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IBM SPSS Modeler vs Weka 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)
Weka
Ranking in Data Mining
2nd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Anomaly Detection Tools (4th)
 

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 Weka is 20.3%, down from 20.9% 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.
AwaisAnwar - PeerSpot reviewer
Open source, good for basic data mining use cases except for the visualization results
I haven't found it particularly useful. It lacks state-of-the-art algorithms and impressive outcomes. While it might offer insights for basic warehouse tasks, it falls short of deeper understanding and results. Moreover, a new user interface would be great, especially for beginners. Something that guides them through the available tools and helps them achieve their goals. I haven't seen anything like that myself, though maybe it's there and I missed it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It gives you a GUI interface, which is a lot more user-friendly and easier to use compared to writing R scripts or Python."
"Automation is great and this product is very organized."
"IBM was chosen because of usability. It's point and click, whereas the other out-of-the box-solution, or open-source solutions, require full-on programming and a much higher skill level."
"Stability is good."
"It is a great product for running statistical analysis."
"Automated modelling, classification, or clustering are very useful."
"​It works fine. I have not had any stability issues; it is always up.​"
"It scales. I have not run into any challenges where it will not perform.​"
"The path of machine learning in classification and clustering is useful. The GUI can get you results. No programming is needed. No need to write down your script first or send to your model or input your data."
"There are many options where you can fill all of the data pre-processing options that you can implement when you're importing the data. You can also normalize the data and standardize it in an easier way."
"Weka's best features are its user-friendly graphic interface interpretation of data sets and the ease of analyzing data."
"It doesn’t cost anything to use the product."
"Working with complicated algorithms in huge datasets is really easy in Weka."
"With clustering, if it's a yes, it's a yes, if it's a no, it's a no. It gives you a 100% level of accuracy of a model that has been trained, and that is in most cases, usually misleading. Classification is highly valuable when done as opposed to clustering."
"The interface is very good, and the algorithms are the very best."
"Weka eliminates the need for coding, allowing you to easily set parameters and complete the majority of the machine learning task with just a few clicks."
 

Cons

"The time series should be improved."
"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."
"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 biggest issue with the visual modeling capability is that we can't extract the SQL code under the hood."
"Regarding visual modeling, it is not the biggest strength of the product, although from what I hear in the latest release it's going to be a lot stronger. That, to me, has always been the biggest flaw in using this. It's very difficult to get good visualization."
"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."
"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."
"The product is good, but I would like it to work with big data. I know it has a Spark integration they could use to do analysis in clusters, but it's not so clear how to use it."
"Not particularly user friendly."
"While it might offer insights for basic warehouse tasks, it falls short of deeper understanding and results."
"The visualization of Weka is subpar and could improve. Machine learning and visualization do not work well together. For example, we want to know how we can we delete empty cells or how can we fill in the empty cells without cleaning the data system and putting it together."
"I believe is there are a few newer algorithms that are not present in the Weka libraries. Whereas, for example, if I want to have a solution that involves deep learning, so I don't think that Weka has that capability. So in that case I have to use Python for ... predict any algorithms based on deep learning."
"In terms of scalability, I think Weka is not prepared to handle a large number of users."
"Weka is a little complicated and not necessarily suited for users who aren't skilled and experienced in data science."
"Weka could be more stable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you are in a university and the license is free then you can use the tool without any charges, which is good."
"This tool, being an IBM product, is pretty 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."
"I am using the free version of IBM SPSS Modeler, it is the educational edition version."
"It is an expensive product."
"It got us a good amount of money with quick and efficient modeling."
"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."
"The solution is free and open-source."
"As far as I know, Weka is a freeware tool, and I am not aware if they have an online solution or if it is a commercial product."
"Currently, I am using an open-source version so I don't know much about the price of this solution."
"We use the free version now. My faculty is very small."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Educational Organization
12%
University
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
University
19%
Educational Organization
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Weka?
Weka is free and open-source software. That is why I used it over KNIME.
What needs improvement with Weka?
I haven't found it particularly useful. It lacks state-of-the-art algorithms and impressive outcomes. While it might offer insights for basic warehouse tasks, it falls short of deeper understanding...
 

Comparisons

 

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
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Find out what your peers are saying about IBM SPSS Modeler vs. Weka and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.