IBM Cognos Analytics vs Looker
IBM Cognos Analytics
ibm.com
Looker
cloud.google.comSide by side
| Figure | IBM Cognos Analytics | Looker |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $10.60/mo | — |
| Free plan | — | — |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| iOS | Yes | Yes |
| Android | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 2 | 3 |
| Spec score · Ai Analytics | 8.6 (#1) | 8.1 (#7) |
| Spec score · Bi Platforms | 8.7 (#2) | 8.2 (#10) |
| Spec score · Business Analytics | 8.7 (#2) | 8.2 (#10) |
| Spec score · Business Intelligence & Analytics - Midmarket Software | 8.7 (#2) | 8.2 (#9) |
| Spec score · Business Intelligence & Analytics - Enterprise Software | 8.7 (#3) | 8.2 (#11) |
| Spec score · Business Intelligence Tools | 8.9 (#10) | 8.5 (#20) |
| Spec score · Self Service Analytics | 8.7 (#3) | 8.1 (#9) |
| Spec score · Cloud Analytics Solutions | 8.7 (#4) | 8.2 (#9) |
| Spec score · Dashboards | 8.7 (#5) | 8.1 (#13) |
| Spec score · Data Analytics Software | 8.7 (#7) | 8.2 (#18) |
| Deployment | Deployment options include on-premises, IBM-hosted cloud and certified containers for cloud or on-premises environments. | hybrid |
| Free plan | No | No |
| Natural-language queries | Yes | Yes |
| Refresh frequency | real-time | hourly |
| Scheduled reports | Yes | Yes |
| Support | IBM Support provides cases, fixes, technical documentation and known-issue information, and requires registration, an IBM Customer Number and Site Administrator approval. | Developer user licensing includes access to Support, while standard and viewer user licensing does not. |
| Trial | The On-Demand trial is free for 30 days and includes Premium features for up to five users. | Google advertises a free 14-day Looker trial. |
Plans
In their own words
IBM Cognos Analytics
IBM Cognos Analytics is a paid business-intelligence platform for reporting, business analytics and AI-assisted insights. It supports hybrid deployment, real-time refresh, scheduled reports and natural-language queries across Android, iOS, Linux, Windows, web, API and self-hosted environments. Users can build multipage reports and share them as HTML, CSV, PDF or Excel files. Interactive dashboards provide visualizations, drill-downs and email or Slack sharing. Time-series modeling supports trend prediction, while the AI Assistant answers natural-language questions about selected data sources and can create dynamic dashboards. Standard costs $10.60 a month per authorized user and includes dashboards, data modules, mobile access, basic administration and AI capabilities, but users receive reports only. Premium costs $42.40 a month per authorized user and adds report creation, execution and scheduling, data explorations, custom visualizations, advanced administration and reporting agents. A free 30-day On-Demand trial supports up to five users.
Looker
Looker helps organizations explore, share, and visualize company data for business decisions. Its LookML semantic models define dimensions, aggregates, calculations, and relationships, then use those definitions to generate SQL queries. Gemini-powered natural-language analytics lets users ask questions, while Dashboard Agents provide summaries and explorations grounded in governed metrics. Looker connects to BigQuery, Spanner, Cloud SQL for MySQL, Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL, and other Google services. The Looker Marketplace offers applications, prebuilt LookML models, visualizations, and actions for delivering data to third-party services. Listed capabilities include hourly refresh, row-level security, scheduled reports, and embedded analytics. Deployment is hybrid, with web, Android, iOS, API, and self-hosted options. Mobile apps let users view Looks and dashboards. Google documents TLS 1.2 or later for data in transit and AES-256 encryption for locally stored sensitive application data. A free 14-day trial is advertised, but there is no free plan. Standard, Enterprise, and Embed each list one production instance, 10 Standard Users, and two Developer Users; their API call allowances differ. Pricing is on request.