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IBM SPSS Modeler vs SAS Visual 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
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Data Mining (4th), Data Science Platforms (13th)
SAS Visual Analytics
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM SPSS Modeler is designed for Data Mining and holds a mindshare of 17.3%, up 16.4% compared to last year.
SAS Visual Analytics, on the other hand, focuses on Data Visualization, holds 4.5% mindshare, down 6.1% since last year.
Data Mining
Data Visualization
 

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.
Renato Vazamin - PeerSpot reviewer
Single environment for multiple phases saves us time, and has good visualizations
We had that solution installed previously in another solution, Selvaya, but I don't think we used it at the time. We are now using SAS Detect Investigation as a complementary solution, in which we have part of the process, use a gene, SAS collects information and identifies some business situations, and the business guys use Visual Analytics to explore the results of the process. We previously used the FICO platform, but we switched because FICO's pricing was not scalable. Bringing more data or workloads to the platform required a significant investment in order to scale. We needed to change because we have a lot of data to process every day. FICO was also a little more complicated than SAS Visual Analytics.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The visual modeling capability is one of its attractive features."
"New algorithms are added into every version of Modeler, e.g., SMOTE, random forest, etc. The Derive node is used for the syntax code to derive the data."
"It is very scalable for non-technical people."
"We have full control of the data handling process."
"Automated modelling, classification, or clustering are very useful."
"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's a very organized product. It's easy to use."
"We have a local representative who specializes in SPSS. He will help us do the PoC."
"The most solution's notable aspect, in my view, is the ability to integrate various data sources and harness advanced technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. This helps with quality assurance processes."
"The tool's most valuable features are its ease of use and advanced data visualization capabilities."
"I like SAS Visual Analytics for its ability to provide an initial understanding of data through exploration, even before deep analytics."
"Simplifies report designs and quickly displays tables and graphs."
"It provided the capability to visualize a bunch of data in an organized way."
"Great for handling complex data models."
"It is a very stable solution."
"It's relatively simple to create basic dashboards and reports."
 

Cons

"I would not rate the technical support very well. The technicians have accents. When you do find someone, it is very hard to get somebody able to answer the technical questions."
"When I used it in the office, back in the day, we did have some stability issues. Sometimes it just randomly crashed and we couldn't get good feedback. But when I use it for my own stuff now I don't have any problems."
"Neural networks are quite simple, and now neural networks are evolving to these architecture related to deep learning, etc. They didn't incorporate this in IBM SPSS Modeler."
"Time Series or forecasting needs to be easier. It is a very important feature, and it should be made easier and more automated to use. For instance, for logistic regression, binary or multinomial is used automatically based on the type of the target variable. I wish they can make Time Series easier to use in a similar way."
"It is not integrated with Qlik, Tableau, and Power BI."
"The integration with sources and visualisation needs some improvement. The scalability needs improvement."
"The biggest issue with the visual modeling capability is that we can't extract the SQL code under the hood."
"Requires more development."
"In terms of configuration, I would like to see AI capabilities since many applications are now integrating AI."
"There are certain shortcomings in the tool's support services, making it an area where improvements are required."
"There are a few little things that are predefined and can be done out of the box immediately. There is no business intelligence application that is predefined, which is something some customers or prospects would love to have. Small and mid-sized companies would struggle with it because they prefer something standard that has been predefined by somebody else."
"The solution should improve its graphics."
"There is a need for coding when it comes to digital reporting which can be intimidating."
"Some capabilities are missing compared to Power BI, especially when working with spreadsheet types."
"The charts and tables could use better sorting, primarily using other variables than the ones on the figure. If they could implement views like in the older version (previous to Viya), it would be very nice."
"I haven't come across any missing features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 a huge increase to time savings."
"Its price is okay for a company, but for personal use, it is considered somewhat expensive."
"This tool, being an IBM product, is pretty expensive."
"$5,000 annually."
"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."
"If you are in a university and the license is free then you can use the tool without any charges, which is good."
"I am using the free version of IBM SPSS Modeler, it is the educational edition version."
"It's approximately $114,000 US dollars per year."
"$10,000 per annum for an enterprise license."
"It was licensed for corporate use, and its licensing was on a yearly basis."
"SAS Visual Analytics is expensive, as is the rest of the platform."
"The cost of the solution can be expensive. There is an additional cost for users."
"The product is expensive."
"I work with the tool's free version...The tool's corporate version is very expensive and requires a monthly hire."
"Licensing is simple."
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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
21%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
University
8%
 

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 Visual Analytics?
The most solution's notable aspect, in my view, is the ability to integrate various data sources and harness advanced technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. This helps w...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAS Visual Analytics?
It's about an average of five. It's easy to scale, but it comes with cost.
What needs improvement with SAS Visual Analytics?
In terms of configuration, I would like to see AI capabilities since many applications are now integrating AI. It may be that our current subscription does not include AI-enabled features, but I wo...
 

Also Known As

SPSS Modeler
SAS BI
 

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
Staples, Ausgrid, Scotiabank, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Oklahoma Gas & Electric, Xcel Energy, and Triad Analytics Solutions.
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