IBM Cognos Analytics vs Mode
IBM Cognos Analytics
ibm.comMode
mode.comSide by side
| Figure | IBM Cognos Analytics | Mode |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $10.60/mo | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 2 | 4 |
| Spec score · Bi Platforms | 8.7 (#2) | 8.6 (#4) |
| Spec score · Business Analytics | 8.7 (#2) | 8.7 (#4) |
| Spec score · Business Intelligence & Analytics - Enterprise Software | 8.7 (#3) | 8.6 (#5) |
| Spec score · Business Intelligence Tools | 8.9 (#10) | 8.8 (#14) |
| Spec score · Dashboards | 8.7 (#5) | 8.6 (#7) |
| Spec score · Data Analytics Software | 8.7 (#7) | 8.5 (#11) |
| Dashboards | The product provides interactive dashboards with visualizations, drill-downs and email or Slack sharing. | Mode supports interactive dashboards with drag-and-drop explorations, visualizations, custom themes, and scheduled runs. |
| Founded | 1911 | 2013 |
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Headquarters | Armonk, New York, United States | San Francisco, California, United States |
| Integrations | IBM lists integrations with Planning Analytics, SPSS Statistics, watsonx BI and watsonx.data. | Official integrations include dbt freshness, GitHub sync, Excel, Google Sheets, local file uploads, semantic layers, Slack and webhooks. |
| Reporting | Users can create and share customizable, multipage reports in formats including HTML, CSV, PDF and Excel. | Users can create reports with explorable charts, output cells, and narrative writeups. |
| Support | IBM Support provides cases, fixes, technical documentation and known-issue information, and requires registration, an IBM Customer Number and Site Administrator approval. | The plan comparison lists standard support for Pro and premium support for Enterprise. |
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.
Mode
Mode is a business intelligence platform that brings data teams and business teams together for analytics, from ad hoc analysis through self-serve reporting and advanced work. It offers a SQL editor with connected Python and R notebooks. Reports can combine explorable charts, output cells, and narrative text, while Visual Explorer supports browser exploration of more than 100,000 data points. Interactive dashboards provide drag-and-drop exploration, visualizations, custom themes, and scheduled runs. Teams can build internal data tools with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, APIs, parameters, and embedded reports. Listed integrations include dbt freshness, GitHub, Excel workbooks, Google Sheets, semantic layers, Slack, local file uploads, and webhooks. Mode connects to most major data warehouses but does not build SaaS-tool connectors. Studio supports up to three users and 10 MB per query. Pro lists 250 GB per month, 5 GB per query, and a three-user minimum; Enterprise requires at least 50 users. API and web access, scheduled queries, shared queries, SQL notebooks, and AI query assistance are listed. Data is encrypted with TLS 1.2 or higher in transit and AES-256 at rest.