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IBM SPSS Modeler vs SAS Analytics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
39
Ranking in other categories
Data Science Platforms (13th)
SAS Analytics
Ranking in Data Mining
5th
Average Rating
9.2
Number of Reviews
11
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 SAS Analytics is 6.1%, down from 9.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Mining
 

Featured Reviews

PeterHuo - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
AltanAtabarut - PeerSpot reviewer
Good interactive reports and dashboards but expensive to run
You need to constantly jump from data prep to visualization, then back to data for fixing quality, enriching, and visualizing again. Then you start modeling and need to switch back and forth again. Eventually, you have to democratize the results so that anyone can look and interactively question the underlying insights. For all of these purposes - data to BI or data to AI to BI - it is never a linear one way relationship; it's rather a closed loop for continuous analysis monitoring and sharing. If used this way, SAS Visual analytics can enable continuous improvement and innovation in a corporation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We are using it either for workforce deployment or to improve our operations."
"We have full control of the data handling process."
"I think the code modeling features are the most valuable and without the need to write a code back with many different possibilities to choose from. And the second one is linked to the activity of the data preparation."
"It helped me in that I didn't need to write them by hand, and I could get a result in one or two minutes. That helped me a lot."
"We are creating models and putting them into production much faster than we would if we had just gone with a strict, code-based solution, like R or Python."
"We use analytics with the visual modeling capability to leverage productivity improvements."
"I was familiar with using IBM SPSS Modeler separately in the private sector before that. It's a good tool for extracting data from data warehouses, creating streams, and manipulating logic to extract final data."
"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 technical support is okay."
"The team immediately resolves the issues."
"It's very easy to use once you learn it."
"It is able to connect to all major platforms, and all the smaller platforms that I have come across."
"I use SAS daily to analyze data, produce reports, and other outputs."
"They have provided virtually everything we have needed to accomplish our task, as well as continuously improving our accuracy."
"All of the data analytics features in SAS Analytics are valuable to us since we're using them daily across our entire analytics team."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to handle large data sets."
 

Cons

"I can say the solution is outdated."
"We have run into a few problems doing some entity matching/analytics."
"The platform that you can deploy it on needs improvement because I think it is Windows only. I do not think it can run off a Red Hat, like the server products. I am pretty sure it is Windows and AIX only."
"The product does not have a search function for tags."
"It would be beneficial if the tool would include more well-known machine learning algorithms."
"The challenge for the very technical data scientists: It is constraining for them.​"
"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 would like to see better visualizations and easier integration with Cognos Analytics for reporting."
"The installation could also be easier, and the price could be better."
"I would like to see their interface to R added to either Base SAS or SAS Analytics."
"The natural language querying and automated preparation of dashboards should be improved."
"Once a SAS figure is produced one would like to modify things, such as titles, legends, and incorporate risk sets as a footer on the plots."
"They could enhance the AI capabilities of the product."
"​Support at universities used to be limited, but I hear this is changing.​"
"One of the things that can be simplified is self-service analytics, especially for a citizen developer or a citizen data scientist."
"The graphing and visualization features could be enhanced, in my opinion. I would especially stress improving the visualization capabilities."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This tool, being an IBM product, is pretty expensive."
"I am using the free version of IBM SPSS Modeler, it is the educational edition version."
"It is an expensive product."
"If you are in a university and the license is free then you can use the tool without any charges, which is good."
"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."
"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."
"Its price is okay for a company, but for personal use, it is considered somewhat expensive."
"$5,000 annually."
"I rate the product’s pricing a one out of ten."
"I think that the cost-benefit ratio is okay."
"SAS is very expensive."
"​Setup costs were quite reasonable."
"​The cost for SAS Business Intelligence can prove to be a little prohibitive.​"
"Prices were comparable with alternative solutions."
"Licensing was rather straightforward."
"It is relatively expensive. It is not an easy software to afford."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Educational Organization
12%
University
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
12%
Educational Organization
8%
University
7%
 

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.
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...
What needs improvement with IBM SPSS Modeler?
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 performanc...
What do you like most about SAS Analytics?
I like that it is quickly embedding interactive reports and dashboards into a website, Outlook Mail, or even a mobile app.
What needs improvement with SAS Analytics?
SAS Analytics could improve in areas such as handling stress tests and workloads, as well as predicting financial movements, specifically profit and loss movements.
What is your primary use case for SAS Analytics?
I use SAS Analytics ( /products/sas-analytics-reviews ) in my work to analyze data, such as selecting credits for traditional securitization. Recently, I used SAS Analytics ( /products/sas-analytic...
 

Also Known As

SPSS Modeler
No data available
 

Overview

 

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
Aegon, Alberta Parks, Amway China, Axel Springer, Bank of America, Belgium Special Tax, CAP Index, CareSource, CBE Group, Cemig, Center for Responsible Lending, CESCE, Ceska sporitelna, Chantecler, Chico's, Chubb Group of Insurance Companies, CIGNA Thailand, City of Wiesbaden, Germany, Confused.com, Creditreform, Des Moines Area Community College, Deutsche Lufthansa, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, DIRECTV, Dow Chemical Company, Dow Chemical Company, Dun & Bradstreet, EDF Energy, Electrabel GDF SUEZ, ERGO Insurance Group, Erste Bank Croatia, Farmers Mutual Group, Finnair, Florida Department of Corrections, Geneia, Generali Hellas, Genting Malaysia Berhad, Grameenphone, Grandi Salumifici Italiani, HealthPartners, Highmark, Hong Kong Efficiency Unit, HP, Hyundai Securities, Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family ServicesInc Research, ING-DiBa, Institut Pertanian Bogor, InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), IOM, Kelley Blue Book, Lenovo, Lillebaelt Hospital, Los Angeles County, Maspex Wadowice Group, National Bank of Greece, New Zealand Ministry of Health, New Zealand Ministry of Social Development, Nippon Paper, NMIMS, North Carolina Department of Transportation, North Carolina Office of Information Technology Services, Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative (NOVEC), Oberweis Dairy, ODEC, Ohio Mutual Insurance Group, Oklahoma State University, OneBeacon, Orange Business Services, Orange County Child Support Services, Organic, Orlando Magic, OTP Bank, Plano Independent School District, Project Odyssey, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, RSA Canada, SCAD, Scotiabank, Singapore National Library Board, Sobeys Inc., SRA International, Staples, Statistics Estonia, Swisscom, SymphonyIRI Group, Telecom Italia, Telef‹nica O2, Town of Cary, Transitions Optical, TrueCar, Turkcell Superonline, UniCredit Bank Serbia, University of Alabama, University of Missouri, USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM SPSS Modeler vs. SAS Analytics and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.