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IBM SPSS Statistics vs IBM Watson Explorer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on May 21, 2025

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 Statistics
Ranking in Data Mining
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Data Science Platforms (8th)
IBM Watson Explorer
Ranking in Data Mining
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Data Mining category, the mindshare of IBM SPSS Statistics is 20.0%, up from 13.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Watson Explorer is 1.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Mining Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM SPSS Statistics20.0%
IBM Watson Explorer1.9%
Other78.1%
Data Mining
 

Featured Reviews

Laurence Moseley - PeerSpot reviewer
Delivers reliable results for academic research and keeps you close to your data.
SPSS is perfectly adequate if all you want are some results. If you only need the results, you do not require the trail of evidence on how you obtained those results. I mainly used it for cross tabs, correlation, regression, chi-squared tests, and similar analyses often seen in published papers; I used it for my papers as well. For wider uses I find Knime keeps me in touch with my data, however much I transform them.
it_user1319820 - PeerSpot reviewer
A data analysis tool that is scalable and includes keyword search functionality
The solution is used for a government company for data collection and analysis I have found the auto-generated document very useful as well as the main keywords that are highlighted, which are used for the search functionality within IBM Watson Explorer. I have been using the solution for five…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"SPSS is perfectly adequate if all you want are some results."
"I've found the descriptive statistics and cross-tabs valuable. The very simple correlations and regressions are as well."
"It is a modeling tool with helpful automation."
"The SPSS interface is very accessible and user-friendly. It's really easy to get information in it. I've shared it with experts and beginners, and everyone can navigate it."
"The most valuable feature is its robust statistical analysis capabilities."
"It has helped our analyst unit deliver work with more transparency and confidence, given that we can always view the dataset in totality, after each step of data transformation."
"The most valuable feature is the user interface because you don't need to write code."
"It is perfectly adequate if all you need are the results and not the trail of evidence."
"The valuable feature of Watson Explorer for us is data entities, and to see the hidden insights from within unstructured data."
"For me, as a user, the most valuable feature is the ability to ingest and then retrieve information from a range of separate sources; the ability to dissect questions in context and actually answer them."
"We take natural language that was happening in our repositories and our application and then feed it to the Watson APIs. We receive JSON payloads as an API response to get cognitive feedback from the repository data."
"Ease of use is pretty good as is the standardization of not actually having to have my own natural learning algorithms, just to use the Watson APIs."
"The ability to easily pull together lots of different pieces of information and drill down in a smarter way than has been possible with other analytics tools is key. Watson is all based on a set of AI and deep learning, machine-learning capabilities, and it is looking behind the scenes at some relationships that you likely would not have spotted on your own. It's pulling things together, categorizing some things, that are not something that you might have seen on your own."
"I have found the auto-generated document very useful as well as the main keywords that are highlighted, which are used for the search functionality within IBM Watson Explorer."
 

Cons

"IBM SPSS Statistics could improve the visual outputs where you are producing, for example, a graph for a company board of directors, or an advert."
"I recently moved away from SPSS and started using KNIME since it is particularly easier for students."
"It would be helpful if there was better documentation on how to properly use the solution. A beginner's guide on how to use the various programming functions within the product would be so useful to a lot of people. I found that everything was very confusing at first. Having clear documentation would help alleviate that."
"The solution needs to improve forecasting using time series analysis."
"I think the visualization and charting should be changed and made easier and more effective."
"It could provide even more in the way of automation as there are many opportunities."
"In some cases, the product takes time to load a large dataset. They could improve this particular area."
"This solution is not suitable for use with Big Data."
"More cognitive feedback would be good. The natural language analysis is great, the sentiment analyzers are great. But I would just like to see more... innovation done with the Watson platform."
"Stability is actually one of the areas that could use improvement. Setting it up is always tough. Setting Explorer requires experts, but also the underlying platform is not that stable. So it really needs a good expert to keep it running."
"Small businesses will probably have a little harder time getting into it, just because of the amount of resources that they have available, both financial and time, but it really is a solution that should work for them."
"I would say, give some kind of a community edition, a free edition. A lot of companies do, even Amazon gives you some kind of trial and error opportunities. If they could provide something like that, it would be good."
"It is a little bit tricky to get used to the workflow of knowing how to train Watson, what can be provided, what can't be, how to provide it, how to import, export, and what it means every time you have to add a new dictionary"
"Much of IBM operates this way, where they have sets of tools that are in the middleware space, and it becomes the customer's responsibility or the business partner's responsibility to develop full solutions that take advantage of that middleware. I think IBM's finding itself in that spot with Watson-related technologies as well, where the capabilities to do really interesting and useful things for customers is there, but somebody still has to build it. Is that going to be the customer? Are they going to be willing to take on that responsibility themselves"
"It needs better language support, to include some other languages. Also, they should improve the user interface."
"The solution is expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of IBM SPSS Statistics could improve."
"While the pricing of the product may be higher, the accompanying service and features justify the investment."
"If it requires lot of data processing, maybe switching to IBM SPSS Clementine would be better for the buyer."
"We think that IBM SPSS is expensive for this function."
"More affordable training for new staff members."
"The pricing of the modeler is high and can reduce the utility of the product for those who can not afford to adopt it."
"It's quite expensive, but they do a special deal for universities."
"SPSS is an expensive piece of software because it's incredibly complex and has been refined over decades, but I would say it's fairly priced."
"The solution is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
University
7%
Performing Arts
13%
University
11%
Educational Organization
9%
Recreational Facilities/Services Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise19
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM SPSS Statistics?
The software offers consistency across multiple research projects helping us with predictive analytics capabilities.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM SPSS Statistics?
I think the price of the solution is very reasonable. The cost depends; you have the option for subscription or you can purchase the license. Most of our customers are paying every year for a type ...
What needs improvement with IBM SPSS Statistics?
I have faced some challenges with IBM SPSS Statistics; you need to know what you're doing because it's not very user-friendly. It's not something a person can come and intuitively work with. The ba...
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Also Known As

SPSS Statistics
IBM WEX
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

LDB Group, RightShip, Tennessee Highway Patrol, Capgemini Consulting, TEAC Corporation, Ironside, nViso SA, Razorsight, Si.mobil, University Hospitals of Leicester, CROOZ Inc., GFS Fundraising Solutions, Nedbank Ltd., IDS-TILDA
RIMAC, Westpac New Zealand, Toyota Financial Services, Swiss Re, Akershus University Hospital, Korean Air Lines, Mizuho Bank, Honda
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM SPSS Statistics vs. IBM Watson Explorer and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.