IBM SPSS Modeler vs IBM Watson Explorer comparison

IBM SPSS Modeler and IBM Watson Explorer are both solutions in the Data Mining category. IBM SPSS Modeler is ranked #4 with an average rating of 6.8, while IBM Watson Explorer is ranked #11. IBM SPSS Modeler holds a 17.3% mindshare in DM, compared to IBM Watson Explorer’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 86% of IBM SPSS Modeler users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of IBM Watson Explorer users who would recommend it.

IBM SPSS Modeler

Read 39 IBM SPSS Modeler reviews

1,040 Views
854 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

IBM Watson Explorer

Read 10 IBM Watson Explorer reviews

59 Views
44 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM SPSS Modeler

IBM Watson Explorer

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM SPSS Modeler and IBM Watson Explorer based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Data Mining solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM SPSS Modeler vs. IBM Watson Explorer Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM SPSS Modeler vs. IBM Watson Explorer

April 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

IBM SPSS Modeler

Ranking in Data Mining

4th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Science Platforms (13th)

IBM Watson Explorer

Ranking in Data Mining

11th

Average Rating

8.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Data Mining category, the mindshare of IBM SPSS Modeler is 17.3%, up from 16.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Watson Explorer is 0.8%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Mining

Featured Reviews

PeterHuo

Application Architect at Canada Border Services Agency

Good tool for extracting data from data warehouses, creating streams, and manipulating logic to extract final data

There are performance issues. Extracting data from many combined tables can take hours and occasionally crash the server due to memory leaks. This performance problem bothers people. The performance issue seems to be related to the server. We design streams on the client and submit them to the server, which generates a large SQL statement. There are two potential bottlenecks: one in the server and another in data extraction. I'm unsure about the exact mechanics of data splitting when fetching from the database. When streams become larger, performance bottlenecks may occur in the IBM SPSS Modeler server or the database. Sometimes the server crashes and needs to be restarted to release memory on both sides. I'm not sure exactly where the problem is caused, as I focus on stream design rather than server issues. The problem could be on the IBM SPSS Modeler server and database.

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it_user840897

Head of Commercialization at Woodside Energy

Ingests, retrieves information from a range of sources; enables dissecting questions in context and answering them

WEX is more a platform, I believe, than it is the application. I could talk about what I'm looking for in the application. We've done visualizations and we can do basic analysis with the system as it stands. Where we're looking to take it is implementing it into workflows, so the workers on the line can actually understand the risks that they're exposing themselves to and then address them on the fly. So that's fantastic. And then the final one is, it's not prediction, but maybe anticipation. So when people are put at risk, we'll be implementing solutions shortly that will help people anticipate the risks and the dangers they're exposing themselves to so they can control them.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"It is a great product for running statistical analysis."

"We have a local representative who specializes in SPSS. He will help us do the PoC."

"It makes pretty good use of memory. There are algorithms take a long time to run in R, and somehow they run more efficiently in Modeler."

"It gives you a GUI interface, which is a lot more user-friendly and easier to use compared to writing R scripts or Python."

"It is just a lot faster. So you do not have to write a bunch of code, you can throw that stuff on there pretty quickly and do prototyping quickly."

"The most valuable features of the IBM SPSS Modeler are visual programming, you don't have to write any code, and it is easy to use. 90 to 95 percent of the use cases, you don't have to fine-tune anything. If you want to do something deeper, for example, create a better neural network, then you have to go into the features and try to fine-tune them. However, the default selection which is made by the tool, it's very practical and works well."

"We have integration where you can write third-party apps. This sort of feature opens it up to being able to do anything you want."

"The visual modeling capability is one of its attractive features."

More IBM SPSS Modeler pros

"The valuable feature of Watson Explorer for us is data entities, and to see the hidden insights from within unstructured data."

"For me, as a user, the most valuable feature is the ability to ingest and then retrieve information from a range of separate sources; the ability to dissect questions in context and actually answer them."

"Ease of use is pretty good as is the standardization of not actually having to have my own natural learning algorithms, just to use the Watson APIs."

"The ability to easily pull together lots of different pieces of information and drill down in a smarter way than has been possible with other analytics tools is key. Watson is all based on a set of AI and deep learning, machine-learning capabilities, and it is looking behind the scenes at some relationships that you likely would not have spotted on your own. It's pulling things together, categorizing some things, that are not something that you might have seen on your own."

"We take natural language that was happening in our repositories and our application and then feed it to the Watson APIs. We receive JSON payloads as an API response to get cognitive feedback from the repository data."

"I have found the auto-generated document very useful as well as the main keywords that are highlighted, which are used for the search functionality within IBM Watson Explorer."

Cons

"The integration with sources and visualisation needs some improvement. The scalability needs improvement."

"The time series should be improved."

"The product does not have a search function for tags."

"It is very good, but slow. The slowness may be because we have not finalized all the background information in SPSS. It still needs some tweaking."

"We have run into a few problems doing some entity matching/analytics."

"I think mapping for geographic data would also be a really great thing to be able to use."

"It's not as user friendly as it could be."

"Unstructured data is not appropriate for SPSS Modeler."

More IBM SPSS Modeler cons

"The solution is expensive."

"Stability is actually one of the areas that could use improvement. Setting it up is always tough. Setting Explorer requires experts, but also the underlying platform is not that stable. So it really needs a good expert to keep it running."

"I would say, give some kind of a community edition, a free edition. A lot of companies do, even Amazon gives you some kind of trial and error opportunities. If they could provide something like that, it would be good."

"Much of IBM operates this way, where they have sets of tools that are in the middleware space, and it becomes the customer's responsibility or the business partner's responsibility to develop full solutions that take advantage of that middleware. I think IBM's finding itself in that spot with Watson-related technologies as well, where the capabilities to do really interesting and useful things for customers is there, but somebody still has to build it. Is that going to be the customer? Are they going to be willing to take on that responsibility themselves"

"It needs better language support, to include some other languages. Also, they should improve the user interface."

"More cognitive feedback would be good. The natural language analysis is great, the sentiment analyzers are great. But I would just like to see more... innovation done with the Watson platform."

"Small businesses will probably have a little harder time getting into it, just because of the amount of resources that they have available, both financial and time, but it really is a solution that should work for them."

"It is a little bit tricky to get used to the workflow of knowing how to train Watson, what can be provided, what can't be, how to provide it, how to import, export, and what it means every time you have to add a new dictionary"

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This tool, being an IBM product, is pretty expensive."

"The government has funds and a budget, it's hard to say if it's expensive or cheap. In Canada, they have a yearly budget. They used to encourage people to use the modeler for development. If ten users use the server with ten licenses, it runs faster. But if forty users use the same appliance, everything slows down. People then think it's not easy to do things and prefer using remote tools like Python to extract data from the database. It's not about being expensive or cheap, but about people's knowledge and experience in how to do the work."

"It is an expensive product."

"Its price is okay for a company, but for personal use, it is considered somewhat expensive."

"The scalability was kind of limited by our ability to get other people licenses, and that was usually more of a financial constraint. It's expensive, but it's a good tool."

"When you are close to end of quarter, IBM and its partners can get you 60% to 70% discounts, so literally wait for the last day of the quarter for the best prices. You may feel like you are getting robbed if you can't receive a good discount."

"Having in mind all four tools from Garner’s top quadrant, the pricing of this tool is competitive and it reflects the quality that it offers."

"I am using the free version of IBM SPSS Modeler, it is the educational edition version."

More IBM SPSS Modeler pricing and cost advice

"The solution is expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Educational Organization

12%

University

Computer Software Company

16%

Educational Organization

14%

Financial Services Firm

10%

University

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM SPSS Modeler?

Compared to other tools, the product works much easier to analyze data without coding.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM SPSS Modeler?

The government has funds and a budget, it's hard to say if it's expensive or cheap. In Canada, they have a yearly budget. They used to encourage people to use the modeler for development. If ten us...

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM SPSS Modeler?

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM SPSS Modeler

April 2025

Download IBM SPSS Modeler product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Watson Explorer

April 2025

Download IBM Watson Explorer product report

Also Known As

SPSS Modeler

IBM WEX

Overview

IBM SPSS Modeler is an extensive predictive analytics platform that is designed to bring predictive intelligence to decisions made by individuals, groups, systems and the enterprise. By providing a range of advanced algorithms and techniques that include text analytics, entity analytics, decision management and optimization, SPSS Modeler can help you consistently make the right decisions from the desktop or within operational systems.

Buy
https://www.ibm.com/products/spss-modeler/pricing

Sign up for the trial
https://www.ibm.com/account/reg/us-en/signup?formid=urx-19947

IBM

IBM Watson Explorer is a cognitive exploration and content analysis platform that lets you listen to your data for advice. Explore and analyze structured, unstructured, internal, external and public content to uncover trends and patterns that improve decision-making, customer service and ROI. Leverage built-in cognitive capabilities powered by machine learning models, natural language processing and next-generation APIs to unlock hidden value in all your data. Gain a secure 360-degree view of customers, in context, to deliver better experiences for your clients.

IBM

Sample Customers

Reisebªro Idealtours GmbH, MedeAnalytics, Afni, Israel Electric Corporation, Nedbank Ltd., DigitalGlobe, Vodafone Hungary, Aegon Hungary, Bureau Veritas, Brammer Group, Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, InSites Consulting, Fortis Turkey

RIMAC, Westpac New Zealand, Toyota Financial Services, Swiss Re, Akershus University Hospital, Korean Air Lines, Mizuho Bank, Honda

Buyer's Guide

IBM SPSS Modeler vs. IBM Watson Explorer

April 2025

Free Report: IBM SPSS Modeler vs. IBM Watson Explorer

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM SPSS Modeler vs. IBM Watson Explorer and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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