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IBM SPSS Statistics 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 Statistics
Ranking in Data Mining
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Data Science Platforms (8th)
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 Statistics is 16.6%, up from 12.3% 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

Laurence Moseley - PeerSpot reviewer
Delivers reliable results for academic research and keeps you close to your data.
SPSS is perfectly adequate if all you want are some results. If you only need the results, you do not require the trail of evidence on how you obtained those results. I mainly used it for cross tabs, correlation, regression, chi-squared tests, and similar analyses often seen in published papers; I used it for my papers as well. For wider uses I find Knime keeps me in touch with my data, however much I transform them.
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

"The SPSS interface is very accessible and user-friendly. It's really easy to get information in it. I've shared it with experts and beginners, and everyone can navigate it."
"in terms of the simplicity, I think the SPSS basic can handle it."
"It is a modeling tool with helpful automation."
"The features that I have found most valuable are the Bayesian statistics and descriptive statistics."
"The solution has numerous valuable features. We particularly like custom tabs. It's very useful. We end up analyzing a lot of software data, so features related to custom tabs are really helpful."
"The most valuable feature is its robust statistical analysis capabilities."
"Custom tables and macros: They allow us to create useful reports quickly for a broad audience."
"Most of the product features are good but I particularly like the linear regression analysis."
"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 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."
"Weka is a very nice tool, it needs very small requirements. If I want to implement something in Python, I need a lot of memory and space but Weka is very lightweight. Anyone can implement any kind of algorithm, and we can show the results immediately to the client using the one-page feature. The client always wants to know the story. They want the result."
"Weka's best features are its user-friendly graphic interface interpretation of data sets and the ease of analyzing data."
"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."
"In Weka, anyone can access the program without being a programmer, which is a good feature since the entry cost is very low."
"It doesn’t cost anything to use the product."
 

Cons

"It could provide even more in the way of automation as there are many opportunities."
"I'm unsure if SPSS has a commercial offering for big servers, unlike KNIME, which does."
"If there is any self-generation data collection plan (DCP), it would be helpful in gathering data. It would also be useful if there is a function to scale it up to, let's say, UiPath and have it consolidate and integrate into a UiPath solution."
"In developing countries, it would be beneficial to provide certain features to users at no cost initially, while also customizing pricing options."
"Improvements are needed in the user interface, particularly in terms of user-friendliness."
"In some cases, the product takes time to load a large dataset. They could improve this particular area."
"It could allow adding color to data models to make them easier to interpret."
"Better documentation on how to use macros."
"Weka could be more stable."
"The filter section lacks some specific transformation tools. If you want to change a variable from a numeric variable to a categorical variable, you don't have a feature that can enable you to change a variable from a numeric variable to a categorical variable."
"Not particularly user friendly."
"If there are a lot more lines of code, then we should use another language."
"Within the basic Weka tool, I don't see many tools that are available where we can analyze and visualize the data that well."
"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."
"If you have one missing value in your dataset and this missing value belongs to a specific attribute and the attribute is a numeric attribute and there is only one missing data, whenever you import this data, the problem is that Weka cannot understand that this is a numeric field. It converts everything into a string, and there is no way to convert the string into numerical math. It's really very complicated."
"A few people said it became slow after a while."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If it requires lot of data processing, maybe switching to IBM SPSS Clementine would be better for the buyer."
"It's quite expensive, but they do a special deal for universities."
"The price of IBM SPSS Statistics could improve."
"The pricing of the modeler is high and can reduce the utility of the product for those who can not afford to adopt it."
"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten."
"While the pricing of the product may be higher, the accompanying service and features justify the investment."
"We think that IBM SPSS is expensive for this function."
"Our licence is on a yearly renewal basis. While pricing is not the primary concern in our evaluation, as products are assessed by whether they can meet our user needs and expertise, the cost can be a limiting factor in the number of licences we procure."
"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."
"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."
"The solution is free and open-source."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
9%
University
8%
Manufacturing 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 Statistics?
The software offers consistency across multiple research projects helping us with predictive analytics capabilities.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM SPSS Statistics?
SPSS is horrendously expensiver. On a laptop Knime is free of charge (Windows, Mac, Linux)
What needs improvement with IBM SPSS Statistics?
Better guidance both in producing programs and interpreting their output.
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...
 

Also Known As

SPSS Statistics
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

LDB Group, RightShip, Tennessee Highway Patrol, Capgemini Consulting, TEAC Corporation, Ironside, nViso SA, Razorsight, Si.mobil, University Hospitals of Leicester, CROOZ Inc., GFS Fundraising Solutions, Nedbank Ltd., IDS-TILDA
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Find out what your peers are saying about IBM SPSS Statistics vs. Weka and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.