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Databases · head to head

BigQuery vs IBM Cognos Analytics

BigQuery logo

BigQuery

Databases

Google Cloud's serverless analytical warehouse, billed either by bytes scanned per query or by reserved compute slots.

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
IBM Cognos Analytics logo

IBM Cognos Analytics

Business Intelligence

AI-powered business intelligence

From
$15/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only BigQuery has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: BigQuery on-demand billing charges for bytes read from every column a query references, so an unqualified select or a missing partition filter turns a routine query into a large bill, and the cost is discovered after the fact rather than at review time.; IBM Cognos Analytics listed on UK G-Cloud at £42.53 per user per month for IBM Cognos Analytics, via reseller Computacenter
  • They diverge on capability: BigQuery covers Serverless compute, IBM Cognos Analytics covers AI Assistant.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which BigQuery and IBM Cognos Analytics actually diverge.

Attributes where BigQuery and IBM Cognos Analytics differ
AttributeBigQueryIBM Cognos Analytics
Starting priceFree$15/month
Pricing modelusage-basedsubscription
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsWeb, Cloud APIWeb, Desktop, Mobile, Cloud
CategoryDatabasesBusiness Intelligence
Founded20081911

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in BigQuery

  • Serverless compute
  • Separation of storage and compute
  • Two pricing models
  • Partitioning and clustering
  • Materialised views
  • BigQuery ML
  • Storage Write API
  • BI Engine

Only in IBM Cognos Analytics

  • AI Assistant
  • Natural Language Queries
  • Automated Insights
  • Story Telling
  • Mobile Analytics
  • IBM Db2
  • Oracle
  • SQL Server

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

BigQuery

  • A warehouse for an organisation already on Google Cloud, where identity, logging and billing are consolidated in the same placenot IBM Cognos Analytics
  • Bursty analytical workloads with long idle periods, where paying per query beats keeping a cluster runningnot IBM Cognos Analytics
  • Event and clickstream analytics ingested continuously through the Storage Write API and queried without a load windownot IBM Cognos Analytics
  • Analytics teams with no infrastructure staff, where the absence of anything to tune or patch is worth more than dialect portabilitynot IBM Cognos Analytics

IBM Cognos Analytics

  • Self-service analyticsnot BigQuery
  • Data explorationnot BigQuery
  • Ad-hoc reportingnot BigQuery
  • Collaborative analysisnot BigQuery
  • Embedded analyticsnot BigQuery

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

BigQuery

  • On-demand billing charges for bytes read from every column a query references, so an unqualified select or a missing partition filter turns a routine query into a large bill, and the cost is discovered after the fact rather than at review time.
  • There is no way to join tables that live in different regions, so a data estate split across regions for residency reasons has to be reconciled with copies and the storage and transfer that implies.
  • It is not built for point lookups; retrieving a single row has latency measured in hundreds of milliseconds or more, so BigQuery cannot serve an application's read path and always needs a second store in front of it.
  • Frequent small mutations run into DML concurrency limits and the cost of rewriting storage blocks, so a workload that updates individual rows continuously behaves badly compared with an append-only design.
  • The compute exists only inside Google Cloud, so while tables can be exported, the accumulated GoogleSQL, scheduled queries, authorised views, ML models and IAM structure do not move, and switching warehouses is a rewrite of the analytical layer.

IBM Cognos Analytics

  • Listed on UK G-Cloud at £42.53 per user per month for IBM Cognos Analytics, via reseller Computacenter

Pricing, plan by plan

BigQuery

Free
  • Free TierFree
    • 1TB queries/month
    • 10GB storage/month
    • Standard support
  • On-demand$6.25/TB
    • Pay per query
    • Pay per storage
    • All features

IBM Cognos Analytics

$15/month
  • Standard$15/month
    • Dashboards
    • Reporting
    • AI Insights
  • Plus$35/month
    • Advanced Analytics
    • Planning
    • Premium Support

Which should you pick?

Choose BigQuery if

  • You need serverless compute.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Cloud API.
  • You also want separation of storage and compute.
BigQuery review

Choose IBM Cognos Analytics if

  • You need ai assistant.
  • You work on Web, Desktop, Mobile, Cloud.
  • You also want natural language queries.
IBM Cognos Analytics review

Questions people ask

Is BigQuery or IBM Cognos Analytics better?
Neither clearly leads. BigQuery starts at Free and IBM Cognos Analytics at $15/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, BigQuery or IBM Cognos Analytics?
BigQuery has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for BigQuery and $15/month for IBM Cognos Analytics.
Does BigQuery or IBM Cognos Analytics run on more platforms?
BigQuery runs on Web, Cloud API. IBM Cognos Analytics runs on Web, Desktop, Mobile, Cloud.
Can I use BigQuery for free?
Yes. BigQuery has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. IBM Cognos Analytics starts at $15/month.
What is BigQuery best used for?
BigQuery is most often used for a warehouse for an organisation already on google cloud, where identity, logging and billing are consolidated in the same place, bursty analytical workloads with long idle periods, where paying per query beats keeping a cluster running, event and clickstream analytics ingested continuously through the storage write api and queried without a load window, analytics teams with no infrastructure staff, where the absence of anything to tune or patch is worth more than dialect portability. Of those, a warehouse for an organisation already on google cloud, where identity, logging and billing are consolidated in the same place and bursty analytical workloads with long idle periods, where paying per query beats keeping a cluster running are not what IBM Cognos Analytics is typically brought in for.
What can BigQuery do that IBM Cognos Analytics cannot?
BigQuery covers Serverless compute, Separation of storage and compute, Two pricing models, Partitioning and clustering. IBM Cognos Analytics covers AI Assistant, Natural Language Queries, Automated Insights, Story Telling.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

BigQuery: How is BigQuery actually billed?

Storage is billed separately from compute. Compute is either on-demand, priced by the bytes a query reads from the referenced columns, or capacity-based, where you reserve autoscaling slots. Most cost surprises come from on-demand queries that scan more than expected.

BigQuery: How do I control query cost?

Partition and cluster tables so queries prune data, select only the columns needed, use materialised views for repeated aggregations, and set maximum bytes billed on queries so a runaway scan fails instead of billing.

BigQuery: Can I use it without being on Google Cloud?

The service only runs on Google Cloud. BigQuery Omni can query data held in S3 or Azure storage, but the compute is still Google's and the account relationship is still with Google.

BigQuery: Is it suitable for serving application queries?

No. Latency for single-row reads is far too high. BigQuery is an analytical warehouse and application read paths need a transactional database or a cache in front of it.

BigQuery: When should I move from on-demand to capacity pricing?

When on-demand spend becomes both large and predictable, or when unpredictable spend is a bigger problem than query queueing. The switch trades a variable bill for a fixed one plus contention between workloads.

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