No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

IBM SPSS Modeler vs SAS Enterprise Miner 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 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
SAS Enterprise Miner
Ranking in Data Mining
7th
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
21st
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Data Mining category, the mindshare of IBM SPSS Modeler is 15.5%, down from 17.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAS Enterprise Miner is 8.2%, up from 4.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Mining Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM SPSS Modeler15.5%
SAS Enterprise Miner8.2%
Other76.3%
Data Mining
 

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.
reviewer1352853 - PeerSpot reviewer
Executive Head of analytics at a retailer with 5,001-10,000 employees
A stable product that is easy to deploy and can be used for structured and unstructured data mining
We use the solution for predictive analytics to do structured and unstructured data mining I like the way the product visually shows the data pipeline. The product must provide better integration with cloud-native technologies. I have been using the solution for 20 years. The product is very…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"GUI and flow management."
"Stability is good."
"It scales. I have not run into any challenges where it will not perform.​"
"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."
"The main benefit is it makes things a little easier to do."
"It helped me in that I didn't need to write them by hand, and I could get a result in one or two minutes. That helped me a lot."
"Our business units' capabilities with SPSS Modeler is high. They no longer waste time on modeling and algorithms, meaning they are not coding any more. For example, segmentation projects now take one to three months, rather than six months to a year, as before."
"I think it is the point and drag features that are the most valuable. You can simply click at the windows, and then pull up the functions."
"SAS internal support is very qualified and if we have any issues, we contact them and trust that they can help."
"The most valuable feature is that you can use multiple algorithms for creating models and then you can compare the results between them."
"The technical support is very good."
"Technical support has been good, and when I called them at the start of using the product with some issues they were very helpful."
"I found the ease of use of the solution the most valuable."
"The most valuable feature is the decision tree creation."
"The data processing of the solution is very good, easy to use, both for enterprise and personal use."
"I like the way the product visually shows the data pipeline."
 

Cons

"I understand that it takes some time to incorporate some of the new algorithms that have come out in the last few months, in the literature. For example, there is an algorithm based on how ants search for food. And there are some algorithms that have now been developed to complement rules. So that's one of the things that we need to have incorporated into it."
"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."
"C&DS will not meet our scalability needs."
"The integration with sources and visualisation needs some improvement. The scalability needs improvement."
"Unstructured data is not appropriate for SPSS Modeler."
"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."
"It is very good, but slow. The slowness may be because we have not finalized all the background information in SPSS. It still needs some tweaking."
"The biggest issue with the visual modeling capability is that we can't extract the SQL code under the hood."
"The initial setup is challenging if doing it for the first time."
"The stability isn't perfect. We have issues with accuracy in some AI forecasting areas, and the accuracy is not as good as the clients need it to be."
"The solution needs an easier interface for the user. The user experience isn't so easy for our clients."
"The product must provide better integration with cloud-native technologies."
"Technical support could be improved."
"Price of the product"
"Plus it is prohibitively expensive and is not available with perpetual licensing."
"The visualization of the models is not very attractive, so the graphics should be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you are in a university and the license is free then you can use the tool without any charges, which is good."
"$5,000 annually."
"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."
"When you are close to end of quarter, IBM and its partners can get you 60% to 70% discounts, so literally wait for the last day of the quarter for the best prices. You may feel like you are getting robbed if you can't receive a good discount."
"It got us a good amount of money with quick and efficient modeling."
"I am using the free version of IBM SPSS Modeler, it is the educational edition version."
"This solution is for large corporations because not everybody can afford it."
"The solution is expensive for an individual, but for an enterprise/institution (purchasing bulk licenses), it is not a high price for the use that will come from it."
"The solution must improve its licensing models."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Mining solutions are best for your needs.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Construction Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Construction Company
13%
Educational Organization
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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 Business3
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise7
 

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...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

SPSS Modeler
Enterprise Miner
 

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
Generali Hellas, Gitanjali Group, Gloucestershire Constabulary, GS Home Shopping, HealthPartners, IAG New Zealand, iJET, Invacare
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM SPSS Modeler vs. SAS Enterprise Miner and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.