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IBM SPSS Modeler vs KNIME Business Hub comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 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 Modeler
Ranking in Data Mining
3rd
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
KNIME Business Hub
Ranking in Data Mining
1st
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Data Mining category, the mindshare of IBM SPSS Modeler is 20.2%, up from 17.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of KNIME Business Hub is 14.6%, down from 25.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Mining Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
KNIME Business Hub14.6%
IBM SPSS Modeler20.2%
Other65.2%
Data Mining
 

Q&A Highlights

EzzAbdelfattah - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Professor Of Statistics at a university with 10,001+ employees
Dec 30, 2019
 

Featured Reviews

RB
Business Owner at SASS GmbH
Support and flexibility enable effective project initiation and meet customer needs but deployment requires enhancement
The customer comes to you and says they want to deploy it and make a production out of this, which is very difficult and expensive with IBM SPSS Modeler. With MATLAB, there is no problem. I have a solution, and then I convert my MATLAB solution to C programming language. This I can deploy, and I can check it, and it is MISRA compatible. It is very easy to deploy it, to go from MATLAB to C or C++, which is actually needed in the car industry. In the car industry, they want to have it in the hardware. You cannot put MATLAB or IBM SPSS Modeler in the hardware of a car, but with C, there is no problem with a microcontroller. They can shoot it into the microcontroller, and I can check it with Polyspace, and it is MISRA compatible, which is an industrial standard. There is nothing similar in IBM SPSS Modeler. I made solutions with IBM SPSS Modeler, and then the customer said they wanted to make a production out of it, and it was not possible. I stopped with IBM SPSS Modeler 18. It is now 18.6 from what I know at the moment. I do not believe that there is a possibility to design a graphic user interface with it. It is itself a graphic user interface, where you put all sorts of little icons into the display.
DG
BI Analyst at a photography company with 11-50 employees
Enables fast project development with efficient workflow modifications and promising features while offering modularity and reusability
KNIME is simple and allows for fast project development due to its reusability. I appreciate the ability to make improvements or modifications in existing workflows. Although I have not yet used the forecasting and customer profiling features, I find them promising. Another effective feature is the ability to use GET request objects to retrieve data from websites or APIs. This makes iterative steps easy to manage. It is more elastic and modern compared to SAP Data Services, allowing node creation and regrouping components or steps for reuse in different projects.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use analytics with the visual modeling capability to leverage productivity improvements."
"It is a great product for running statistical analysis."
"We had an IBM Guardium service contract where we used one of their resources to help us develop our prototype. It was a good experience, but they were helpful and responsive."
"It is pretty scalable."
"Automated modelling, classification, or clustering are very useful."
"In the solution, I like the virtualization of data flow since it shows what goes where, which is mostly the strength of the tool."
"Compared to other tools, the product works much easier to analyze data without coding."
"The quality is very good."
"The product is open-source and therefore free to use."
"This solution is easy to use and especially good at data preparation and wrapping."
"Valuable features include visual workflow creation, workflow variables (parameterisation), automatic caching of all intermediate data sets in the workflow, scheduling with the server."
"Since KNIME is a no-code platform, it is easy to work with."
"I was able to apply basic algorithms through just dragging and dropping."
"The most valuable features of KNIME are its ability to convert your sub-workflow into a node. For example, the workflow has many individual native nodes that can be converted into a single node. This representation has simplified my workflow to a great extent. I can present my workflow in a very compact way."
"KNIME is more intuitive and easier to use, which is the principal advantage."
"Key features include: very easy-to-use visual interface; Help functions and clear explanations of the functionalities and the used algorithms; Data Wrangling and data manipulation functionalities are certainly sufficient, as well as the looping possibilities which help you to automate parts of the analysis."
 

Cons

"Formula writing is not straightforward for an Excel user. Totally new set of functions, which takes time to learn and teach."
"The biggest issue with the visual modeling capability is that we can't extract the SQL code under the hood."
"​Initial setup of the software was complex, because of our own problems within the government."
"Time Series or forecasting needs to be easier. It is a very important feature, and it should be made easier and more automated to use. For instance, for logistic regression, binary or multinomial is used automatically based on the type of the target variable. I wish they can make Time Series easier to use in a similar way."
"We would like to see better visualizations and easier integration with Cognos Analytics for reporting."
"I would like see more programming languages added, like MATLAB. That would be better."
"Requires more development."
"It would be good if IBM added help resources to the interface."
"We do not have much documentation in Portuguese."
"KNIME doesn't handle large datasets or a high number of records well."
"Data visualization needs improvement."
"Occasionally, when using the GET object, there might be issues due to the velocity of the lines or the IT system of the commission."
"Sometimes, we needed more space to handle larger operations, especially since our machines had limited space and memory due to Kubernetes clusters."
"The graphic features of KNIME need improvement"
"The predefined workflows could use a bit of improvement."
"When deploying models on a regular system, it works fine. However, when accuracy is a priority, hyperparameter tuning is necessary. Currently, KNIME doesn't have the best tools for this which they could improve in this area."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an expensive product."
"If you are in a university and the license is free then you can use the tool without any charges, which is good."
"This tool, being an IBM product, is pretty expensive."
"Its price is okay for a company, but for personal use, it is considered somewhat expensive."
"The scalability was kind of limited by our ability to get other people licenses, and that was usually more of a financial constraint. It's expensive, but it's a good tool."
"Having in mind all four tools from Garner’s top quadrant, the pricing of this tool is competitive and it reflects the quality that it offers."
"It got us a good amount of money with quick and efficient modeling."
"It is a huge increase to time savings."
"It is free of cost. It is GNU licensed."
"KNIME offers a free version"
"KNIME is free and open source."
"KNIME is a cost-effective solution because it’s free of cost."
"I use the tool's free version."
"Scaling to the on-premises version requires a licensing fee per user that is a bit expensive in comparison to R, Python, and SAS."
"At this time, I am using the free version of Knime."
"While there are certain limitations in functionality, you can still utilize it efficiently free of charge."
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Answers from the Community

EzzAbdelfattah - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Professor Of Statistics at a university with 10,001+ employees
Dec 30, 2019
Dec 30, 2019
The main difference lies in the community that has KNIME because the additional modules serve a multitude of different jobs from image processing, management of ssh file systems to chemical molecule calculations.
2 out of 4 answers
ZW
Robotics Club President at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
Dec 27, 2019
KNIME. It free, open-source, and you can plug in Java, Python, R, and Matlab. The community is awesome.
Dec 28, 2019
The main difference lies in the community that has KNIME because the additional modules serve a multitude of different jobs from image processing, management of ssh file systems to chemical molecule calculations.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
University
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
University
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise32
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise29
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM SPSS Modeler?
The government has funds and a budget, it's hard to say if it's expensive or cheap. In Canada, they have a yearly budget. They used to encourage people to use the modeler for development. If ten us...
What needs improvement with IBM SPSS Modeler?
The customer comes to you and says they want to deploy it and make a production out of this, which is very difficult and expensive with IBM SPSS Modeler. With MATLAB, there is no problem. I have a ...
What is your primary use case for IBM SPSS Modeler?
I have been using IBM SPSS Modeler for a long time. I am using IBM SPSS Modeler mainly for ETL. Sometimes I use it to compare the results of the modeling as compared to MATLAB. MATLAB is the main t...
What do you like most about KNIME?
Since KNIME is a no-code platform, it is easy to work with.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for KNIME?
I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.
What needs improvement with KNIME?
I have seen the potential to interact with Python, which is currently a bit limited. I am interested in the newer version, 5.4, when it becomes available. The machine learning and profileration asp...
 

Also Known As

SPSS Modeler
KNIME Analytics Platform
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Reisebªro Idealtours GmbH, MedeAnalytics, Afni, Israel Electric Corporation, Nedbank Ltd., DigitalGlobe, Vodafone Hungary, Aegon Hungary, Bureau Veritas, Brammer Group, Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, InSites Consulting, Fortis Turkey
Infocom Corporation, Dymatrix Consulting Group, Soluzione Informatiche, MMI Agency, Estanislao Training and Solutions, Vialis AG
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM SPSS Modeler vs. KNIME Business Hub and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.