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IBM SPSS Modeler vs Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 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 SPSS Modeler
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
16th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Data Mining (3rd)
Microsoft Azure Machine Lea...
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
AI Development Platforms (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Data Science Platforms category, the mindshare of IBM SPSS Modeler is 3.5%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio is 4.9%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Science Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio4.9%
IBM SPSS Modeler3.5%
Other91.6%
Data Science Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

PeterHuo - PeerSpot reviewer
Good tool for extracting data from data warehouses, creating streams, and manipulating logic to extract final data
There are performance issues. Extracting data from many combined tables can take hours and occasionally crash the server due to memory leaks. This performance problem bothers people. The performance issue seems to be related to the server. We design streams on the client and submit them to the server, which generates a large SQL statement. There are two potential bottlenecks: one in the server and another in data extraction. I'm unsure about the exact mechanics of data splitting when fetching from the database. When streams become larger, performance bottlenecks may occur in the IBM SPSS Modeler server or the database. Sometimes the server crashes and needs to be restarted to release memory on both sides. I'm not sure exactly where the problem is caused, as I focus on stream design rather than server issues. The problem could be on the IBM SPSS Modeler server and database.
Takayuki Umehara - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamlined workflows with drag and drop convenience but needs enhancements in AI
I use Machine Learning Studio for system reselling and integration Machine Learning Studio is easy to use, with a significant feature being the drag and drop interface that enhances workflow without any complaints. It provides a return on investment and cost savings, proving beneficial for…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It makes pretty good use of memory. There are algorithms take a long time to run in R, and somehow they run more efficiently in Modeler."
"​It works fine. I have not had any stability issues; it is always up.​"
"The supervised models are valuable. It is also very organized and easy to use."
"It is pretty scalable."
"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."
"Compared to other tools, the product works much easier to analyze data without coding."
"A lot of jobs that are stuck in Excel due to the huge numbers of rows are tackled pretty quickly."
"We are using it either for workforce deployment or to improve our operations."
"The product's standout feature is a robust multi-file network with limited availability."
"What I like best about Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio is that it's a straightforward tool and it's easy to use. Another valuable feature of the tool is AutoML which lets you get better metrics to train the model right and with good accuracy. The AutoML feature allows you to simply put in your data, and it'll pre-process and create a more accurate model for you. You don't have to do anything because AutoML in Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio will take care of it."
"Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio offers a hands-on experience with lots of flexibility."
"​It has helped in reducing the time involved for coding using R and/or Python."
"Their web interface is good."
"The integration with Azure services enhances workflow and meets my expectations."
"The product's initial setup phase is easy."
"The most valuable feature is data normalization."
 

Cons

"The integration with sources and visualisation needs some improvement. The scalability needs improvement."
"The forecasting could be a bit easier."
"The biggest issue with the visual modeling capability is that we can't extract the SQL code under the hood."
"It's not as user friendly as it could be."
"Unstructured data is not appropriate for SPSS Modeler."
"When you are not using the product, such as during the pandemic where we had worldwide lockdowns, you still have to pay for the licensing."
"I would not rate the technical support very well. The technicians have accents. When you do find someone, it is very hard to get somebody able to answer the technical questions."
"It would be beneficial if the tool would include more well-known machine learning algorithms."
"Stability-wise, you may face certain problems when you fail to refresh the data in the solution."
"It would be nice if the product offered more accessibility in general."
"When you use different Microsoft tools, there are different pricing metrics. It doesn't make sense. The pricing metrics are quire difficult to understand and should be either clarified or simplified. It would help us sell the solution to customers."
"The data processor can pose a bit of a challenge, but the real complexity is determined by the skill of the implementation team."
"Performance is very poor."
"Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio could improve in providing more efficient and cost-effective access to its tools for companies like mine."
"​It could use to add some more features in data transformation, time series and the text analytics section."
"As for the areas for improvement in Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio, I've provided feedback to Microsoft. My company is a Gold Partner of Microsoft, so I provided my feedback in another forum. Right now, it is the number of algorithms available in the designer that has to be improved, though I'm sure Microsoft does it regularly. When you take a use case approach, Microsoft has done that in a lot of places, but not on the Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio designer. When I say use case basis, I meant recommending a product or recommending similar products, so if Microsoft can list out use cases and give me a template, it will save me a lot of time and a lot of work because I don't have to scratch my head on which algorithm is better, and I can go with what's recommended by Microsoft. I'm sure that isn't a big task for the Microsoft team who must have seen thousands of use cases already, so out of that experience if the team can come up with a standard template, I'm sure it'll help a lot of organizations cut down on the development time, as well as going with the best industry-standard algorithms rather than experimenting with mine. What I'd like to see in the next version of Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio, apart from the use case template, is the improvement of the availability of libraries. Microsoft should also upgrade the Python versions because the old version of Python is still supported and it takes time for Microsoft to upgrade the support for Python. The pace of upgrading Python versions of Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio and making those libraries available should be sped up or increased."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"This tool, being an IBM product, is pretty expensive."
"I am using the free version of IBM SPSS Modeler, it is the educational edition version."
"It is a huge increase to time savings."
"If you are in a university and the license is free then you can use the tool without any charges, which is good."
"It is an expensive product."
"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 users use the server with ten licenses, it runs faster. But if forty users use the same appliance, everything slows down. People then think it's not easy to do things and prefer using remote tools like Python to extract data from the database. It's not about being expensive or cheap, but about people's knowledge and experience in how to do the work."
"Its price is okay for a company, but for personal use, it is considered somewhat expensive."
"I used the free student license for a few months to operate the solution, but I'll have to pay for it if I want to do more now."
"I rate the solution's pricing a four on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"To use MLS is fairly cheap. Even the paid account is something like $20/month, unless you are provisioning large numbers of VMs for a Hadoop cluster. The main MS makes money with this solution is forcing the user to deploy their model on REST API, and being charged each time the API is accessed. There are several pricing tiers for the API. If you do not use the API, then value of MLS is to create rapid experiments ($20/month). The resulting model is not exportable to use, thus you’ll have to recreate the algorithms in either R or Python, which is what I did. MLS results gave me a direction to work with, the actual work is mostly done in R and Python outside of MLS."
"I rate the product price as a nine on a scale of one to ten, where ten means it is very expensive."
"The product's pricing is reasonable."
"The solution cost is high."
"The solution operates on a pay-per-use model."
"When we got our first models and were ready for the user acceptance testing, our licensing fees were between €2,500 ($2,750 USD) and €3,000 ($3,300 USD) monthly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
11%
Educational Organization
10%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Performing Arts
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 Business23
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise30
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM SPSS Modeler?
Compared to other tools, the product works much easier to analyze data without coding.
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 ...
Which do you prefer - Databricks or Azure Machine Learning Studio?
Databricks gives you the option of working with several different languages, such as SQL, R, Scala, Apache Spark, or Python. It offers many different cluster choices and excellent integration with ...
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio?
The learning curve is very low. Operationalizing the model is also very easy within the Azure ecosystem.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio?
The pricing for Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio is reasonable since it's pay as you go, meaning it won't cost excessively unless specific resources are used.
 

Also Known As

SPSS Modeler
Azure Machine Learning, MS Azure Machine Learning Studio
 

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
Walgreens Boots Alliance, Schneider Electric, BP
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM SPSS Modeler vs. Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,785 professionals have used our research since 2012.