Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

IBM SPSS Modeler vs SAS Visual Analytics 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM SPSS Modeler
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Data Mining (4th), Data Science Platforms (13th)
SAS Visual Analytics
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (7th)
 

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 17.6%, up 16.3% compared to last year.
SAS Visual Analytics, on the other hand, focuses on Data Visualization, holds 4.2% mindshare, down 6.0% since last year.
Data Mining
Data Visualization
 

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.
Renato Vazamin - PeerSpot reviewer
Single environment for multiple phases saves us time, and has good visualizations
We had that solution installed previously in another solution, Selvaya, but I don't think we used it at the time. We are now using SAS Detect Investigation as a complementary solution, in which we have part of the process, use a gene, SAS collects information and identifies some business situations, and the business guys use Visual Analytics to explore the results of the process. We previously used the FICO platform, but we switched because FICO's pricing was not scalable. Bringing more data or workloads to the platform required a significant investment in order to scale. We needed to change because we have a lot of data to process every day. FICO was also a little more complicated than SAS Visual Analytics.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We have been able to do some predictive modeling with it"
"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."
"Compared to other tools, the product works much easier to analyze data without coding."
"Some basic form of feature engineering for classification models. This really quickens the model development process."
"It's a very organized product. It's easy to use."
"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."
"Automation is great and this product is very organized."
"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."
"It integrates well with SAS, making it simple and quick for developers."
"I use Visual Analytics for enterprise reporting."
"It's quite easy to learn and to progress with SAS from an end-user perspective."
"It's relatively simple to create basic dashboards and reports."
"It is a very stable solution."
"Data handling is one of the best features of SAS Visual Analytics."
"Quick deployment to dashboards and analytics features (using SAS Visual Statistics and Enterprise Guide). Easy to create a simple forecast and discover business insights using segmentation tools."
"I like SAS Visual Analytics for its ability to provide an initial understanding of data through exploration, even before deep analytics."
 

Cons

"​Initial setup of the software was complex, because of our own problems within the government."
"The integration with sources and visualisation needs some improvement. The scalability needs improvement."
"The forecasting could be a bit easier."
"I would like see more programming languages added, like MATLAB. That would be better."
"Requires more development."
"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."
"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 platform's cloud version needs improvements."
"SAS Visual Analytics could improve by making it more accessible for users outside the organization."
"The installation process can be a bit complex."
"I haven't come across any missing features."
"The deployment isn't smooth. Deploying Visual Analytics on the cloud takes a lot of work, or you can use some providers that give you SAS as a service. For example, there is a provider called SaasNow. They host SAS Visual Analytics and the license. You can buy the license and deploy it there without the hassle of installation because deploying the software isn't easy."
"The charts and tables could use better sorting, primarily using other variables than the ones on the figure. If they could implement views like in the older version (previous to Viya), it would be very nice."
"SAS Visual Analytics could be more user-friendly."
"A bit more flexibility in the temperatization will be helpful."
"The solution is a little weak at the front end."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am using the free version of IBM SPSS Modeler, it is the educational edition version."
"It is a huge increase to time savings."
"If you are in a university and the license is free then you can use the tool without any charges, which is good."
"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."
"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 product is expensive."
"Visual Analytics is expensive for a small company like mine. You also need to deploy it on a server or cloud, so you pay for the license as well as the cost of the cloud or the server that you will deploy on."
"It was licensed for corporate use, and its licensing was on a yearly basis."
"The product is quite expensive."
"$10,000 per annum for an enterprise license."
"I work with the tool's free version...The tool's corporate version is very expensive and requires a monthly hire."
"SAS Visual Analytics is expensive, as is the rest of the platform."
"The cost of the solution can be expensive. There is an additional cost for users."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Mining solutions are best for your needs.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Educational Organization
11%
University
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
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 SAS Visual Analytics?
The most solution's notable aspect, in my view, is the ability to integrate various data sources and harness advanced technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. This helps w...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAS Visual Analytics?
It's about an average of five. It's easy to scale, but it comes with cost.
What needs improvement with SAS Visual Analytics?
In terms of configuration, I would like to see AI capabilities since many applications are now integrating AI. It may be that our current subscription does not include AI-enabled features, but I wo...
 

Also Known As

SPSS Modeler
SAS BI
 

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
Staples, Ausgrid, Scotiabank, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Oklahoma Gas & Electric, Xcel Energy, and Triad Analytics Solutions.
Find out what your peers are saying about Knime, Weka, IBM and others in Data Mining. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.