TIBCO Spotfire Reviews

• The advanced settings in the dialog box for visualization options are comprehensive and easy to use.
• The filters available in the data panel for data exploration are responsive, even on large data sets.

It has improved internal audits in customers that implemented the enterprise server by increasing the size and scope of data sets analyzed and tested. This makes the process more automated.

Some visualizations that were customized did not display well when published to the web server. I suspect it had more to do with the specifications for that particular deliverable than with the solution's capabilities.

We have used the solution for one year.

We have not encountered any stability issues.

We have not encountered any scalability issues, but we are only a small implementation for three to five analysts.

We haven't used the technical support facility.

Other customers implemented IBM Cognos, SAP Business Objects, or Tableau.

We don't know about the initial setup.

We can't offer any advice on this issue.

We evaluated Tableau. Our decision to go with Tibco Spotfire came down to the availability of a developer/analyst skillset with the tool.

Consider how this fits within enterprise data governance. There are no real savings on time spent preparing data for analysis.

We use the solution to handle large datasets.

Live Query data on demand, R and Python integration, and the ability to write HTML and JavaScript text areas are all valuable features.

The data compression has room for improvement.

The usage of SPDF files can be improved.

I would like the ability to loop intellect queries the same way that I can with QVD data.

The UI has room for improvement.

I have been using the solution for nine years.

The solution is stable.

The technical support is responsive.

I give the solution a seven out of ten.

Data discovery is very simple.

Improved data wrangling (7.8)

Building a dashboard is very fast, even if you have limited IT skills.

You can retrieve data from a database without using SQL and integrate data from different sources (Excel, CSV, database, and so on).

Predictive Models incorporated in the dashboard(TERR-R-S-Matlab)

Integration with Tibbr

1. Add more visualization types. The number of charts available out of the box in Spotfire can be enhanced. I know there is a Custom Extension, JSViz, to integrate D3 visualizations. Last year I had a look but I remember there were limitations in using this extension and anyway it requires a Java script knowledge.
2. Provide the capability to trigger a Python script on marking change. It's only possible to trigger an R script on marking change. In my experience, considering customers requests and forum discussions it's a feature requested . Using some tricks can be achieved but it should be out of the box.

I used it for 2 years.

Deployment is very simple.

Sometimes the Spotfire client crashes when you test a Python script.

There is an issue with the web player exhibiting the same behavior in all browsers. Sometimes, the property control in the test area is resized or not well displayed.

Scalability improved in the new sw versions (7.5 and higher).

With the new architecture (7.5 and higher) load balancing for the web player is out of the box. Easy setup of spotfire server cluster for fault tolerance.

I had a few issues with the product, and they were quickly solved by the support team.

It is simple in my opinion. If you find any issue: Read the installation manual!!

• Good data transformation tools.
• Excellent connectivity to different data sources.
• Good forecasting and statistical capabilities.
• Can be hosted or cloud based.

• It has enabled staff to easily create reports/dashboards without having to involve a developer in most cases.
• It has made it easier for users to create their own reusable visualizations/widgets.
• For more advanced users it facilitates better integration of the languages used (Python, Javascript, etc.) and the tools.

• Spotfire is poor at pixel perfect embedding in a website.
• It can be difficult to remove the Spotfire branding for embedded pages as well.
• It is a very expensive license model.
• DBA is still required for optimization of some report queries and their underlying SQL.

We used this solution for four years up to the beginning of 2016.

Ours was a hosted solution with two servers. The main Spotfire server required very few restarts and it was normally down to a user creating a crazy report for millions of rows of data.

We have not encountered any scalability issues. However, the cost is prohibitive.

The technical support is above average. Our Spotfire support was handled by a Spotfire partner who was quick to respond. TIBCO's website does also provide a wealth of information through a knowledge base, community forums, technical block articles etc. They provided a few licenses for a development system so we could test patches etc out before deploying to our production system.

We used Oracle Portal. We switched as the technology was becoming dated and our analysts wanted something they could use themselves with minimal development involvement and to be easy to deploy their dashboards/reports to their users.

I wasn't involved with the setup as our IT team did this. They didn't complain about it afterwards.

Tibco is an expensive product and although we purchased it initially for a small user group, as usage grew licencing costs meant we had to be very proactive with users who had licences but were not using them. There didn't appear to be any options to reduce the per user licencing costs by changing to a per processor model unless you were spending £1m+.

We looked at Tableau, Qlikview, Jaspersoft, Oracle.

• Tibco brought Jaspersoft recently which offers far better options for embedding/pixel perfect, however they are still in the process of integrating the two.
• Write your needs down as well as any specific requirements.
• Get the Tibco Partner to show you a demo against your data.
• If it's only for a small number of users look at their cloud solution rather than hosted.

• Embedded R scripts
• Mapserver

These features are key to separating BI tools from ETL tools. RDMS have ETL tools that run the transfer protocol. Some BI tools in the oil and gas industry have ETL features that take the place of accessing the database directly. In the big data ecosystem, the data cleansing process takes place before ETL processes are run to integrate the data. On the other hand, in RDMS, the data cleansing takes place after the data has been imported from disparate system into the database.

I used it in an academic setting as a resource to learn R scripting. I have found it an easy API to learn.

I encourage a seamless integration with Hadoop; a direct connection to Hadoop server from a session in Spotfire. This might exist for the Spotfire server connectivity, but I do not work with the server version.

I have infrequently used it for two years.

I have not encountered any stability issues.

I have not encountered any scalability issues.

I haven't used technical support.

I have used several BI tools and still maintain this diversity in product usage.

Initial setup was somewhat complex on the client’s system. I am not familiar with the server installation.

It is economical to consider desktop client usage when possible.

I also use QlkView, Tableau and MicroStrategy.

Consider how you intend to use the product before investing in functionality that you might not need.

We use it for reporting and metrics.

We used it pretty heavily in gathering data, which goes to our VPs. They are able to base their next revenue planning based on this metric. So, it has been invaluable.

It does very well at collecting metrics and giving us concise reports based on what we need.

We would like an easier way to get the product to the cloud. Right now, we have the on-premise version, and we would like to find a way to make it easier to migrate it over to the cloud. We want something that is easier to get over to AWS.

Its stability has been good. We experienced crashes a few versions back, but the current version that we're on has been stable.

We are heavily into AWS; the company is about 75% into AWS. 

We have over 10,000 employees with about 5000 active users of the product.

I would recommend evaluating it against other products. When I got onto the team, we didn't evaluate it against any other products. It was the one that was already in-house, so we went with it. If somebody wants to evaluate it for use, I would recommend that they have two or three other products that they could compare it against.

We use it a lot with TIBCO EMS. It works relatively well with that. It is able to gather performance metrics on it.

We are using the non-AWS version.

It's not specific, but in general, the product's ability to handle large volumes of data through its in-memory OLAP is valuable, as well as its data visualization capabilities.

For most organizations which are generally not so tech-savvy, people usually rely on Excel to do their data analytics. But once the size of data hits a certain level, it becomes very inefficient to manage your Excel files. Once you are at this stage, you could either get a developer to come up with a solution (most likely an enterprise tool or some sort of OLAP database solution), or you could get a stand-alone version of Spotfire.

If you have someone in your team with a little bit of database development skill, learning to use Spotfire is not too difficult and you could save time and money on implementing a full-blown solution by IT consultants.

Our old executive reports were heavily text-based. People responsible for generating reports would spend a lot of time writing a report that nobody read. Once we implemented Spotfire, the reports have become data-driven and visually appealing.

We carefully designed the analytic report in a way that condenses text-based information into visual information that is easy to digest. It is true that you could also achieve the same outcome with Excel or other MS Office tools, but with Spotfire's data visualization capabilities, the job is much easier.

I'm not a technical expert, but based on my experience from the user/designer point of view, the level of visual customization (e.g., how graphical objects are displayed) needs more flexibility.

Learning to use the scripting language (Python) proved a challenge for me personally due to lack of good documentation, and the scripting editor is not so user-friendly. If you want greater flexibility and more powerful features than what's offered, you may need to hire a Spotfire developer to do the coding.

I have used the solution for around two to three years.

Generally speaking, the software is quite stable (both the application and back-end server). However, we did experience application crashes from time to time when memory usage is heavy, but we aren't technical experts, so we could not identify exactly when/why it crashed.

In terms of its ability to handle a big volume of data, it's highly scalable. But in my organization in which Spotfire was used mainly as a reporting tool, we found it a bit challenging to scale up our report configuration. For example, with MS Access, you create a master layout which can be used for several projects or customers. In Spotfire, we ended up having to create separate master layouts for every project. When there was a request to modify the report layout, it was a tedious task.

I haven't had enough experience dealing with technical support to answer this question.

We used a combination of out-of-the-box software solutions and Excel/Access before we added Spotfire to make our lives a bit easier. We did not switch completely from existing tools to Spotfire. It's more about adding Spotfire in order to enhance our existing system.

Our requirements were simple (only at the department level in a large organization). So the initial setup of the Spotfire server was straightforward and was done within a few days. The main issue was obtaining security credentials from the IT department to access database servers we need to generate reports.

A less-straightforward step is when we needed to design our analytical reports that meet the requirements of our executives. Here, it is nothing to do with Spotfire or any other software but more about good communication with the stakeholders.

My advice based on personal experience would be to start small and scale up when you're certain that Spotfire is the right tool for you. In our organization, we started with a couple of stand-alone licenses for one year. Only after that, we decided to implement a server-based license to expand our user base for the whole department.

We tried Spotfire and liked it, so we did not have the need to evaluate other options. However, other well-known (perhaps more popular) options include Tableau and QlikView. You can refer to the Gartner's Magic Quadrant report on BI tools.

In addition to what I have written regarding pricing and licensing, I suggest that having an in-house power user in your organization - who understands both the tool and your needs - is highly critical.

The quick data mash-up and manipulation and the visualization of large amounts of data.

Spotfire allows me to combine data from disparate data sources quickly and to investigate if my joins are appropriate visually. Additionally, the data transformations available when bringing in the data allow for quick changes such as pivoting and unpivoting, data type change, and renaming of columns. I am also able to load in large amounts of data within Spotfire and slice and dice this data as desired. I’ve had over 50 million rows of data in a single file and was able to create drillable visualizations with the entire data set.

Due to the creation of information links directly against our ArcGIS database feature classes, we are able to have live updated interactive shapefiles shared across the company.

We are also able to create visualizations in an interactive (investigative) dashboard combining data from multiple databases. These dashboards can serve somewhat as a self-service investigative tool by our team members to answer questions they might have about a particular issue.

I believe the number one feature that needs improvement is the ability to edit the data table construction/modification steps after the fact, similar to the Microsoft Power Query interface. Although you can prototype quickly in Spotfire, if you’ve made a mistake in building your table, you often times have to start from scratch to fix your error. Being able to modify these steps would greatly enhance the data preparation ability of Spotfire.

Also, further control over the stylization of shapes and shapefiles would be beneficial (e.g., dashed lines in shapefiles, different fill patterns rather than solid, etc.).

I have been using it for four years.

As far as deployment, everything I have experienced has been ok. We did have some issues in getting everything set up with Kerberos authentication and had to work with Tibco quite a bit on how to configure everything properly.

The stability is pretty good. However, if you have a decent-sized data set (maybe 100 columns by a few hundred thousand rows) and you create a lot of complex visualizations, sometimes the program will crash on you. As there is no auto-save feature, this can cause an issue sometimes.

I can’t really speak to the scalability issues as I haven’t been involved with that.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d say customer service is a 9. Their customer service representatives are usually extremely responsive and knowledgeable. For more complicated issues, they will schedule WebExes to facilitate a more efficient customer service experience. Furthermore, they are good at adding your requests as enhancement requests if the feature in question doesn’t exist.

I switched from using Excel to Spotfire about four years ago. At that time, I was not part of any other program evaluations. I was just provided with Spotfire.

Currently, I have worked with Power Query, PowerPivot, Power Maps, and Power BI and find them to be useful tools, especially for a reduced cost (sometimes free). However, I would classify these solutions as SpotfireLite. For many users at a company, the Power Suite would probably be suitable for general data investigation. Yet, you will reach a point at which the Power Suite cannot achieve the same functionality in such a controllable way as Spotfire. E.g., trend analysis, box plots, easy drillability, etc.