IBM SPSS Modeler vs Microsoft Power BI comparison

The compared IBM and Microsoft solutions aren't in the same category. IBM is ranked #4 in DM , with an average rating of 6.8, and holds a 18.1% mindshare in the category. Microsoft is ranked #1 in BIT , with an average rating of 7.8, and holds a 21.1% 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 39 IBM SPSS Modeler reviews

968 Views
781 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

Microsoft Power BI

Read 321 Microsoft Power BI reviews

18,413 Views
14,752 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, Weka, IBM and others in Data Mining.

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

Buyer's Guide

Data Mining

May 2025

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Helped 856,873 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

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Mining (4th), Data Science Platforms (14th)

Microsoft Power BI

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

321

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 18.1%, up 16.4% compared to last year.
Microsoft Power BI, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 21.1% mindshare, down 22.0% since last year.

Data Mining

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.

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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

"So far, the stability has been rock solid."

"It is very scalable for non-technical people."

"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."

"It continues to be a very flexible platform, so that it handles R and Python and other types of technology. It seems to be growing with additional open-source movement out there on different platforms."

"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."

"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."

"The visual modeling capability is one of its attractive features."

More IBM SPSS Modeler pros

"The stability is good."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"In the process of using data there is the Extract, Transform and Load (ETL). For extracting we are using another software, for transforming we are using our own coding in C#, and then we use Microsoft BI for loading the information. Microsoft BI displays information very well."

"It's similar to Excel, but it's much more powerful than Excel."

"We have found that the reporting and publishing are great."

"Good CS and administration."

"The user interface is easy to work with."

"This is a self-service BI tool, so it doesn't require a huge amount of technical training, knowledge, or a background in BI in order to induct new people into it."

More Microsoft Power BI pros

Cons

"Requires more development."

"The biggest issue with the visual modeling capability is that we can't extract the SQL code under the hood."

"I understand that it takes some time to incorporate some of the new algorithms that have come out in the last few months, in the literature. For example, there is an algorithm based on how ants search for food. And there are some algorithms that have now been developed to complement rules. So that's one of the things that we need to have incorporated into it."

"The platform's cloud version needs improvements."

"Customer support is hard to contact."

"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."

"We would like to see better visualizations and easier integration with Cognos Analytics for reporting."

"It would be good if IBM added help resources to the interface."

More IBM SPSS Modeler cons

"Areas of Power BI that could be improved are the learning curve for developers who come from non-technical backgrounds."

"I would like to see more AI capabilities in future releases. There's a strong interest in AI, including technologies like GPT, which facilitate real-time interactions."

"There's always room for improvement for Microsoft Power BI, especially for the UX and the menus to make it more accessible to business users."

"The only concern I have faced with Microsoft BI is the time it takes to find out an issue and rectify it."

"We would like to have better SQL support for queries."

"The DAX features need some improvement. It's not as easy as Excel. They need more DAX formulas."

"I have found that some issues exist, indicating room for improvement in scalability."

"Technical support could be a bit better."

More Microsoft Power BI cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an expensive product."

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

"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."

"$5,000 annually."

"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."

"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."

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

More IBM SPSS Modeler pricing and cost advice

"I am satisfied with its price. Its price is very less as compared to Tableau and QlikView."

"Power BI is cheaper than Tableau and Cognos."

"Their price is good."

"The solution's pricing is medium."

"Power BI is cost-effective compared to other reporting tools."

"Compared to others, I think it is reasonable."

"In general, Microsoft BI's price is lower compared to Alteryx."

"We're charged a monthly subscription fee of 500 rupees per person."

More Microsoft Power BI pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

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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%

Educational Organization

11%

University

Computer Software Company

Educational Organization

30%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Government

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.

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...

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What needs improvement with IBM SPSS Modeler?

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 21% of the time

KNIME vs IBM SPSS Modeler

Compared 16% of the time

Altair RapidMiner vs IBM SPSS Modeler

Compared 8% of the time

Alteryx vs IBM SPSS Modeler

Compared 5% of the time

SAS Enterprise Miner vs IBM SPSS Modeler

Compared 4% of the time

More IBM SPSS Modeler Competitors

Tableau vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 13% of the time

Databricks vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 8% of the time

Domo vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 7% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 7% of the time

SAP Analytics Cloud vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Power BI Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM SPSS Modeler

June 2025

Download IBM SPSS Modeler product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI

May 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, Weka, IBM and others in Data Mining. Updated: May 2025.

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