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Knowage vs TIBCO Spotfire comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 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

Knowage
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
32nd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (23rd)
TIBCO Spotfire
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
15th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Knowage is 1.0%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TIBCO Spotfire is 1.2%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
TIBCO Spotfire1.2%
Knowage1.0%
Other97.8%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

AM
Margin Assurance Analyst at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
A stable open source suite for modern business analytics with a useful replication feature
It would be better if more resources were available to help us learn how to use it. I wanted to use Knowage for a more extended period, but learning materials around the product were not really available and were not really straightforward. I've also seen inconsistencies between versions. For example, under the tools, especially in the cockpit, the way you create reports is now different. You will also find some configurations within a particular state, like a line chart, which differs from version to version. I think consistency is an essential feature in a product, especially for business intelligence products.
reviewer2835996 - PeerSpot reviewer
Operations Analyst at a non-profit with 51-200 employees
Interactive dashboards have transformed reporting and now support real-time data-driven decisions
One area that could improve in TIBCO Spotfire is performance with very large data sets. I use the advanced scripting feature less often, but the visualization and dashboard features are very useful in my daily work with TIBCO Spotfire. TIBCO Spotfire can be improved in handling very large data, faster dashboard loading, simpler advanced scripting, and better customization options for visualizations. Integration with some external tools in TIBCO Spotfire can be smoother, and the user interface for advanced features could be more beginner-friendly. A more intuitive navigation system, a cleaner interface, and an easier drag-and-drop option for report building would also make it more useful.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Instead of just relying on emails to disperse our reports, having a central server to do this for us has helped our organization and has pushed us into a better place."
"Being able to schedule necessary jobs needed for production jobs and programming run times"
"It improves sales and products, which motivates employees."
"Nice features available in SpagoBI compared with other open-source BI are Auditing, Collaborative BI, Query By Example, and User Profiling."
"It's very easy to get the historical reports you need based on the business requirements and this helps our executives for taking decisions."
"The most valuable feature of SpagoBI is that it is open source and 100% free without limits."
"I can't name the features the way the Knowage community calls them because I still don't know the lingo. However, I can describe them. I like the ability to join more than one report, set all fields on one end, and replicate that on the other reports. I like that a lot. I think it's one of the features that got me using Knowage. They have tables, and I like that too. They took SQL scripts and many other scripts and enabled them to even correlate with Python. That's also one of the best things about Knowage. You could also decide to get information per user role, and this is also a feature that I like in Knowage."
"Customer Service: Excellent."
"It has allowed us to be able to host client and web on same server."
"The two features that I have found most valuable are its ability to customize the dashboards when it comes to the evaluation. The second feature is its ability to handle a large amount of data, which is also something very unique about it."
"The visualisations look very good, are easy to use and can answer almost any business question."
"Good data transformation tools, excellent connectivity to different data sources, and good forecasting and statistical capabilities."
"The advanced settings in the dialog box for visualization options are comprehensive and easy to use."
"TIBCO Spotfire integrates with R and Python, offering a differentiator from the competition."
"The best features TIBCO Spotfire offers in my experience are advanced analytics, real-time analytics, excellent dashboard creation, and complex data exploration that allows us to make sense of large bodies of data."
"TIBCO Spotfire is easy to use. We initiated Spotfire as POC, with support from a tech team based in South Africa. While they assisted with the setup, we conducted the POC ourselves."
 

Cons

"I encountered a lot of issues when I tried to integrate the map in order to realize Intelligent Location Dashboards."
"The only challenge here is that it's a Java-based platform. It requires very high technical skills."
"When it comes to Knowage, it's a bit heavy, it's time-consuming sometimes, it's not very fast, and definitely not as fast as other business intelligence tools in terms of getting graphical reports."
"I faced difficulties when using the email feature and documentation was scant."
"It would be better if more resources were available to help us learn how to use it. I wanted to use Knowage for a more extended period, but learning materials around the product were not really available and were not really straightforward. I've also seen inconsistencies between versions. For example, under the tools, especially in the cockpit, the way you create reports is now different. You will also find some configurations within a particular state, like a line chart, which differs from version to version. I think consistency is an essential feature in a product, especially for business intelligence products."
"Development of SpagoBI has now been moved to Knowage. Users interested in further developments of the platform will have to look there."
"We had stability issues."
"As all software and especially the open-source ones have always something that can work better, in this case, SpagoBI is slightly difficult to implement."
"Initial setup was somewhat complex on the client’s system."
"To be completely frank, the main problem of Spotfire is that it's being destroyed by Power BI."
"Technical support is average; however, the user conferences that are held regionally and nationally provide a lot of value."
"Administration functionality can be improved more by moving the rest of the command-line effort to a web-based UI."
"I have run into issues with large datasets (>2M records), and attempting to build relationships between tables for use in a single visualization."
"They have good training programs for it, but the learning curve for Spotfire is probably higher than it might be for Tableau."
"The data compression has room for improvement."
"Technical support is acceptable, but not superior."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It allows the implementation of an effective reporting system using internal skills at a limited upfront cost."
"Knowage is open-source, and an enterprise edition is also available."
"The cost of TIBCO Spotfire could improve. It should be less expensive. It's the most expensive visualization tool in our company."
"In comparison to other solutions such as IBM Cognos, TIBCO Spotfire is more affordable."
"This product carries a monthly licensing charge, with the amount depending on the features that are to be included. This costs also covers the use of technical support."
"The price-point for this solution is negotiable depending on usage levels."
"The cost is a few hundred dollars per user per year."
"The ROI is nearly impossible to calculate."
"The pricing seems competitive and reasonable. The value delivered by the product far exceeds the cost."
"The Tibco sales teams have been very difficult to work with - ignoring requests, misrepresenting level of demand, etc."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
23%
University
9%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Construction Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise44
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TIBCO Spotfire?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for TIBCO Spotfire is that it is handled by my organization. I do not have to maintain the cost and setup expenses as they are managed by my or...
What needs improvement with TIBCO Spotfire?
TIBCO Spotfire is a perfect tool, and I do not believe it needs any upgrades.
What is your primary use case for TIBCO Spotfire?
My main use case for TIBCO Spotfire is data visualization, data preparation, and business reporting. I typically use TIBCO Spotfire for data visualization and business reporting in my daily tasks, ...
 

Also Known As

SpagoBI
Spotfire
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

FIAT Group, Italian air navigation service provider, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Telecom Italia, ASL Genovese, San Giovanni Battista University Hospital
Allergan, ASSS de Montreal, Avantium, Blue River, Bank of Montreal, Citibank, FrieslandCampina, Hellmann Logistics, Merck, Novartis
Find out what your peers are saying about Knowage vs. TIBCO Spotfire and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,456 professionals have used our research since 2012.