We performed a comparison between IBM Cognos and Tableau based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: In this comparison, IBM Cognos comes out on top. Users are happier with the support than Tableau users are, and IBM Cognos users also report an ROI.
"We use the account statement report. When you use an account in HSBC, you receive various types of accounts, such as the stock market, fixed accounts, credit cards, and business accounts. We can create one consolidated report called CCS support, which includes all these accounts. In that statement, we are consolidating all those accounts."
"For planning, forecasting, in-boxing, modeling in general and for predicting numbers and doing work analysis, they are excellent."
"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."
"The Report Studio that is aimed at professional report writers."
"Security administration tools are powerful and flexible."
"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."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its ease of use, which makes it easily compatible with other tools."
"The dashboarding offered by this solution is very valuable to us."
"Data handling, visualizations, and aesthetics of it are the most valuable features."
"It's very user-friendly. It's not like Power BI, Tableau is very user-friendly. Anybody can use Tableau. It's very easy to adopt things. I can visualize the stats."
"Tableau will automatically show charts for the related data that I choose making it very easy to use."
"I like the solution's web version, more so than Power BI's web version. It just makes it easier to drag and drop things and to blend data on the backend. It simplifies the process."
"Tableau is an advanced specialized tool. One of the best features I've seen is the lack of an intermediate semantic layer. I think that's an advantage compared to any other tool like BusinessObjects or Power BI, which are Tableau's biggest competitors."
"It most valuable feature is its ease of developing visualizations, not just charts and graphs."
"The solution is being delivered to our customer, who appreciates the insights generated from the reports. It is easy for them to drill into the details and use interactive charts."
"Compared to other products, visualization features are really good."
"The AI-based features could be further enhanced by the solution."
"The high cost of a license makes it hard to scale up on a budget."
"I would like to see the introduction of mapbooks for supporting some geographical information."
"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."
"IBM Support can be slow at times, but they can usually deliver in a timely manner."
"Tableau and Power BI are faster than Cognos."
"Extending features on dashboards so it becomes a real dashboard building application, not only a data exploration tool."
"There are some problems with how Cognos handles huge data sets and when connecting with multiple sources and searching the data."
"It should offer better features for customization."
"When we put more information on a single screen, it gets compressed and superimposed in many places while scrolling."
"The product's features for cloud integration need improvement."
"It will be good if the server, could be more stable, and I would like to have the technical service to be more reliable."
"With performance tuning, it generates a pretty complex query when it is not required."
"A strict security measure is needed. I believe it is weak in terms of security."
"The solution does have scalability issues."
"It needs a little bit more advanced modeling. I would like to see functionality like Cognos has in the Framework Manager."
IBM Cognos is ranked 4th in Reporting with 132 reviews while Tableau is ranked 2nd in Reporting with 292 reviews. IBM Cognos is rated 8.0, while Tableau is rated 8.4. 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 Tableau writes "Provides fast data access with in-memory extracts, makes it easy to create visualizations, and saves time". IBM Cognos is most compared with Microsoft Power BI, Oracle OBIEE, SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform, Oracle Hyperion and Amazon QuickSight, whereas Tableau is most compared with Microsoft Power BI, Amazon QuickSight, Domo, SAS Visual Analytics and QlikView. See our IBM Cognos vs. Tableau report.
See our list of best Reporting vendors and best BI (Business Intelligence) Tools vendors.
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.