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IBM SPSS Modeler vs KNIME comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

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
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
KNIME
Ranking in Data Mining
1st
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Data Mining category, the mindshare of IBM SPSS Modeler is 18.1%, up from 16.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of KNIME is 24.7%, down from 27.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Mining
 

Q&A Highlights

EzzAbdelfattah - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 30, 2019
 

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.
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

"A lot of jobs that are stuck in Excel due to the huge numbers of rows are tackled pretty quickly."
"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."
"New algorithms are added into every version of Modeler, e.g., SMOTE, random forest, etc. The Derive node is used for the syntax code to derive the data."
"The supervised models are valuable. It is also very organized and easy to use."
"It is very scalable for non-technical people."
"Automated modelling, classification, or clustering are very useful."
"It helped me in that I didn't need to write them by hand, and I could get a result in one or two minutes. That helped me a lot."
"I think it is the point and drag features that are the most valuable. You can simply click at the windows, and then pull up the functions."
"Since KNIME is a no-code platform, it is easy to work with."
"Usability, and organising workflows in very neat manner. Controlling workflow through variables is something amazing."
"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."
"It provides very fast problem solving and I don't need to do much coding in it. I just drag and drop."
"All of the features related to the ETL are fantastic. That includes the connectors to other programs, databases, and the meta node function."
"Overall KNIME serves its purpose and does a good job."
"KNIME is more intuitive and easier to use, which is the principal advantage."
"The most valuable features of KNIME are its ability to convert your sub-workflow into a node. For example, the workflow has many individual native nodes that can be converted into a single node. This representation has simplified my workflow to a great extent. I can present my workflow in a very compact way."
 

Cons

"If IBM could add some of the popular models into the SPSS for further analysis, like popular regression models, I think that would be a helpful improvement."
"The challenge for the very technical data scientists: It is constraining for them.​"
"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 integration with sources and visualisation needs some improvement. The scalability needs improvement."
"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."
"We would like to see better visualizations and easier integration with Cognos Analytics for reporting."
"I think mapping for geographic data would also be a really great thing to be able to use."
"​The data visualization part is the area most in need of improvement."
"It needs more examples, use cases, and MOOC to learn, especially with respect to the algorithms and how to practically create a flow from end-to-end."
"The ability to handle large amounts of data and performance in processing need to be improved."
"We do not have much documentation in Portuguese."
"It could input more data acquisitions from other sources and it is difficult to combine with Python."
"KNIME's documentation is not strong."
"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."
"I would like it to have data visualitation capabilities. Today I'm still creating my own data visualtions tools to present my reports."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"$5,000 annually."
"If you are in a university and the license is free then you can use the tool without any charges, which is good."
"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."
"It is an expensive product."
"Its price is okay for a company, but for personal use, it is considered somewhat expensive."
"It got us a good amount of money with quick and efficient modeling."
"The price for Knime is okay."
"Scaling to the on-premises version requires a licensing fee per user that is a bit expensive in comparison to R, Python, and SAS."
"It's an open-source solution."
"There is a Community Edition and paid versions available."
"For beginners, the free desktop version is very attractive, but the full server version can be more expensive. I have only used the free version and it offers a fair pricing system. I have been promoting it to others without any compensation or request from the company, simply because I am enthusiastic about it. I am not aware of the pricing for the server version, but it seems to be widely used."
"It is free of cost. It is GNU licensed."
"The client versions are mostly free, and we pay only for the KNIME server version. It's not a cheap solution."
"It is expensive to procure the license."
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Answers from the Community

EzzAbdelfattah - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 30, 2019
Dec 30, 2019
The main difference lies in the community that has KNIME because the additional modules serve a multitude of different jobs from image processing, management of ssh file systems to chemical molecule calculations.
2 out of 4 answers
ZW
Dec 27, 2019
KNIME. It free, open-source, and you can plug in Java, Python, R, and Matlab. The community is awesome.
Dec 28, 2019
The main difference lies in the community that has KNIME because the additional modules serve a multitude of different jobs from image processing, management of ssh file systems to chemical molecule calculations.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
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 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 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 version, 5.4, when it becomes available. The machine learning and profileration asp...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

SPSS Modeler
KNIME Analytics Platform
 

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
Infocom Corporation, Dymatrix Consulting Group, Soluzione Informatiche, MMI Agency, Estanislao Training and Solutions, Vialis AG
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM SPSS Modeler vs. KNIME and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
856,874 professionals have used our research since 2012.