Google Charts vs. IBM Cognos Analytics

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Google Charts
Score 7.0 out of 10
N/A
Google Charts provides a way to visualize data on your website - for free. From simple line charts to complex hierarchical tree maps, the chart gallery provides a large number of ready-to-use chart types. The most common way to use Google Charts is with simple JavaScript that you embed in your web page.N/A
IBM Cognos Analytics
Score 7.1 out of 10
N/A
IBM Cognos is a full-featured business intelligence suite by IBM, designed for larger deployments. It comprises Query Studio, Reporting Studio, Analysis Studio and Event Studio, and Cognos Administration along with tools for Microsoft Office integration, full-text search, and dashboards.
$10
per month per user
Pricing
Google ChartsIBM Cognos Analytics
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
On Demand - Standard
USD 10.00
per month per user
On Demand - Premium
USD 42.40
per month per user
On Demand - Standard
USD 10.60
per month per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google ChartsIBM Cognos Analytics
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Google ChartsIBM Cognos Analytics
Features
Google ChartsIBM Cognos Analytics
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Google Charts
8.8
50 Ratings
8% above category average
IBM Cognos Analytics
6.9
106 Ratings
17% below category average
Pixel Perfect reports8.145 Ratings6.696 Ratings
Customizable dashboards9.548 Ratings7.2104 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates8.844 Ratings6.8101 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Google Charts
9.3
51 Ratings
14% above category average
IBM Cognos Analytics
7.3
108 Ratings
10% below category average
Drill-down analysis8.645 Ratings7.3106 Ratings
Formatting capabilities9.551 Ratings6.9107 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages9.537 Ratings7.774 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration9.646 Ratings7.3103 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Google Charts
9.0
51 Ratings
8% above category average
IBM Cognos Analytics
7.7
107 Ratings
8% below category average
Publish to Web9.549 Ratings8.327 Ratings
Publish to PDF9.646 Ratings6.9101 Ratings
Report Versioning8.643 Ratings8.626 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling8.737 Ratings6.8104 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers8.830 Ratings8.112 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Google Charts
8.8
50 Ratings
10% above category average
IBM Cognos Analytics
6.7
98 Ratings
17% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)8.949 Ratings6.893 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.847 Ratings7.089 Ratings
Predictive Analytics8.839 Ratings6.486 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings6.624 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Google Charts
8.8
45 Ratings
4% above category average
IBM Cognos Analytics
7.3
103 Ratings
15% below category average
Multi-User Support (named login)8.844 Ratings7.9100 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model8.839 Ratings7.799 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.841 Ratings6.199 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)8.831 Ratings7.682 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings7.228 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Google Charts
9.0
48 Ratings
13% above category average
IBM Cognos Analytics
7.5
84 Ratings
5% below category average
Responsive Design for Web Access9.546 Ratings7.478 Ratings
Mobile Application9.629 Ratings7.968 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile8.744 Ratings8.974 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Google Charts
8.8
40 Ratings
12% above category average
IBM Cognos Analytics
7.6
65 Ratings
3% below category average
REST API8.932 Ratings7.362 Ratings
Javascript API8.839 Ratings8.460 Ratings
iFrames8.826 Ratings8.39 Ratings
Java API8.926 Ratings6.911 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)8.828 Ratings7.110 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)8.828 Ratings7.87 Ratings
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Google ChartsIBM Cognos Analytics
Small Businesses
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Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
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Score 10.0 out of 10
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Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
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Score 9.9 out of 10
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User Ratings
Google ChartsIBM Cognos Analytics
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(61 ratings)
7.1
(131 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.3
(8 ratings)
9.4
(27 ratings)
Usability
8.9
(33 ratings)
8.1
(8 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.6
(4 ratings)
Performance
5.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(5 ratings)
Support Rating
8.3
(33 ratings)
10.0
(8 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.7
(4 ratings)
Online Training
5.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(4 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
7.0
(7 ratings)
Configurability
8.0
(1 ratings)
7.0
(3 ratings)
Ease of integration
10.0
(1 ratings)
6.0
(4 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.0
(1 ratings)
8.2
(3 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Google ChartsIBM Cognos Analytics
Likelihood to Recommend
Google
We can easily recommend Google Charts to any company that needs a way to visually represent their data. Another great thing about Google Charts is that it is free to use and does not require any membership fees. Although it requires a skilled used to be able to use the charts, the results are great and can be beneficial to any company who is looking to make better decisions.
Read full review
IBM
IBM Cognos Analytics has great scheduling capabilities. A single report can be parameterized (e.g., “Store Manager ID”) and burst to thousands of recipients with their slice of data.IBM Cognos Analytics is a good fit for highly complex, multi-level calculations which can be handled by Report Studio. For example Monthly balance sheet that requires multi step calculation
Read full review
Pros
Google
  • they're free with Google suite and they have backing in terms of powerful Google apps which can be plugged in to perform multiple actions like using Google sheets to import raw data into Google Charts
  • they're the most simple app to use when it comes to creating charts and visual dashboards
  • ease of customization
  • ease of using custom APIs from developers side to help make any types of charts and dashboards you want
Read full review
IBM
  • We can make dozens of dispatchers all focusing on different types of workloads.
  • Friendly user interface, without the need for coding or complicated editing.
  • Highly functionality reporting tools.
  • We can easily create trigger when a certain threshold are met sending reports or alerts to needed parties.
Read full review
Cons
Google
  • I would like a couple more introductory videos or a live chat option for when you run into an issue. I think this is a Google-wide problem, not only linked to Google Charts.
  • I have run into some issues with the Dynamic Data but also admittedly could potentially dive in deeper and investigate.
  • It would be great if Google Charts made it possible to integrate Google Chat into the platform.
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IBM
  • IBM Cognos Analytics enables customer data segmentation, which is essential for marketing, improving and streamlining purchasing behavior and preferences. This helps companies create more targeted and effective marketing campaigns.
  • Our clients Through data analysis, we can identify and observe trends in the behavior of other clients, allowing us to anticipate needs and adjust strategies to avoid consequences.
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Likelihood to Renew
Google
Google Charts is a good product. It's widely supported with deep documentation and a large community. But for me, it wasn't customizable enough. When we started with simple charts, it was great, but as we got deeper and more complex, our needs outgrew the library. If I was going forward, I would choose a more barebones library with more freedom and extensibility.
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IBM
For an existing solution, renewing licenses does provide a good return on investment. Additionally, while rolling out scorecards and dashboards with little adhoc capabilities, to end users, cognos is very easily scalable. It also allows to create a solution that has a mix of OLAP and relational data-sources, which is a limitation with other tools. Synchronizing with existing security setup is easy too.
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Usability
Google
Google Charts is about as easy to use as the rest of their applications. The UI is very well thought out, allowing you to add what you need, and customize it to your exact liking. The default theme is actually really nice, which helps as most of the time, customizing is not needed.
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IBM
We have a strong user base (3500 users) that are highly utilizing this tool. Basic users are able to consume content within the applied security model. We have a set of advanced users that really push the limits of Cognos with Report and Query Studio. These users have created a lot of personal content and stored it in 'My Reports'. Users enjoy this flexibility.
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Reliability and Availability
Google
Google charts is always available and provides fast output.
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IBM
Reports can typically be viewed through any browser that can access the server, so the availability is ultimately up to what the company utilizing it is comfortable with allowing, though report development tends to be more picky about browsers and settings as mentioned above. It also has an optional iPad app and general mobile browsing support, but dashboards lack the mobile compatibility. What keeps it from getting a higher score is the desktop tools that are vital to the development process. The compatibility with only Windows when the server has a wide range of compatibility can be a real sore point for a company that outfits its employees exclusively with Mac or Linux machines. Of course, if they are planning on outsourcing the development anyways, it's a rather moot point
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Performance
Google
Connectivity is occasionally very slow.
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IBM
Overall no major complaints but it doesn't handle DMR (Dimensionally Modeled for Relational) very well. DMR modelling is a capability that IBM Cognos Framework Manager provides allowing you to specify dimensional information for relational metadata and allows for OLAP-style queries. However, the capability is not very efficient and, for example, if I'm using only 2 columns on a 20-column model, the software is not smart enough to exclude 18 columns and the query side gets progressively larger and larger until it's effectively unusable.
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Support Rating
Google
As a free tool with massively powerful, infinitely customisable charts that can be dynamically updated - Google Charts is my favourite data visualisation tool. However, my hatred of JavaScript does jade my view on it. This is the price of the tool though, and I'm glad it's available for me.
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IBM
Why is their web application not working as fast as you think it should? They never know, and it is always a a bunch of shots in the dark to find out. Trying to download software from them is like trying to find a book at the library before computers were invented.
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In-Person Training
Google
No answers on this topic
IBM
Onsite training provided by IBM Cognos was effective and as expected. They did not perform training with our data which was a bit difficult for our end-users.
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Online Training
Google
The online training was solely done through self training on google's guide to charts.
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IBM
The online courses they offer are thorough and presented in such a way that someone who isn't already familiar with the general design methodologies used in this field will be capable of making a good design. The training environments are provided as a fully self contained virtual machine with everything needed already to create the environments. We've had some persisting issues with the environments becoming unavailable, but support has been responsive when these issues arise and straightening them out for us
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Implementation Rating
Google
Easy to implement
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IBM
Make sure that any custom tables that you have, are built into your metadata packages. You can still access them via SQL queries in Cognos, but it is much easier to have them as a part of the available metadata packages.
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Alternatives Considered
Google
Google Charts stacks up better since it is free and does not have the constant pressure for cost overruns, add-ons, annual maintenance and implementation services. The speed of using Google Charts is quick, saving users potentially weeks in getting up and going. For the readers of websites with limited resources, the application shows up nicely is look and feel with charts. Great way of showing data visually.
Read full review
IBM
My company selected IBM Congos Analytics because of its advanced features and data representation for data analysis. Its row and column features are very effective for creating dashboards and reports to visualize data. It's chart representation and view format are very attractive and useful for representation.
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Scalability
Google
Google Charts is essential for quick, easy, reporting. There are opportunities for advanced features.
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IBM
The Cognos architecture is well suited for scalability. However, the architecture must be designed with scalability in mind from day one of the implementation. We recently upgraded from 10.1 to 10.2.1 and took the opportunity to revamp our architecture. It is now poised for future growth and scalability.
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Return on Investment
Google
  • teams were easily able to create charts and find out progress on our learning courses and thus take actionable insights to their managers, professors
  • students could also know their progress on various courses from one single view, same for instructors in terms of imparting education
  • sales team could learn which kind of courses sold more to focus more on those areas
Read full review
IBM
  • We use the tool for data modeling as it helps in predictive data analysis for complex data, which is very similar to real-life scenarios.
  • Options of customizing & scheduling reports as per our requirements basis.
  • Has mobile application which works seamless.
  • API integration is not upto the mark with very limited options.
  • Licensing & Maintenance can go from cheap to expensive depending on the scope.
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ScreenShots

IBM Cognos Analytics Screenshots

Screenshot of a natural language query, used in IBM Cognos Analytics to get AI-powered insights from data.Screenshot of AI-generated insights and forecasts that can be added with just a click of a button.Screenshot of a dashboard that can be generated automatically using IBM Cognos Analytics by uploading or selecting data.Screenshot of an AI-generated dashboard from a spreadsheet that was just uploaded. This offers a great starting point for the creative process.Screenshot of where to import data to IBM Cognos Analytics from CSV files and spreadsheets. Users can connect to cloud or on-premises data sources, including SQL databases, Google BigQuery, Amazon, and Redshift.Screenshot of a sample operational dashboard of a coffee shop created using IBM Cognos Analytics.