TIBCO Spotfire Reviews

TIBCO Spotfire can connect to many different data sources in order to acquire data, from many vendors such as SAP, Oracle, IBM, or even just local files.

It can work with data using in memory mode, this makes the loading process faster.

It is easy to customize, and extendable with custom functions.

A very useful API is provided in order to integrate it easily with any web application.

The developing and runtime environment are very stable. The TIBCO Spotfire architecture environment is not complex. However, not all the runtime components are multiplatform. To be exact, the component whose purpose is to render the data in a web browser can be installed only on Microsoft machines. This is a very big limitation from this point of view.

The first approach was in 2010. I have used TIBCO Spotfire in four or five different projects as of 2016.

The TIBCO Spotfire product is really stable. No relevant issues have been encountered.

Most of the time the TIBCO Spotfire dashboard is used by business users. It was very common for them to notify us regarding weird behavior in business data patterns that was always ending with a discovery of bugs on the backend applications.

Technical support was always very good and fast. Always leading to a resolution of the problem immediately.

Together with TIBCO, my previous company was a partner of SAS. Recently, SAS provided a BAM and BI solution, but personally I have found it not comparable to Spotfire: huge memory consumption, no API available, not customizable.

The initial setup is quite easy, a few steps to perform before the application is ready.

A little bit more complex is the configuration of SSO, but the documentation is covering all the scenarios in a very clear way.

Implementation with TIBCO Spotfire consists basically of understanding the business requirements, and transforming them into readable dashboards and diagrams. Most of the time, in my case, implementation was made by a one-man team.

TIBCO Spotfire is a new challenge, very different from any typical implementation a developer used to do. Most of the time, it consists of understanding the data. Very often, that requires direct contact with the business department of the customer.

Real time analytics: TIBCO Spotfire links to the database and the dashboard updates automatically, which is great. You don’t have to export a CSV file to get a dashboard.

The client where I have implemented TIBCO Spotfire was using it to understand calls received on their call centre. With the analytics provided, they were able to understand when during the week / day they receive most of the calls to then take action and get the right number of agents.

I would say that the implementation of the product could be much easier that it is at the moment. It is a complex process at the moment to set up TIBCO Spotfire with your database; not always straightforward.

I have been using it for six months.

The initial setup is supposed to be straightforward, but I found that there is often some glitch in the setup that requires thought.

TIBCO Spotfire provides an expert to set up the solution for their clients. This usually takes 2-3 days.

It is an expensive product, but if you have the right data analyst to use it, the ROI can be quite high. This number depends on a lot of factors. How much analytics are you doing at the moment? How good is your data analyst?

I have used Tableau and Alteryx, which are similar solutions. I would say that TIBCO Spotfire is a combination of those two other solutions, although I think Tableau is much more user friendly.

I think you should get a trial and see what are the possibilities and understand who would be using the product. Define your business goals first and then use TIBCO Spotfire in order to measure those.

The best features are its malleability; it can be manipulated using IronPython, JavaScript, HTML/CSS & jQuery, etc.

It is being used in a number of ways within the organisation, from internal financial analysis to products and services we sell to our clients.

I have used it for ~18 months.

I have not encountered any stability issues.

I have not encountered any scalability issues.

I have not had to use technical support that much, save for when I first started learning the software. The service I got then was very good/positive.

We have used a number of solutions (as the product is used in many areas of the company). In my previous role, we replaced Cognos with Spotfire and the benefits were plentiful, including but not limited to:

• Improved types of reporting/visualisations
• Significantly more malleable than Cognos
• Advanced analysis features

I believe the admin/installation was not as straightforward as other software. However, I wasn’t directly involved in that.

Many other software products were reviewed; the decision to proceed with Spotfire was made at executive level.

Find experts in Spotfire; perhaps get some consultancy to fast-track your knowledge. We are lucky enough to have internal expertise to fulfill that requirement.

It allows users to quickly analyze data from a variety of sources and visualize it with powerful, interactive graphs, and charts. This leads to faster and better decision making, as well as identifying areas to save costs, increase revenue, optimize, etc.

• Intuitive interface: Easy to get started and use features.
• Filtering: Quickly filters to a level of detail that you are interested in.
• Marking: Drills into data, seeing the same data in other charts.
• Data connections: Having the ability to quickly connect to just about any data source.

The Text Area feature needs to be more user-friendly. It is a little clunky to use, and it is difficult to consistently format text. Here are a few suggestions:

• Don't make it pop out when editing the text area.
• Add a feature to easily add tables (without HTML).
• Overall, make it more user-friendly.

It is prone to crashing every now and then for seemingly arbitrary reasons.

Initial setup is straightforward: Just downloaded it from their website (not applicable for large organizations).

The ROI is nearly impossible to calculate. 

The pricing seems competitive and reasonable. The value delivered by the product far exceeds the cost.

I have tried Tableau, but haven't spent much time working with it because my previous organization and current clients use Spotfire. Excel is also a competitor, but Spotfire is significantly better than Excel for data visualization.

I recommend watching some Spotfire demo videos on YouTube, and also downloading the free trial to get a feel for the software.

Interactive Visualizations, allowing us to write scripts to change the outlook of the tool and statistics are the key to this product.

This has allowed us to see real time operational analytics helping us to take timely decisions in correcting the defects and repositioning them in correct mode.

Story Telling features aren't intuitive as much as Tableau and some of the features are segregated

2+ years.

Deployment issues were very minimal.

So far, not any noticed issue on stability.

Few times when the data size got increased , it shuts automatically and restarts in the thick client environment.

It’s good, at least the Tibco Community is active and very helpful.

9/10

I haven’t used any other reporting tool as my present organization using Spotfire exclusively for it.

It was implemented in-house.

I know that other products were evaluated but I don't know what they were.

Know the complete tool by going through all the help files available. Feel free to play with this product with no limitations to the imagination. It makes it possible to give us factual insights, helps us to take a right decisions transforming our business.

The product’s most valuable feature is its integration with HTML, JavaScript and R, because the integration makes all impossible stuff possible with Spotfire.

Many reports which were tabular in form are now very intuitive after being converted to Spotfire. Also, they are automated, so it saves a lot of effort, time & money.

I would like to have "event-based" automation (without integrating with other tools), e.g., send an email only if some event has occurred.

Even though we can cascade the drop down property control, having a drop down filter would help a lot.

I have been using it for 3.5 years.

Technical support is good.

I have also used Tableau, which is another wonderful tool for creating reports. But Tibco comes with a complete suite of products. Spotfire can be integrated with other tools in the Tibco suite.

I can't say; I’ve never had an opportunity to install & configure the server.

I can't say.

It is worth investing in Spotfire.

I’m not very sure if there is any, but there should be a product with no licensing cost - such as Tableau Reader - that can be used for reading the Spotfire files.

Spotfire is a wonderful product with vast reporting and analytical capability. You must try this solution if you are looking for a tool for developing reports.

• Easy data transformations before loading data into Spotfire e.g., pivoting, unpivoting, etc.
• Simplicity of customizing data expressions

Better UX/UI design to make the product look “sexier”. It’s somewhat difficult to add formatting to Spotfire dashboards to make them look nice (e.g. coloring backgrounds of charts, adding floating texts, etc.). This is a bit easier and more customizable in Tableau, and even more customizable in MicroStrategy.

I have been using it for two years.

I have not encountered any deployment, stability or scalability issues.

Personally, I have never had to use technical support.

I was not involved in the evaluation.

Compared to Tableau, it is much more powerful in terms of statistics and analytics, but Tableau is more popular, so there is more support for it online. Spotfire is easier to use for an advanced user, while Tableau is easier to use for a beginner user.

The feature most valuable to me is the incorporation of analytical techniques such as K-Means and ETL.

Reporting and dashboarding became quite easy. It is much faster and more robust than other BI or visualisation tools.

I would like to see the following improvements:

• Multiple Interactive Layers
• More Built-In Visualisations.
• Dropdown and Hierarchy Filtering

I have used the solution for two years.

We did not encounter any issues with deployment, stability, or scalability.

Customer service and technical support are good.

I have used Tableau for the same amount of time. Spotfire has its own advantages in transforming data and analytical functions.

The initial setup is complex when you use Spotfire Server.

A vendor team implemented the solution.

It provides a great ROI.

Pricing is just fine.