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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 8.0, and holds a 18.9% mindshare in the category. Microsoft is ranked #1 in BIT , with an average rating of 8.1, and holds a 9.3% 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
  • 2,814 Views
  • 1,379 Comparison Views
86% willing to recommend
Microsoft Power BI
Read 329 Microsoft Power BI reviews
  • 24,257 Views
  • 15,524 Comparison Views
93% willing to recommend
 

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.

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To learn more, read our detailed Data Mining Report (Updated: February 2026).
Buyer's Guide
Data Mining
February 2026
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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
40
Ranking in other categories
Data Mining (3rd), Data Science Platforms (12th)
Microsoft Power BI
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
329
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 18.9%, up 17.1% compared to last year.
Microsoft Power BI, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 9.3% mindshare, down 21.8% since last year.
Data Mining Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM SPSS Modeler18.9%
IBM SPSS Statistics18.3%
KNIME Business Hub12.8%
Other50.0%
Data Mining
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Power BI9.3%
Tableau Enterprise6.7%
Amazon QuickSight3.7%
Other80.3%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

RB
Prof. Dr. Rudolf Bisping
Business Owner at SASS GmbH
Support and flexibility enable effective project initiation and meet customer needs but deployment requires enhancement
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 solution, and then I convert my MATLAB solution to C programming language. This I can deploy, and I can check it, and it is MISRA compatible. It is very easy to deploy it, to go from MATLAB to C or C++, which is actually needed in the car industry. In the car industry, they want to have it in the hardware. You cannot put MATLAB or IBM SPSS Modeler in the hardware of a car, but with C, there is no problem with a microcontroller. They can shoot it into the microcontroller, and I can check it with Polyspace, and it is MISRA compatible, which is an industrial standard. There is nothing similar in IBM SPSS Modeler. I made solutions with IBM SPSS Modeler, and then the customer said they wanted to make a production out of it, and it was not possible. I stopped with IBM SPSS Modeler 18. It is now 18.6 from what I know at the moment. I do not believe that there is a possibility to design a graphic user interface with it. It is itself a graphic user interface, where you put all sorts of little icons into the display.
Read full review
Antonio Flor - PeerSpot reviewer
Antonio Flor
Lead Anaplanner at Chaucer Group
Data integration has improved reserving and expense control while collaboration drives fast dashboards
Regarding drawbacks or weak points in Microsoft Power BI, it may not be directly related to the tool itself, but with our architecture, as we couldn't get a service account, which is an email address that has no relationship with the employees, just to establish the connection with Anaplan. We couldn't get it to work on SSO, so we use an employee account which could be a point of weakness, meaning if the person leaves, that connection will break. If the person goes on holiday and we need to refresh, we have to change the connection as well, but we have to live with that since we're not using SSO on the service account. Regarding the natural language processing feature, we're trying to avoid using it too much because it can slow down the connection, so as much as possible, we try to build the logic and any transformation in Anaplan, and then deliver an end product to Microsoft Power BI.
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

"It is a great product for running statistical analysis."
"The quality is very good."
"We have integration where you can write third-party apps. This sort of feature opens it up to being able to do anything you want."
"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."
"So far, the stability has been rock solid."
"It continues to be a very flexible platform, so that it handles R and Python and other types of technology."
"We are using it either for workforce deployment or to improve our operations."
"The benefits are that this product makes us a more efficient sales staff, reducing the inefficiencies in the buying patterns of our customers by calling them when we know they're ready to order, instead of waiting for them to call us."
More IBM SPSS Modeler pros
"The best thing about this solution is that it is very user friendly. It is interactive in terms of visualizations. It is very eye-catching, and it attracts users. There are a lot of options to visualize the data in different drafts and views. I have used different visualization tools, and I found Power BI to be more efficient in terms of performance, user-friendliness, and ease of use."
"The product's most valuable features are DAX functions for formulas and calculations."
"The most interesting feature of Microsoft Power BI is that it's very user-friendly."
"What I liked most about the tool is that we can use text queries to create projects and modify columns according to our needs. There are hundreds of YouTube courses on how to use it."
"The solution is very easy to use."
"This product has a lot of features and most of them are user-friendly."
"There are some great automation elements in the product."
"Its data visualization provides the user the ability to quickly look at data and focus on relevant information, allowing them to make an immediate decision."
More Microsoft Power BI pros
 

Cons

"I would not rate the technical support very well. The technicians have accents. When you do find someone, it is very hard to get somebody able to answer the technical questions."
"It would be helpful if SPSS supported open-source features, for example, embedding R or Python scripts in SPSS Modeler."
"It would be helpful if SPSS supported open-source features, for example, embedding R or Python scripts in SPSS Modeler."
"​Initial setup of the software was complex, because of our own problems within the government."
"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."
"Expensive to deploy solutions. You need to buy an extra deployment unit."
"The forecasting could be a bit easier."
"The standard package (personal) is not supported for database connection."
More IBM SPSS Modeler cons
"There are some connector-related issues in their MSBA solution."
"The visualization aspect, while being the most visible to business users, also happens to be the weakest point in the entire Microsoft BI stack."
"The solution could improve by providing more free visuals. A lot of them are very nice but you have to purchase them."
"I would like to see Machine Learning for Power Bi Pro users or an intermediate license to enable Machine Learning if you don't have access to a Premium account."
"Bad performance or heavy load on the dashboard often results from issues in backend data modeling or invalid data."
"Not having to login again after a mobile app upgrade. A simple login on mobile would be great."
"This solution is resource-heavy."
"I'm looking for something that can make it much easier to incorporate Power BI visuals or dashboards into, let's say, Power Apps – custom Power Apps or anything like that. The most important thing would be to seamlessly embed reports in applications. For example, to have buttons that can be navigated through multiple solutions – from Power Apps to Power BI to SharePoint – via links or something like that."
More Microsoft Power BI cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an expensive product."
"This tool, being an IBM product, is pretty expensive."
"$5,000 annually."
"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."
"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 got us a good amount of money with quick and efficient modeling."
"Its price is okay for a company, but for personal use, it is considered somewhat expensive."
More IBM SPSS Modeler pricing and cost advice
"This product offers good value for the money."
"Setup is easy, and the cost is economical. You do sometimes need to pay additional costs for third party products which "plug-in" to Microsoft BI."
"The premium licensing is approximately $5,000 per month which is pretty expensive."
"Make it low in cost. It is a no-brainer!"
"There are a few options available for purchasing a license. Typically the number of users you have will determine the price of the license. The more users you have the more you will pay."
"The cost of this product is very low, at approximately $8 or $9 per month for a developer."
"Microsoft BI for desktop is free to use, and you can download and use it."
"I used the tool's free version."
More Microsoft Power BI pricing and cost advice
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Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user79932
Senior Manager - BI Head with 5,001-10,000 employees
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
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
University
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise32
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business135
Midsize Enterprise58
Large Enterprise166
 

Questions from the Community

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
What is your primary use case for IBM SPSS Modeler?
I have been using IBM SPSS Modeler for a long time. I am using IBM SPSS Modeler mainly for ETL. Sometimes I use it to compare the results of the modeling as compared to MATLAB. MATLAB is the main t...
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 Logo
IBM SPSS Statistics vs IBM SPSS Modeler
Compared 41% of the time
KNIME Business Hub vs IBM SPSS Modeler Logo
KNIME Business Hub vs IBM SPSS Modeler
Compared 5% of the time
Altair RapidMiner vs IBM SPSS Modeler Logo
Altair RapidMiner vs IBM SPSS Modeler
Compared 4% of the time
Weka vs IBM SPSS Modeler Logo
Weka vs IBM SPSS Modeler
Compared 3% of the time
Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio vs IBM SPSS Modeler Logo
Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio vs IBM SPSS Modeler
Compared 3% of the time
More IBM SPSS Modeler Competitors
Amazon QuickSight vs Microsoft Power BI Logo
Amazon QuickSight vs Microsoft Power BI
Compared 17% of the time
Tableau Enterprise vs Microsoft Power BI Logo
Tableau Enterprise vs Microsoft Power BI
Compared 14% of the time
Domo vs Microsoft Power BI Logo
Domo vs Microsoft Power BI
Compared 7% of the time
Databricks vs Microsoft Power BI Logo
Databricks vs Microsoft Power BI
Compared 2% of the time
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs Microsoft Power BI Logo
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs Microsoft Power BI
Compared 2% of the time
More Microsoft Power BI Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
IBM SPSS Modeler
March 2026
IBM SPSS Modeler reportDownload IBM SPSS Modeler product report
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Power BI
March 2026
Microsoft Power BI reportDownload 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
Accenture Adidas Aetna AIG Airbus Alibaba Allstate Amazon American Express Aon AT&T Audi Bank of America BASF Bayer Berkshire Hathaway Boeing Coca-Cola Comcast Cisco Coca-Cola Dell Disney Emirates Equinix FedEx Ford GE Google H&M Home Depot Honda IBM Intel JPMorgan Chase Kellogg's Kroger L'Oréal McDonald's Merck MetLife Microsoft Nike Oracle P&G PepsiCo Procter & Gamble Prudential Financial SAP Siemens Snapchat Spotify Starbucks Target Toyota T-Mobile Unilever Visa Walmart WeWork World Bank Xerox
Buyer's Guide
Data Mining
February 2026
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We monitor all Data Mining reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.