IBM SPSS Modeler vs Microsoft Power BI comparison

The compared IBM and Microsoft solutions aren't in the same category. IBM is ranked #3 in DM , with an average rating of 7.5, and holds a 20.6% mindshare in the category. Microsoft is ranked #1 in BIT , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 14.1% mindshare. Additionally, 86% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

IBM SPSS Modeler

Read 40 IBM SPSS Modeler reviews

2,258 Views
1,106 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

Microsoft Power BI

Read 326 Microsoft Power BI reviews

22,361 Views
13,864 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

IBM SPSS Modeler

Microsoft Power BI

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM SPSS Modeler and Microsoft Power BI based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Knime, IBM, Weka and others in Data Mining.

To learn more, read our detailed Data Mining Report (Updated: October 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Data Mining

October 2025

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Helped 872,655 peers since 2012

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

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Mining (3rd), Data Science Platforms (16th)

Microsoft Power BI

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

326

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (1st), Reporting (1st)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM SPSS Modeler is designed for Data Mining and holds a mindshare of 20.6%, up 16.9% compared to last year.
Microsoft Power BI, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 14.1% mindshare, down 21.7% since last year.

Data Mining Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM SPSS Modeler	20.6%
IBM SPSS Statistics	20.0%
KNIME Business Hub	18.7%
Other	40.7%

Data Mining

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Power BI	14.1%
Tableau Enterprise	10.3%
Amazon QuickSight	4.9%
Other	70.7%

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Featured Reviews

PeterHuo

Application Architect at Canada Border Services Agency

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.

Read full review

Shoury Priyanshu

Senior Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd

Facilitates seamless data aggregation with some outdated visual elements hindering user appeal

Real-time data integration is an area for improvement. Although I've worked on several solutions involving real-time integration, it's not very user-friendly and often lags, especially with over a million data rows. This makes Power BI difficult to manage as loading times can reach one or two minutes, which is problematic today. There are challenges with scalability, requiring multiple pages in dashboards to manage these issues. Visualization could be improved as it appears outdated. Users, especially newcomers, find it unappealing and not user-friendly.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The supervised models are valuable. It is also very organized and easy to use."

"It’s definitely scalable, it’s all on the same platform, it’s well integrated. I think the integration is important in terms of scalablility because essentially, having the entire suite helps a lot to scale it"

"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."

"Our go live process has been slightly enhanced compared to the previous programmatic process. There is now a faster time to production from the business end."

"We are using it either for workforce deployment or to improve our operations."

"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."

"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."

"It works fine. I have not had any stability issues; it is always up."

More IBM SPSS Modeler pros

"The most effective feature of Microsoft Power BI for data analysis is the ability to use Power Query directly from Excel. Power BI's integration capabilities impacted our data management by allowing us to push all reporting down to the end user, giving them the capability to perform "what if" scenarios and discover and validate their own data without needing to refer to IT. Additionally, it provided insights that we couldn't get from Oracle Cloud. We wrote an extract routine to transfer our Oracle Cloud database to Power BI, which was a game changer in terms of giving people confidence in the finances."

"Good CS and administration."

"The solution's initial setup isn't too complicated."

"PowerBi is used to import our production data and generate dashboards, then integrates other Excel sheets to provide managers dashboards. This helps them get insights to make better OEE improvement decisions, mainly where to focus resources. We became able to see indicators from any time frame (day, week, month, or year), then could make better decisions."

"You can learn a lot of things quickly using resources like ChatGPT or Microsoft's own solutions, which are very helpful within the Microsoft ecosystem."

"The uploading of information is very easy, as you just use an Excel sheet to start work right away and obtain the benefits of Power BI."

"The data manipulation and data cleaning tasks are handled in the backend by Power Query in Microsoft Power BI."

"Management reporting solution that's very stable and scalable."

More Microsoft Power BI pros

Cons

"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."

"Expensive to deploy solutions. You need to buy an extra deployment unit."

"The platform's cloud version needs improvements."

"The forecasting could be a bit easier."

"I would like better integration into the Weather Company solution. I have raised a couple of concerns about this integration and having more time series capabilities."

"Time Series or forecasting needs to be easier. It is a very important feature, and it should be made easier and more automated to use. For instance, for logistic regression, binary or multinomial is used automatically based on the type of the target variable. I wish they can make Time Series easier to use in a similar way."

"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."

More IBM SPSS Modeler cons

"Microsoft BI has its own challenges in terms of user interface and how quickly somebody can learn how to use it."

"Anything they can do to improve enterprise collaboration is going to help people get set up and utilize the solution."

"SSMS & SSRS."

"When there are large amounts of data being processed there are additional tools needed to handle it."

"I would like for there to be some type of user manual that shows steps on how to navigate the solution."

"Needs single sign-on."

"I would like to see a feature that connects with a Machine Learning platform like a RapidMiner or Azure Machine Learning Studio. It would be great to have a Machine Learning application link to connect."

"The mobile app is very poor."

More Microsoft Power BI cons

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."

"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 users use the server with ten licenses, it runs faster. But if forty users use the same appliance, everything slows down. People then think it's not easy to do things and prefer using remote tools like Python to extract data from the database. It's not about being expensive or cheap, but about people's knowledge and experience in how to do the work."

"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."

"This tool, being an IBM product, is pretty expensive."

"It is an expensive product."

"Its price is okay for a company, but for personal use, it is considered somewhat expensive."

"I am using the free version of IBM SPSS Modeler, it is the educational edition version."

"If you are in a university and the license is free then you can use the tool without any charges, which is good."

More IBM SPSS Modeler pricing and cost advice

"Regarding cost, the initial investment wasn't too high, but ongoing licensing could add up."

"I have not had a customer suggest the solution is too expensive. There are licenses to use the solution."

"You don't need a license for development, but if you want to publish to external users, you need a license. The licensing is very costly, but I think that since the advantages and benefits of Power BI are so high, people are willing to pay. I can't blame them."

"Microsoft BI requires licenses."

"Microsoft Power BI has reasonable pricing."

"I would rate them 4 out of 5 for their current pricing. There are no additional costs to the standard licensing fees."

"The solution is priced well for what they offer. However, the premium version is very expensive."

"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with one being cheap and ten being expensive."

More Microsoft Power BI pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user79932

Senior Manager - BI Head at NVidia

Feb 4, 2015

Comparison of SAP BO, Tableau, QlikView, Cognos, Microsoft, OBIEE and Pentaho

1. SAP BO/BI Enterprise scalability Security Ease of use Semantic layer 2. Tableau Visualization Data discovery Turnaround time 3. IBM Cognos Enterprise scalability Security In-memory feature 4. MS BI - Flexibility 5. Pentaho - Open source but still enterprise grade 6. QlikView Data…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

11%

Educational Organization

10%

University

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	32

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	134
Midsize Enterprise	57
Large Enterprise	165

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM SPSS Modeler?

The customer comes to you and says they want to deploy it and make a production out of this, which is very difficult and expensive with IBM SPSS Modeler. With MATLAB, there is no problem. I have a ...

See all answers

Seeking lightweight open source BI software

There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I would recommend as follows: 1) If you have legacies of SAP, Oracle - look for SAP...

See all answers

Is Power BI a complete platform or only a visualization tool?

Power BI is an advanced visualization tool oriented to big data with a very complete set of widgets to visualize information, control users accessing information, the configuration of governance po...

See all answers

How does Oracle OBIEE compare with Microsoft BI?

Oracle OBIEE is great in allowing design and creativity per the individual needs of the organization. Dashboards are fully customizable and very user-friendly. This solution is very stable. Oracle ...

See all answers

Comparisons

IBM SPSS Statistics vs IBM SPSS Modeler

Compared 50% of the time

KNIME Business Hub vs IBM SPSS Modeler

Compared 10% of the time

Alteryx vs IBM SPSS Modeler

Compared 4% of the time

Altair RapidMiner vs IBM SPSS Modeler

Compared 4% of the time

Weka vs IBM SPSS Modeler

Compared 4% of the time

More IBM SPSS Modeler Competitors

Tableau Enterprise vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 14% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 11% of the time

Domo vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 7% of the time

Databricks vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 6% of the time

KNIME Business Hub vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 4% of the time

More Microsoft Power BI Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM SPSS Modeler

October 2025

Download IBM SPSS Modeler product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI

October 2025

Download Microsoft Power BI product report

Also Known As

SPSS Modeler

SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI

Overview

IBM SPSS Modeler is an extensive predictive analytics platform that is designed to bring predictive intelligence to decisions made by individuals, groups, systems and the enterprise. By providing a range of advanced algorithms and techniques that include text analytics, entity analytics, decision management and optimization, SPSS Modeler can help you consistently make the right decisions from the desktop or within operational systems.

Buy
https://www.ibm.com/products/spss-modeler/pricing

Sign up for the trial
https://www.ibm.com/account/reg/us-en/signup?formid=urx-19947

IBM

Microsoft Power BI is a powerful tool for data analysis and visualization. This tool stands out for its ability to merge and analyze data from various sources. Widely adopted across different industries and departments, Power BI is instrumental in creating visually appealing dashboards and generating insightful business intelligence reports. Its intuitive interface, robust visualization capabilities, and seamless integration with other Microsoft applications empower users to easily create interactive reports and gain valuable insights.

Microsoft

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

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Find out what your peers are saying about Knime, IBM, Weka and others in Data Mining. Updated: October 2025.

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