IBM Cognos Analytics vs Reveal BI
IBM Cognos Analytics
ibm.com
Reveal BI
revealbi.ioSide by side
| Figure | IBM Cognos Analytics | Reveal BI |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $10.60/mo | — |
| Free plan | — | — |
| 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 | Yes |
| Plans published | 2 | 1 |
| Spec score · Business Analytics | 8.7 (#2) | 8.1 (#13) |
| Spec score · Business Intelligence & Analytics - Enterprise Software | 8.7 (#3) | 8.1 (#14) |
| Spec score · Business Intelligence Tools | 8.9 (#10) | 8.5 (#21) |
| Spec score · Self Service Analytics | 8.7 (#3) | 8.1 (#11) |
| Deployment | Deployment options include on-premises, IBM-hosted cloud and certified containers for cloud or on-premises environments. | Reveal supports cloud, hybrid, and fully self-hosted deployments, including air-gapped environments. |
| Founded | 1911 | 2019 |
| Free plan | No | No |
| Headquarters | Armonk, New York, United States | Cranbury, New Jersey, United States |
| Integrations | IBM lists integrations with Planning Analytics, SPSS Statistics, watsonx BI and watsonx.data. | Listed data sources include SQL databases, Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery, Amazon S3, Google Drive, REST APIs, and spreadsheets. |
| Natural-language queries | Yes | Yes |
| Refresh frequency | real-time | real-time |
| Support | IBM Support provides cases, fixes, technical documentation and known-issue information, and requires registration, an IBM Customer Number and Site Administrator approval. | Standard support is provided through Discord and GitHub Discussions; a priority support add-on is listed at 15% of contract cost. |
| Trial | The On-Demand trial is free for 30 days and includes Premium features for up to five users. | The pricing FAQ says the SDK is available as a 30-day free 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.
Reveal BI
Reveal BI embeds dashboards, reporting, and AI insights inside applications, with SaaS companies and software vendors among its intended users. Client and server SDKs avoid iFrames: client support includes React, Angular, Blazor, and Vue, while server SDKs cover .NET Core, Java, and Node. Analytics include interactive dashboards, drill-down, filtering, forecasting, anomaly detection, and conversational natural-language queries. Teams can customize branding, themes, visual components, and user experience.
Listed data sources include SQL databases, Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery, Amazon S3, Google Drive, REST APIs, and spreadsheets. The product supports hybrid deployment, real-time refresh, embedded analytics, and row-level security. Reveal describes tenant isolation at query execution and inherited role-based and row-level controls. AI features are opt-in, can use customer-configured private or on-prem models, and do not send raw customer data to third-party AI services by default. A 30-day SDK trial is available, but the paid product requires a personalized quote; no numeric price is published.