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IBM Watson Explorer vs KNIME 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 Watson Explorer
Ranking in Data Mining
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
KNIME
Ranking in Data Mining
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Data Science Platforms (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Data Mining category, the mindshare of IBM Watson Explorer is 0.8%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of KNIME is 25.7%, down from 27.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Mining
 

Featured Reviews

it_user840897 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Laurence Moseley - PeerSpot reviewer
Has a drag-and-drop interface and AI capabilities
It's difficult to pinpoint one single feature because KNIME has so many. For starters, it's very easy to learn. You can get started with just a one-hour video. The drag-and-drop interface makes it user-friendly. For example, if you want to read an Excel file, drag the "read Excel file" node from the repository, configure it by specifying the file location, and run it. This gives you a table with all your data. Next, you can clean the data by handling missing values, selecting specific columns you want to analyze, and then proceeding with your analysis, such as regression or correlation. KNIME has over 4,500 nodes available for download. In addition, KNIME offers various extensions. For instance, the text processing extension allows you to process text data efficiently. It's more powerful than other tools like NVivo and Palantir. KNIME also has AI capabilities. If you're unsure about the next step, the AI assistant can suggest the most frequently used nodes based on your previous work. Another valuable feature is the integration with Python. If you need to perform a task that requires Python, you can simply add a Python node, write the necessary code,

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The valuable feature of Watson Explorer for us is data entities, and to see the hidden insights from within unstructured 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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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 most valuable feature is the data wrangling, which is what I mainly use it for."
"The ETL which helps me to collect, reformat, and load the data from multiple sources into one destination, a storage database."
"It has allowed us to easily implement advanced analytics into various processes."
"We have been able to appreciate the considerable reduction in prototyping time."
"We have found KNIME valuable when it comes to its visualization."
"The product is user-friendly."
"I would rate the stability of KNIME a ten out of ten."
"Valuable features include visual workflow creation, workflow variables (parameterisation), automatic caching of all intermediate data sets in the workflow, scheduling with the server."
 

Cons

"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"
"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."
"It needs better language support, to include some other languages. Also, they should improve the user interface."
"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"
"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."
"We do not have much documentation in Portuguese."
"System resource usage. Knime will occupy total system RAM size and other applications will hang."
"There are a lot of tools in the product and it would help if they were grouped into classes where you can select a function, rather than a specific tool."
"The graphic features of KNIME need improvement"
"I would like to see better web scraping because every time I tried, it was not up to par, although you can use Python script."
"For graphics, the interface is a little confusing."
"KNIME's licensing and data management aren't as straightforward relative to Alteryx. Alteryx's tools are more sophisticated, so you need fewer to use it compared to KNIME. I think tab implementation could be easier, too."
"KNIME could improve when it comes to large data markets."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."
"I use the open-source version."
"I use the tool's free version."
"KNIME is free and open source."
"There is a Community Edition and paid versions available."
"The client versions are mostly free, and we pay only for the KNIME server version. It's not a cheap solution."
"KNIME Business Hub is expensive for small companies."
"KNIME offers a free version"
"It's an open-source solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Educational Organization
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
University
9%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
University
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What do you like most about KNIME?
Since KNIME is a no-code platform, it is easy to work with.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for KNIME?
I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.
What needs improvement with KNIME?
For graphics, the interface is a little confusing. So, this is a point that could be improved.
 

Also Known As

IBM WEX
KNIME Analytics Platform
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RIMAC, Westpac New Zealand, Toyota Financial Services, Swiss Re, Akershus University Hospital, Korean Air Lines, Mizuho Bank, Honda
Infocom Corporation, Dymatrix Consulting Group, Soluzione Informatiche, MMI Agency, Estanislao Training and Solutions, Vialis AG
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Watson Explorer vs. KNIME and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
846,617 professionals have used our research since 2012.