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Alteryx vs IBM SPSS Modeler 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Data Science Platforms category, the mindshare of Alteryx is 6.1%, down from 7.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM SPSS Modeler is 2.4%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of KNIME is 11.9%, up from 9.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Science Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Theresa McLaughlin - PeerSpot reviewer
Quick development enables seamless data processing despite occasional support issues
There were times when the product would fail during development without an apparent reason. The support structure changed; initially, we received great support, however, it later became less reliable due to licensing issues and a tiered support system. Licensing negotiations were problematic, affecting our product usage. For instance, our licenses were temporarily lost during negotiations when an agreement couldn't be reached.
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.
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 GUI is simple and it integrates with Python."
"It is a stable and scalable solution."
"One-stop shop for data preparation, blending, prediction, and optimization in a single workflow."
"The most valuable feature for me is integration."
"I like that I can merge data from different sources into one place."
"The drag and drop and layout is simple to understand, with intuitive names of features."
"The most valuable feature of Alteryx is its performance. It is a powerful solution."
"Alteryx is a simple and easy-to-use solution."
"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."
"You take two quarters and compare them and this tool is ideal because it gives you a lot of visibility on the before and after."
"The ease of use in the user interface is the best part of it. The ability to customize some of my streams with R and Python has been very useful to me, I've automated a few things with that."
"I was familiar with using IBM SPSS Modeler separately in the private sector before that. It's a good tool for extracting data from data warehouses, creating streams, and manipulating logic to extract final data."
"It is just a lot faster. So you do not have to write a bunch of code, you can throw that stuff on there pretty quickly and do prototyping quickly."
"It is a great product for running statistical analysis."
"The most valuable features of the IBM SPSS Modeler are visual programming, you don't have to write any code, and it is easy to use. 90 to 95 percent of the use cases, you don't have to fine-tune anything. If you want to do something deeper, for example, create a better neural network, then you have to go into the features and try to fine-tune them. However, the default selection which is made by the tool, it's very practical and works well."
"We had an IBM Guardium service contract where we used one of their resources to help us develop our prototype. It was a good experience, but they were helpful and responsive."
"KNIME is very easy to handle and use. Anyone can use it, and it's easy to learn."
"Easy to use, stable, and powerful."
"Valuable features include visual workflow creation, workflow variables (parameterisation), automatic caching of all intermediate data sets in the workflow, scheduling with the server."
"We can deploy the solution in a cluster as well."
"One of the greatest advantages of KNIME is that it can be used by those without any coding experience. those with no coding background can use it."
"KNIME is fast and the visualization provides a lot of clarity. It clarifies your thinking because you can see what's going on with your data."
"It provides very fast problem solving and I don't need to do much coding in it. I just drag and drop."
"The visual workflow tools for custom and complex tasks always beat raw coding languages with the agility, speed to deliver, and ease of subsequent changes."
 

Cons

"The solution is improving continuously. They have, for example, just added automatic insights. If they continue to improve on their overall service offering, that would be ideal."
"The workflow and pipeline need to improve."
"There have been some issues with licensing, particularly with the increased prices. This has led some companies, including ours, to consider reducing the number of licenses or potentially discontinuing their use of Alteryx."
"Lacks an open source edition which would be helpful."
"The server is too expensive for what you get and it really a designer desktop on a server."
"I'd like to see more artificial intelligence business tools or features in Alteryx."
"I think they should really work on integrating or have a capacity to integrate some algorithmic code. I think that's one of the most important things they need to be doing."
"The formula we currently use in Alteryx can be automated."
"The forecasting could be a bit easier."
"The integration with sources and visualisation needs some improvement. The scalability needs improvement."
"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."
"When you are not using the product, such as during the pandemic where we had worldwide lockdowns, you still have to pay for the licensing."
"The product does not have a search function for tags."
"It's not as user friendly as it could be."
"​Initial setup of the software was complex, because of our own problems within the government."
"It is very good, but slow. The slowness may be because we have not finalized all the background information in SPSS. It still needs some tweaking."
"KNIME's documentation is not strong."
"There should be better documentation and the steps should be easier."
"The visualization functionalities are not good (cannot be compared to, for instance, the possibilities in R)."
"It's pretty straightforward to understand. So, if you understand what the pipeline is, you can use the drag-and-drop functionality without much training. Doing the same thing in Python requires so much more training. That's why I use KNIME."
"KNIME doesn't handle large datasets or a high number of records well."
"For graphics, the interface is a little confusing. So, this is a point that could be improved."
"KNIME is not scalable."
"I've had some problems integrating KNIME with other solutions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are some implementation services and internal effort costs at the beginning but there is nothing else."
"The price for Alteryx Designer is reasonable but the price for Alteryx Server for universal collaborations is too expensive."
"The desktop platform costs $5,000 per year. It's very costly."
"Alteryx isn't extortionately expensive, but it's not cheap either."
"In my opinion, it's actually quite expensive."
"The seat is too expensive."
"Opt for the three year subscription. It is 20% less than the yearly one."
"The designer license costs 5000 euros. The server edition is 1000 euros."
"When you are close to end of quarter, IBM and its partners can get you 60% to 70% discounts, so literally wait for the last day of the quarter for the best prices. You may feel like you are getting robbed if you can't receive a good discount."
"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."
"Having in mind all four tools from Garner’s top quadrant, the pricing of this tool is competitive and it reflects the quality that it offers."
"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."
"I am using the free version of IBM SPSS Modeler, it is the educational edition version."
"It is a huge increase to time savings."
"While there are certain limitations in functionality, you can still utilize it efficiently free of charge."
"The client versions are mostly free, and we pay only for the KNIME server version. It's not a cheap solution."
"It is free of cost. It is GNU licensed."
"I use the tool's free version."
"Scaling to the on-premises version requires a licensing fee per user that is a bit expensive in comparison to R, Python, and SAS."
"KNIME assets are stand alone, as the solution is open source."
"KNIME is a cheap product. I currently use KNIME's open-source version."
"This is a free open-source solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Educational Organization
11%
University
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
University
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is the Biggest Difference Between Alteryx and IBM SPSS Modeler?
One of the differences is that with Alteryx you can use it as an ETL and analytics tool. Please connect with me direc...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Alteryx and IBM SPSS Modeler?
Alteryx is an extremely easy and flexible data tool, flexible in terms of drag and drop toolset and also has python, ...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Alteryx and IBM SPSS Modeler?
I am not familiar with IBM SPSS Modeler, therefore, I cannot compare these two products. Regarding Alteryx I can say...
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 bud...
What needs improvement with IBM SPSS Modeler?
There are performance issues. Extracting data from many combined tables can take hours and occasionally crash the ser...
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?
I have seen the potential to interact with Python, which is currently a bit limited. I am interested in the newer ver...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
SPSS Modeler
KNIME Analytics Platform
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

AnalyticsIq Inc., belk, BloominBrands Inc., Cardinalhealth, Cineplex, Dairy Queen
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
Infocom Corporation, Dymatrix Consulting Group, Soluzione Informatiche, MMI Agency, Estanislao Training and Solutions, Vialis AG
Find out what your peers are saying about Databricks, Knime, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in Data Science Platforms. Updated: May 2025.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.