things like forecasts and regressions. They need to add a lot more of these types of things to the product because not everyone is a data scientist."
"The handling and consumption of realtime data could be improved."
"The layered features within Spotfire can make it a bit complicated sometimes as compared to Power BI."
"We encountered difficulties connecting the special data sets, as the post data set did not contain any shared columns, making it difficult to establish a connection between the data sets."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing and licensing policies are comparatively cheaper than other products in the market ."
"Pricing should be improved."
"It is my understanding that the cost is very low. It's not very expensive."
"The solution is affordable."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I give the pricing a six out of ten."
"I would describe TIBCO Spotfire as an averagely-priced product."
"The cost of TIBCO Spotfire could improve. It should be less expensive. It's the most expensive visualization tool in our company."
"The price-point for this solution is negotiable depending on usage levels."
"The pricing seems competitive and reasonable. The value delivered by the product far exceeds the cost."
"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."
"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 ROI is nearly impossible to calculate."
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Top Industries

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

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
No data available
Spotfire
 

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.
Primary Capital Mortgage, Sterling Backcheck, RichRelevance, Rambus, Batteries Plus Bulbs
Allergan, ASSS de Montreal, Avantium, Blue River, Bank of Montreal, Citibank, FrieslandCampina, Hellmann Logistics, Merck, Novartis
Find out what your peers are saying about TIBCO Spotfire vs. ThoughtSpot and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.