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

IBM Watson Studio vs TensorFlow comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 2024

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 Studio
Ranking in AI Development Platforms
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Data Science Platforms (10th)
TensorFlow
Ranking in AI Development Platforms
6th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the AI Development Platforms category, the mindshare of IBM Watson Studio is 1.5%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TensorFlow is 5.2%, down from 5.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
AI Development Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Abilio Duarte - PeerSpot reviewer
A highly robust and well-documented platform that simplifies the complex world of AI
The main challenge lies in visibility and ease of use. Providing training sessions can be immensely helpful in helping users navigate and understand the tool's potential. This approach would empower users to explore and make the most of the tools and technologies at their disposal. Another area where IBM could enhance its offering is by providing more visibility to end users regarding the vast potential that Watson offers.
Dan Bryant - PeerSpot reviewer
A strong solution for providing insight into machine learning strategies
I'm not a professional with machine learning. Early on, I was working with data scientists and built a platform for some old-school data scientists to turn around their models faster, and they were focused on electric prices. Based on that experience and my understanding of our value, I'm researching all the machine learning tools. I realized I would have to be a specialist in any of them, and my main skillset is in systems engineering and data engines. I look forward to being an analytics specialist. In real life, I would be better off hiring a professional because when I decide which tool I want to use for what job, I could hire that professional. They would be valuable to me across the whole of what we do. It's kinda of what I do when I build hardware and new products or do version upgrades. I hire a team just for production that are experts in their particular field, so I get production-quality pieces. At that point, my internal team can add the necessary analytics or automation. Hopefully, anyone getting the solution already knows what they will use it for. If they're starting from scratch, I strongly recommend hiring a consultant. I rate TensorFlow an eight out of ten because, for my intents and purposes, I don't know what else one can use to get into the machine learning game if you're going to export models.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"IBM Watson Studio consistently automates across channels."
"Watson Studio is the most complete tool for AI projects."
"Stability-wise, it is a great tool."
"The scalability of IBM Watson Studio is great."
"It stands out for its substantial AI capabilities, offering a broad spectrum of features for crafting solutions that meet specific requirements."
"For me, the valuable feature of the solution is the one that I used, which was Jupyter notebooks."
"It has greatly improved the performance because it is standardized across the company."
"The solution is very easy to use."
"It provides us with 35 features like patch normalization layers, and it is easy to implement using the Kras library when the Kaspersky flow is running behind it."
"The most valuable feature of TensorFlow is deep learning. It is the best tool for deep learning in the market."
"Edge computing has some limited resources but TensorFlow has been improving in its features. It is a great tool for developers."
"The most valuable features are the frameworks and the functionality to work with different data, even when we have a certain quantity of data flowing."
"I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. I am not a developer but more of an account manager. I can find what I want with TensorFlow. I haven’t contacted technical support for any issues. Since TensorFlow is vastly documented on the internet, I usually find some good websites where people exchange their views about the solution and apply that."
"TensorFlow is a framework that makes it really easy to use for deep learning."
"It is also totally Open-Source and free. Open-source applications are not good usually. but TensorFlow actually changed my view about it and I thought, "Look, Oh my God. This is an open-source application and it's as good as it could be." I learned that TensorFlow, by sharing their own knowledge and their own platform with other developers, it improved the lives of many people around the globe."
"TensorFlow provides Insights into both data and machine learning strategies."
 

Cons

"I think maybe the support is an area where it lacks."
"So a better user interface could be very helpful"
"We would like to see it more web-based with more functionality."
"The solution's interface is very slow at times."
"Initially, it was quite complex. For us, it was not only a matter of getting it installed, that was just a start. It was also trying to come up with a standard way of implementing it across the entire organization, which had been a challenge."
"It's sometimes easy to get lost given the number of images the solution opens up when you click on the mouse and the amount of different tabs."
"One area that could be improved is the backup and restoration of the database and the overall database configuration."
"More features in data virtualization would be helpful. The solution could use an interactive dashboard that could make exploration easier."
"I know this is out of the scope of TensorFlow, however, every time I've sent a request, I had to renew the model into RAM and they didn't make that prediction or inference. This makes the point for the request that much longer. If they could provide anything to help in this part, it will be very great."
"The solution is hard to integrate with the GPUs."
"Personally, I find it to be a bit too much AI-oriented."
"I would love to have a user interface like a programming interface. You need to have a set of menus where you can put things together in a graphical interface. The complete automation of the integration of the modules would also be interesting. It’s more like plumbing as opposed to a fully automated environment."
"There are connection issues that interrupt the download needed for the data sets. We need to prepare them ourselves."
"It would be nice to have more pre-trained models that we can utilize within layers. I utilize a Mac, and I am unable to utilize AMD GPUs. That's something that I would definitely be like to be able to access within TensorFlow since most of it is with CUDA ML. This only matters for local machines because, in Azure, you can just access any GPU you want from the cloud. It doesn't really matter, but the clients that I work with don't have cloud accounts, or they don't want to utilize that or spend the money. They all see it as too expensive and want to know what they can do on their local machines."
"TensorFlow deep learning takes a lot of computation power. The more systems you can use, the easier it is. That's a good ability, if you can make a system run immediately at the same time on the same task, it's much faster rather than you having one system running which is slower. Running systems in parallel is a complex situation, but it can improve. There is a lot of work involved."
"However, if I want to change just one thing in the implementation of TensorFlow functions I have to copy everything that they wrote and I change it manually if indeed it can be amended. This is really hard as it's written in C++ and has a lot of complications."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is generally reasonable and straightforward but can vary significantly depending on the specific workloads in use."
"Watson Studio's pricing is reasonable for what you get."
"IBM Watson Studio is a reasonably priced product"
"IBM Watson Studio is an expensive solution."
"I did not require a license for this solution. It a free open-source solution."
"It is open-source software. You don't have to pay all the big bucks like Azure and Databricks."
"I am using the open-source version of TensorFlow and it is free."
"I think for learners to deploy a project, you can actually use TensorFlow for free. It's just amazing to have an open-source platform like TensorFlow to deploy your own project. Here in Russia no one really cares about licenses, as it is totally open source and free. My clients in the United States were also pleased to learn when they enquired, that licensing is free."
"We are using the free version."
"The solution is free."
"I rate TensorFlow's pricing a five out of ten."
"TensorFlow is free."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which AI Development Platforms solutions are best for your needs.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Educational Organization
8%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Watson Studio?
IBM Watson Studio is considered rather expensive, with a rating of six or seven. The pricing could be optimized relative to the features and capabilities of the product.
What needs improvement with IBM Watson Studio?
IBM Watson Studio, while powerful, lacks user-friendliness. It is not easy to use, particularly for medium or small enterprises or less experienced staff. Another aspect that requires improvement i...
What do you like most about TensorFlow?
It empowers us to seamlessly create and deploy machine learning models, offering a versatile solution for implementing sophisticated environments and various types of AI solutions.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TensorFlow?
I am not familiar with the pricing setup cost and licensing.
What needs improvement with TensorFlow?
Providing more control by allowing users to build custom functions would make TensorFlow a better option. It currently offers inbuilt functions, however, having the ability to implement custom libr...
 

Also Known As

Watson Studio, IBM Data Science Experience, Data Science Experience, DSx
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

GroupM, Accenture, Fifth Third Bank
Airbnb, NVIDIA, Twitter, Google, Dropbox, Intel, SAP, eBay, Uber, Coca-Cola, Qualcomm
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Watson Studio vs. TensorFlow and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.