We performed a comparison between IBM Cognos and Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Reporting solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."IBM Cognos improves the effectiveness of the sales team."
"The most valuable feature of IBM Cognos is security. The solution has updated features that other competitors' solutions come out with long after IBM Cognos has had them."
"Integration with Office can enable the 'download' mode of storytelling."
"The correlation analysis is excellent. It's one of the best that I have used to date."
"For planning, forecasting, in-boxing, modeling in general and for predicting numbers and doing work analysis, they are excellent."
"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 main difference that I like about Cognos compared to other solutions is its data splitting functionality. We have all our company data inside the Cognos environment and so we prefer to split the information Cognos itself. It's more efficient this way."
"Dashboarding, reporting, and ad hoc reporting are the valuable features of IBM Cognos."
"The initial setup is easy."
"We can create quality reports in real time."
"I like Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services' automated reporting feature."
"The SQL Server Reporting Services makes it very easy to get the data whenever we need it."
"The solution is known for its robust security features."
"The solution's features are all just wrapped up in one nice easy package. I don't need a lot of toolsets to get everything I need done."
"We get good support from Microsoft."
"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."
"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."
"IBM Support can be slow at times, but they can usually deliver in a timely manner."
"Chart quality: many other competitors have charts and graphics that look much better and that provide dynamic effects. Cognos doesn't."
"The high cost of a license makes it hard to scale up on a budget."
"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."
"Need improvement towards Visualization."
"Extending features on dashboards so it becomes a real dashboard building application, not only a data exploration tool."
"The solution's support could be better."
"The setup is difficult because you have to install different servers."
"Sometimes, we need to make sure that the configuration stays consistent across the reporting instances. They all connect to the same database. So, it shares that same backend, but the reporting services itself can also be configured. On the application level, for reporting level. And it is, based on my own experience, it is a manual effort to make sure that the reporting servers are configured the same across the environment."
"It would be really nice to have better integration between the solution and Power BI."
"It doesn't have quite the flexibility of a Tableau or something like that. Many users are more comfortable with Tableau and I'm not quite sure why that is right now, but it seems to be the case."
"The solution's interface is old."
"We have had issues with the refresh interval since we have too many reports scheduled. Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is also expensive."
"Tableau is more user-friendly because it doesn't need to do any extra programming. It has drag-and-drop functionality."
"It is not easy to integrate the product with other tools in the market."
More Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services Pricing and Cost Advice →
IBM Cognos is ranked 4th in Reporting with 132 reviews while Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is ranked 8th in Reporting with 15 reviews. IBM Cognos is rated 8.0, while Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is rated 7.6. The top reviewer of IBM Cognos writes "Improved the quality of our KPIs, while reducing calls to the IT department". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services writes "Offers useful templates but needs to improve the connectivity offered". IBM Cognos is most compared with Microsoft Power BI, Oracle OBIEE, Tableau, SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform and Looker, whereas Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is most compared with TIBCO Jaspersoft, Microsoft Power BI, Tableau, SAP Crystal Reports and QlikView. See our IBM Cognos vs. Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services report.
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We monitor all Reporting reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.