IBM SPSS Modeler vs Weka comparison

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IBM SPSS Modeler

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Executive SummaryUpdated on May 21, 2025

IBM SPSS Modeler and Weka are both key players in the data analysis and machine learning sector. IBM SPSS Modeler stands out with its strong enterprise integration and support, whereas Weka is favored for its open-source accessibility and comprehensive algorithm library.

Features: IBM SPSS Modeler provides advanced predictive analytics, easy integration with enterprise systems, and strong visualization tools. Weka offers a wide array of machine learning algorithms, open-source access, and flexibility in algorithm implementation.

Room for Improvement: IBM SPSS Modeler could improve by enhancing open-source collaboration, reducing costs, and increasing algorithm diversity. Weka might benefit from richer visualization capabilities, professional customer support, and improved large-scale data handling.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM SPSS Modeler offers professional deployment services with dedicated customer support, ideal for enterprise-level needs. Weka is straightforward to install with community-backed support, catering to users valuing self-reliance and flexibility.

Pricing and ROI: IBM SPSS Modeler has higher initial costs but potentially greater ROI for businesses demanding extensive analytics and enterprise features. Weka is cost-effective with zero-cost setup, attracting budget-conscious users and educational institutions focused on efficiency over high upfront investment.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM SPSS Modeler vs. Weka Report (Updated: September 2025).

IBM SPSS Modeler vs. Weka

September 2025

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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

Ranking in Data Mining

3rd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Science Platforms (16th)

Weka

Ranking in Data Mining

4th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Anomaly Detection Tools (4th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Data Mining category, the mindshare of IBM SPSS Modeler is 20.6%, up from 16.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Weka is 12.7%, down from 20.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Mining Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM SPSS Modeler	20.6%
Weka	12.7%
Other	66.7%

Data Mining

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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AwaisAnwar

Treasury Management in Finance Department at National University of Pakistan

Open source, good for basic data mining use cases except for the visualization results

I haven't found it particularly useful. It lacks state-of-the-art algorithms and impressive outcomes. While it might offer insights for basic warehouse tasks, it falls short of deeper understanding and results. Moreover, a new user interface would be great, especially for beginners. Something that guides them through the available tools and helps them achieve their goals. I haven't seen anything like that myself, though maybe it's there and I missed it.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

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

"In the solution, I like the virtualization of data flow since it shows what goes where, which is mostly the strength of the tool."

"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’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"

"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."

"Some basic form of feature engineering for classification models. This really quickens the model development process."

"Our business units' capabilities with SPSS Modeler is high. They no longer waste time on modeling and algorithms, meaning they are not coding any more. For example, segmentation projects now take one to three months, rather than six months to a year, as before."

"It scales. I have not run into any challenges where it will not perform."

More IBM SPSS Modeler pros

"Weka eliminates the need for coding, allowing you to easily set parameters and complete the majority of the machine learning task with just a few clicks."

"I mainly use this solution for the regression tree, and for its association rules. I run these two methodologies for Weka."

"There are many options where you can fill all of the data pre-processing options that you can implement when you're importing the data. You can also normalize the data and standardize it in an easier way."

"Working with complicated algorithms in huge datasets is really easy in Weka."

"The interface is very good, and the algorithms are the very best."

"Weka is a very nice tool, it needs very small requirements. If I want to implement something in Python, I need a lot of memory and space but Weka is very lightweight. Anyone can implement any kind of algorithm, and we can show the results immediately to the client using the one-page feature. The client always wants to know the story. They want the result."

"It doesn’t cost anything to use the product."

"The path of machine learning in classification and clustering is useful. The GUI can get you results. No programming is needed. No need to write down your script first or send to your model or input your data."

More Weka pros

Cons

"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 integration with sources and visualisation needs some improvement. The scalability needs improvement."

"It would be helpful if SPSS supported open-source features, for example, embedding R or Python scripts in SPSS Modeler."

"The platform's cloud version needs improvements."

"I would like see more programming languages added, like MATLAB. That would be better."

"The forecasting could be a bit easier."

"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."

More IBM SPSS Modeler cons

"If you have one missing value in your dataset and this missing value belongs to a specific attribute and the attribute is a numeric attribute and there is only one missing data, whenever you import this data, the problem is that Weka cannot understand that this is a numeric field. It converts everything into a string, and there is no way to convert the string into numerical math. It's really very complicated."

"The product is good, but I would like it to work with big data. I know it has a Spark integration they could use to do analysis in clusters, but it's not so clear how to use it."

"In terms of scalability, I think Weka is not prepared to handle a large number of users."

"If there are a lot more lines of code, then we should use another language."

"While it might offer insights for basic warehouse tasks, it falls short of deeper understanding and results."

"The visualization of Weka is subpar and could improve. Machine learning and visualization do not work well together. For example, we want to know how we can we delete empty cells or how can we fill in the empty cells without cleaning the data system and putting it together."

"Weka could be more stable."

"The filter section lacks some specific transformation tools. If you want to change a variable from a numeric variable to a categorical variable, you don't have a feature that can enable you to change a variable from a numeric variable to a categorical variable."

More Weka cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It got us a good amount of money with quick and efficient modeling."

"It is a huge increase to time savings."

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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."

More IBM SPSS Modeler pricing and cost advice

"As far as I know, Weka is a freeware tool, and I am not aware if they have an online solution or if it is a commercial product."

"We use the free version now. My faculty is very small."

"Currently, I am using an open-source version so I don't know much about the price of this solution."

"The solution is free and open-source."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

11%

Educational Organization

10%

University

18%

Educational Organization

17%

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

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	7
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	2

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?

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 ...

What do you like most about Weka?

It is a stable product.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Weka?

Weka is free and open-source software. That is why I used it over KNIME.

What needs improvement with Weka?

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Product Reports

Download IBM SPSS Modeler product report

IBM SPSS Modeler

October 2025

Download Weka product report

October 2025

Also Known As

SPSS Modeler

No data available

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

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https://www.ibm.com/account/reg/us-en/signup?formid=urx-19947

IBM

Weka is a collection of machine learning algorithms for data mining tasks. The algorithms can either be applied directly to a dataset or called from your own Java code. Weka contains tools for data pre-processing, classification, regression, clustering, association rules, and visualization. It is also well-suited for developing new machine learning schemes.

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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