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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
12th
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
24th
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 February 2026, in the Data Mining category, the mindshare of IBM SPSS Modeler is 19.1%, up from 16.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAS Enterprise Miner is 4.8%, up from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Mining Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM SPSS Modeler19.1%
SAS Enterprise Miner4.8%
Other76.1%
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

"We are creating models and putting them into production much faster than we would if we had just gone with a strict, code-based solution, like R or Python."
"We have a local representative who specializes in SPSS. He will help us do the PoC."
"In the solution, I like the virtualization of data flow since it shows what goes where, which is mostly the strength of the tool."
"The supervised models are valuable. It is also very organized and easy to use."
"We use analytics with the visual modeling capability to leverage productivity improvements."
"The quality is very good."
"I was familiar with using IBM SPSS Modeler separately in the private sector before that. It's a good tool for extracting data from data warehouses, creating streams, and manipulating logic to extract final data."
"You take two quarters and compare them and this tool is ideal because it gives you a lot of visibility on the before and after."
"he solution is scalable."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the decision tree creation."
"I like the way the product visually shows the data pipeline."
"Most of the features, especially on the data analysis tool pack, are really good. The way they do clustering and output is great. You can do fairly elaborate outputs. The results, the ensembles, all of these, are fantastic."
"The setup is straightforward. Deployment doesn't take more than 30 minutes."
"The solution is able to handle quite large amounts of data beautifully."
 

Cons

"The platform that you can deploy it on needs improvement because I think it is Windows only. I do not think it can run off a Red Hat, like the server products. I am pretty sure it is Windows and AIX only."
"Requires more development."
"Neural networks are quite simple, and now neural networks are evolving to these architecture related to deep learning, etc. They didn't incorporate this in IBM SPSS Modeler."
"The challenge for the very technical data scientists: It is constraining for them.​"
"The time series should be improved."
"The forecasting could be a bit easier."
"Formula writing is not straightforward for an Excel user. Totally new set of functions, which takes time to learn and teach."
"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."
"While I don't personally need tutorials, I can't say that it wouldn't be helpful for others to have some to help them navigate and operate the system."
"The visualization of the models is not very attractive, so the graphics should be improved."
"The solution is very stable, but we do have some problems with discrepancies involving SAS not matching with the latest Java versions. It's not stable in cases where SAS tries to run on a different version because SAS doesn't connect with the latest Java update. Once a month we need to restart systems from scratch."
"Technical support could be improved."
"The ease of use can be improved. When you are new it seems a bit complex."
"The user interface of the solution needs improvement. It needs to be more visual."
"Virtualization could be much better."
"The solution needs an easier interface for the user. The user experience isn't so easy for our clients."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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 is an expensive product."
"I am using the free version of IBM SPSS Modeler, it is the educational edition version."
"$5,000 annually."
"It got us a good amount of money with quick and efficient modeling."
"If you are in a university and the license is free then you can use the tool without any charges, which is good."
"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."
"This solution is for large corporations because not everybody can afford it."
"The solution must improve its licensing models."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
University
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Educational Organization
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
University
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
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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: January 2026.
881,757 professionals have used our research since 2012.