IBM Cognos Analytics is IBM's enterprise reporting and dashboard platform, deployed on-premises, in containers or as an IBM-hosted service and licensed per user. Pages here cover replacing it with self-hosted Apache Superset or Metabase.
Replacing Cognos with Apache Superset: inventorying reports, packages and Framework Manager models, retiring unused content, rebuilding models as Superset datasets, recreating dashboards, and finding a home for burst and pixel-formatted reports Superset does not produce.
For Cognos estates used mostly for dashboards and simple list reports: rebuilding them as Metabase questions, models and dashboards with email subscriptions, mapping Cognos namespaces and groups to Metabase permissions, and the plan needed for SSO.
Comparing Cognos with Apache Superset: Framework Manager packages against Superset datasets, authored reports and scheduling against dashboards and alerts, deployment options, per-user editions against no license fee, and the operating effort of each.
Cost of ownership by component: Standard and Premium per-user prices, content store database and servers, and upgrade projects, against Apache Superset or Metabase on your own infrastructure with report rebuilding, support and staff time.
What a Cognos deployment archive gives you and why it only imports into Cognos, how to use it and the content store as an inventory of reports, packages and schedules, and what has to be documented by hand before rebuilding elsewhere.
Cognos Analytics 12.0.x moved to extended support on September 30, 2026. This page compares upgrading to the 12.1.x line with its 3+1+3 support cycle, staying on extended support, or replacing Cognos with Apache Superset or Metabase, with the inventory to complete first.
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