IBM Watson Explorer vs Salesforce Einstein Analytics comparison

The compared IBM and Salesforce solutions aren't in the same category. IBM is ranked #11 in DM , and holds a 1.9% mindshare in the category. Salesforce is ranked #15 in BIT , with an average rating of 8.5, and holds a 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 86% of Salesforce users who would recommend it.

IBM Watson Explorer

Read 10 IBM Watson Explorer reviews

556 Views
95 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Salesforce Einstein Analytics

Read 21 Salesforce Einstein Analytics reviews

2,228 Views
1,560 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

IBM Watson Explorer

Salesforce Einstein Analytics

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM Watson Explorer and Salesforce Einstein Analytics based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Knime, IBM, Weka and others in Data Mining.

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

Buyer's Guide

Data Mining

October 2025

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Helped 872,706 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 Watson Explorer

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Mining (11th)

Salesforce Einstein Analytics

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (15th)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM Watson Explorer is designed for Data Mining and holds a mindshare of 1.9%, up 0.8% compared to last year.
Salesforce Einstein Analytics, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 1.0% mindshare, down 1.5% since last year.

Data Mining Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM Watson Explorer	1.9%
IBM SPSS Modeler	20.6%
IBM SPSS Statistics	20.0%
Other	57.5%

Data Mining

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Salesforce Einstein Analytics	1.0%
Microsoft Power BI	14.1%
Tableau Enterprise	10.3%
Other	74.6%

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Featured Reviews

it_user1319820

Lead Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

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…

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Sunny Nair

Solution Architect and Senior Consultant at Keysight Technologies

Business insights improve with reliable integration but face occasional system downtimes

It is difficult to integrate the modules. The customization is also a little bit complex currently, but it is getting easier as they continue improving the market. There are certain glitches, especially when the modules are upgraded or when there is a source code update, causing the entire tool to go offline. There is downtime which still affects the particular product. I would provide a reliability rating of 70%, with 30% still having scope for improvement.

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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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The valuable feature of Watson Explorer for us is data entities, and to see the hidden insights from within unstructured data."

"The way Salesforce Einstein Analytics is structured in terms of the work assignments and the user profile is very good."

"The tool is a cloud-based solution capable of integrating any kind of data in the world."

"The inbuilt features, like pictorial representation of the data and the ability to remap and realign the data, provide clarity in understanding sales perspectives."

"he most valuable feature of the solution is its ease of use."

"Salesforce Einstein Analytics is a simplified CRM. It's integration is good."

"Einstein Analytics provides insights into what we are doing and how we are doing it. It tells us what benchmarks we need to hit consistently to achieve our goals. In sales, there is sometimes a disconnect between actions and objectives. We aren't necessarily going to close a deal because we call X number of people. There are some underlying skills that add nuance to these metrics."

"The tool is valuable. It's one of the greatest programs I'm currently working with, and I believe it will continue to be crucial in the next four to five years. It's the future of our operations. Integrating other systems and conducting campaigns is easy. The solution relies heavily on AI."

"I find Salesforce Einstein Analytics valuable because it is easier to use within Salesforce."

More Salesforce Einstein Analytics pros

Cons

"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"

"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 needs better language support, to include some other languages. Also, they should improve the user interface."

"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."

"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."

"The solution is expensive."

"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"

"If a user leaves your organization, you shouldn't lose the visibility of all of the records."

"When it comes to generating reports, it appears that many users rely on experts to handle technical aspects. For instance, if you require a weekly report displaying accounts transitioning in and out of your modules, it seems challenging to accomplish without consulting experts for assistance. Such tasks should be user-friendly and easily achievable without external assistance."

"Einstein Analytics could incorporate something like SFIA 8 to help users understand the underlying skill sets."

"The product is natively integrated into the Salesforce ecosystem. You also need a CRM license. It should be more flexible with other platforms."

"There are certain glitches, especially when the modules are upgraded or when there is a source code update, causing the entire tool to go offline."

"I would advise others not to customize because they rolled out the newer versions, which are every six months. There had to be some significant testing and verification that happened. It is important to have a strong third-party provider that is very experienced. We used Deloitte, but we evaluated Accenture, KPMG, and IBM, but we decided on Deloitte and that was a good decision for us. Having a partner who has a center of excellence or experts that could give you a lot of the tips that they've learned could jumpstart your deployment and stick to the standards."

"All of the timesheets and appraisal management I have not been happy with. There should be some improvements. For example, as a management team, our managers do not have access to see a summary report, such as who is on leave today or how many hours each person logged in. You have to get into individual users and see. You cannot see a summary report, the reporting is missing. There should improve the reports."

"The product is expensive."

More Salesforce Einstein Analytics cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."

"The biggest challenge we had was the cost and the licensing. We ended up getting an enterprise licensing agreement(ELA). That took a lot of negotiations and a lot of pressure. We were able to receive a good price for the community licensing they bundled Salesforce Einstein Analytics. They bundled a lot of capabilities with us with the ELA."

"The solution is expensive."

"I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."

"Salesforce Einstein Analytics can be considered somewhat expensive, depending on the company's needs. If they want the complete package with all the features, it's pricier. It all comes down to what the company requires from the platform."

"Although it was deemed slightly expensive and failed the cost analysis we conducted in our company, we proceeded with the purchase because we desired to have a leading CRM system in the industry."

"Salesforce has a subscription-based licensing structure, where it's between $20 to $75 per month, per user."

"Price-wise, Salesforce Einstein Analytics is an expensive tool."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Performing Arts

13%

University

11%

Educational Organization

Recreational Facilities/Services Company

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	7

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	12

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about Salesforce Einstein Analytics?

The tool is valuable. It's one of the greatest programs I'm currently working with, and I believe it will continue to be crucial in the next four to five years. It's the future of our operations. I...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Salesforce Einstein Analytics?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Salesforce Einstein Analytics?

It is more of an integrated platform where marketing, customer service, and the ticketing system are integrated into each other as a SaaS-based solution, which is what we use. For Marketing Cloud, ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Power BI vs IBM Watson Explorer

Compared 31% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs IBM Watson Explorer

Compared 29% of the time

Izenda vs IBM Watson Explorer

Compared 15% of the time

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Microsoft Power BI vs Salesforce Einstein Analytics

Compared 28% of the time

Databricks vs Salesforce Einstein Analytics

Compared 17% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Salesforce Einstein Analytics

Compared 15% of the time

SAP Analytics Cloud vs Salesforce Einstein Analytics

Compared 7% of the time

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs Salesforce Einstein Analytics

Compared 6% of the time

More Salesforce Einstein Analytics Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Watson Explorer

October 2025

Download IBM Watson Explorer product report

Buyer's Guide

Salesforce Einstein Analytics

October 2025

Download Salesforce Einstein Analytics product report

Also Known As

IBM WEX

Einstein Analytics, Salesforce Wave Analytics

Overview

IBM Watson Explorer is a cognitive exploration and content analysis platform that lets you listen to your data for advice. Explore and analyze structured, unstructured, internal, external and public content to uncover trends and patterns that improve decision-making, customer service and ROI. Leverage built-in cognitive capabilities powered by machine learning models, natural language processing and next-generation APIs to unlock hidden value in all your data. Gain a secure 360-degree view of customers, in context, to deliver better experiences for your clients.

IBM

Salesforce Einstein Analytics is a customer and business analytics platform that’s optimized for mobile use and brings flexible customer analytics to everyone in the company. It works with many types of data, from many data sources, and it can change the way your company answers critical questions. Einstein Analytics allows you to:

Connect directly to your CRM data and execute on insights directly in Chatter.
Automatically analyze millions of rows of data and get predictive analytics with Einstein Discovery.
Explore data quickly and automate actions with prebuilt apps.
Use mobile to act, whether you're on Android or iOS.

Salesforce

Sample Customers

RIMAC, Westpac New Zealand, Toyota Financial Services, Swiss Re, Akershus University Hospital, Korean Air Lines, Mizuho Bank, Honda

ADS Securities, Alstom Grid, American Express, Barclays Bank, Coca-Cola, CoderDojo, Dubai Multi Commodities Centre, Financial Conduct Authority

Find out what your peers are saying about Knime, IBM, Weka and others in Data Mining. Updated: October 2025.

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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.