IBM Cognos vs QlikView: Major Factors to Finding Your Best Tool

Qlik and IBM give their customers with a broad range of products. Two such popular BI tools are QlikView and IBM Cognos. Some of you might be common with either or both means. Although both the devices are business intelligence platforms, certain things make them distinctly different from each other.

So, are you excited to understand the difference between IBM Cognos and Qlikview?

What Is IBM Cognos?

IBM Cognos is an integrated business intelligence program offered by IBM. It is essentially a web-based service, which is a result of any individual services getting together. Cognos provides a comprehensive set of data analysis and visualization capabilities such as dashboarding, reporting, analytics, advanced analytics, etc. It comes as a combination of multiple components that work together to make an efficient business intelligence solution.

Elements of IBM Congos:

IBM Cognos Connection, IBM Cognos Insight, IBM Cognos Workspace, IBM Cognos Workspace Advanced, IBM Cognos Report Studio, IBM Cognos Event Studio, IBM Cognos Metric Studio, IBM Cognos Query Studio, IBM Cognos Analysis Studio, IBM Cognos Framework Manager, IBM Cognos Transformer, and IBM Cognos Cube Designer.

Characteristics of IBM Cognos:

• Simple and intuitive interface
• Personalized experience with customization capabilities
• Scheduling and alerts
• Interactive content available (online or offline)
• A complete web-based experience
• Easy upload of personal/external data
• Report directly off a data source
• Effortlessly merge data sources
• Dashboards work using drag and drop on mobile device or desktop
• Best automatic visualizations
• Various reporting templates and styles

What Is QlikView?

QlikView is a data analysis and visualization tool. Through which users can fetch, mix, process, and analyze data from various sources. It is used initially by developers who concentrate on developing data models, analytical applications, and dashboards, visualizations to create analytical reports and give it to end-users via the Access point. To read data and discover data trends, this access point can help end-user for accessing data, taking out searches, creating data models, visualization, etc.

Features of QlikView:

• Dynamic BI ecosystem
• Default and custom connectors
• Data visualizations
• Guided and advanced analytics
• Serves as an application development platform
• Supports devices such as Windows, iPhone, Mac, iPad, and web-based tools and apps
• English is the only supported language
• It is deployable on-premise, on-cloud, and on mobile

IBM Cognos Vs. QlikView

Here, we will discuss all factors of the distinction between IBM Cognos Vs. QlikView.

1. Ease of Use

• QlikView win points over Cognos when it gets to usability and ease of use. QlikView has more user-friendly dashboards with HTML5 graphical capabilities. Whereas, Cognos is reported sometimes to have bugs while working.

2. Supported Platform

• QlikView: QlikView offers platform agreement with Windows, web-based, iPhone/iPad, Mac, and Android devices.
• IBM Cognos: Cognos is harmonious with Windows, Linux, Mac, and web-based platforms.

3. Reporting

• QlikView: It is more useful than Cognos in data transformation, data modeling.
• IBM Cognos: Cognos is more useful in functionalities such as regular reporting, ad-hoc reporting, report output, scheduling, etc.
• Both QlikView and Cognos have the right user and reporting interface.

4. Introduction Control and Security

• IBM Cognos is better than QlikView in way control and security functionalities.

5. Self-service Capabilities

• QlikView: QlikView is better than Cognos in specific self-service capabilities such as data exploration and search.
• IBM Cognos: Cognos is somewhat better than QlikView in features like added fields, data column filtering, auto modeling, collaboration, and workflow.

6. Reliability and Availability

• QlikView is better in terms of security and availability as the QlikView server is very stable and causes sporadic outages or errors. However, Cognos lags behind Qlik as it still does not offer compatibility with some popular platforms and has limitations with browsing and dashboarding.

7. Performance

• QlikView: In terms of performance, QlikView is better than Cognos in customization, security, mobile user support, and sandbox/ test environment.
• IBM Cognos: However, Cognos documents to be better in user and role management, access management, internalization, and size of partner applications.

8. Support and Training

• QlikView: It gives good customer support through email, phone, live support training, and tickets. QlikView also conducts practical online and in-person training.
• IBM Cognos: Cognos also gives customer support in all ways except for living support. However, Cognos is known for its active online support and training, which is better than QlikView.

9. Company Size

• QlikView: QlikView gets its place in almost all sorts of industries, such as small scale, medium scale, and enterprise-level businesses.
• IBM Cognos: Similarly, Cognos is used in small, mid-sized, and enterprise-level setups. However, it is favored more by large scale enterprises.

IBM Cognos Vs. QlikView: Verdict

Both QlikView and IBM Cognos are successful business intelligence tools offering a wide range of data analysis, data modeling, and reporting capabilities.

The most fundamental difference between QlikView and IBM Cognos is that QlikView is a user-friendly and concentrates more on the end-user and data discovery. Cognos is a comprehensive reporting tool aiming mainly at the IT department’s control of data and advanced reporting and matrices.

However, both devices have their downsides as well. So, it only depends on the user’s demands and needs regarding what they want from the tool. Also, the cost of both devices is more or less similar. The only difference is that QlikView commissioning is a bit cheaper originally, but the total price adds up to a lot when the costs for support are also added. As with IBM Cognos, the upfront price is higher than QlikView but gives better customer support at minimal or no additional fee.