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IBM SPSS Statistics vs Starburst Galaxy comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Statistics
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
Data Mining (2nd), AI Data Analysis (20th), AI Research (7th)
Starburst Galaxy
Ranking in Data Science Platforms
6th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
2.5
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Streaming Analytics (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Data Science Platforms category, the mindshare of IBM SPSS Statistics is 3.5%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Starburst Galaxy is 1.5%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Science Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Starburst Galaxy1.5%
IBM SPSS Statistics3.5%
Other95.0%
Data Science Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

EzzAbdelfattah - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Professor Of Statistics at a university with 10,001+ employees
Advanced predictive analytics have supported my research and student projects across many methods
The only function I may need to be added or hope to be added to IBM SPSS Statistics is how to treat unstructured data. This mainly exists with IBM SPSS Modeler, but I do not think it is able to treat something like videos and similar content unless you are using languages like Python inside IBM SPSS Modeler or inside IBM SPSS Statistics. For the menu itself, for the selection, it does not exist. Thinking of the future, I believe that the owners of IBM SPSS Statistics should think about improving the package itself to be able to treat unstructured data.
NK
Advisory Solutions Architect at Dell Technologies
Unified data querying has accelerated petabyte-scale analytics and simplified dashboard delivery
Starburst Galaxy offers me several best features, which include very fast querying results, automatic indexing of data for long tables, a cost-based optimizer which reduces the time to query large tables, and an agentic feature that lets me talk to my data.I find myself relying most on querying from different databases as well as automatic indexing in my day-to-day work, as I am a data science architect who needs to get the queries in a very short period of time. Starburst Galaxy serves the best purpose for me because if my SLAs are not met with my customers, they will raise a case, and I have tried many other tools, but Starburst Galaxy fits the best. Starburst Galaxy has positively impacted my organization since we were struggling with Denodo and Dremio, which had their own features but were not helpful in querying large amounts of data, especially semi-structured or unstructured data. Starburst Galaxy addresses this with many YAML files and manifest files for automated maintenance, and it helps reduce the small file problem in different HDFS systems. Additionally, Starburst Galaxy has an MCP server that connects to various agentic pipelines, reducing the time to market for data consumption.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I think that IBM SPSS Statistics is a very powerful analytical tool, even for multivariate statistics."
"In comparison with other software, I found IBM SPSS Statistics to be the best one from my perspective."
"I've found the descriptive statistics and cross-tabs valuable. The very simple correlations and regressions are as well."
"The solution has numerous valuable features. We particularly like custom tabs. It's very useful. We end up analyzing a lot of software data, so features related to custom tabs are really helpful."
"It has helped our analyst unit deliver work with more transparency and confidence, given that we can always view the dataset in totality, after each step of data transformation."
"I absolutely like the product, and that's the reason I recommend all of my students buy SPSS."
"Most of the product features are good but I particularly like the linear regression analysis."
"I can recommend it, as it's a good, stable solution with a proven track record."
"The most fundamental feature is the query engine, which is much faster than any of the competitors; Starburst is able to finish most queries within 10 seconds, which is especially important for many non-technical employees."
"Starburst on Trino, combined with our SQL-native data transformation tool SQLMesh, has delivered anywhere from a two to five times improvement in compute performance across our transformation DAG."
"I use Starburst as a cost-efficient hosted option for Trino for data integration and ad-hoc analysis across a broad range of data sources."
"I am now able to answer questions in a couple of minutes that would otherwise take hours or days of time for my data engineering teams."
"Starburst Galaxy has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to rethink the strategy for data and architect data differently; instead of having multiple data marts and siloed data marts, we have a unified vision, and that is how it is changing."
"Starburst Galaxy has significantly improved our data architecture flexibility and performance management by solving cross-database query challenges and enabling us to utilize iceberg tables externally across our entire data ecosystem."
"Starburst Galaxy has improved our organization by unifying access to all major data sources, reducing the need for complex ETL processes."
"Starburst has provided us with virtually guaranteed performance on complex queries across datasets that are in the tens of gigabytes which complete in seconds."
 

Cons

"I think there is an issue with the charting and visualization, and I don't think it works as well as the competitive product."
"I feel that when it comes to conducting multiple analyses, there could be more detailed information provided. Currently, the software gives a summary and an overview, but it would be beneficial to have specific details for each product or variable."
"IBM SPSS Statistics could improve the visual outputs where you are producing, for example, a graph for a company board of directors, or an advert."
"The solution could improve by providing a visual network for predictions and a self-organizing map for clustering."
"Better documentation on how to use macros."
"The areas of SPSS Statics that have room for improvement — where it can be simplified to make it better — have to do with how you connect the SPSS solution with the data."
"Each algorithm could be more adaptable to some industry-specific areas, or, in some cases, adapted for maintenance."
"There is a learning curve; it's not very steep, but there is one."
"Multi-tenancy could be improved. In order to have multiple environments for SSO, we maintain multiple tenants that are connected to different AWS accounts via the Marketplace."
"The most persistent issue is the cluster spin-up time."
"Cluster startup time can be slow, sometimes taking over a minute."
"Cluster startup time is another pain point, typically 3 to 5 minutes, which is not the worst with proper planning but can be annoying for ad-hoc work."
"I would like Starburst to leverage AI to improve usability. Data lakes are complicated and difficult for users to explore."
"Starburst Galaxy can be improved by discovering unstructured data and building in streaming ingestion because we are currently using Kafka for that purpose."
"I think there are areas of improvement with respect to AI adaptability, and also in general, the amount of connectors working with other tools are areas where it can be expanded."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We think that IBM SPSS is expensive for this function."
"It's quite expensive, but they do a special deal for universities."
"While the pricing of the product may be higher, the accompanying service and features justify the investment."
"If it requires lot of data processing, maybe switching to IBM SPSS Clementine would be better for the buyer."
"SPSS is an expensive piece of software because it's incredibly complex and has been refined over decades, but I would say it's fairly priced."
"More affordable training for new staff members."
"Our licence is on a yearly renewal basis. While pricing is not the primary concern in our evaluation, as products are assessed by whether they can meet our user needs and expertise, the cost can be a limiting factor in the number of licences we procure."
"The price of IBM SPSS Statistics could improve."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
University
6%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
12%
University
7%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise20
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM SPSS Statistics?
I think the price of the solution is very reasonable. The cost depends; you have the option for subscription or you can purchase the license. Most of our customers are paying every year for a type ...
What needs improvement with IBM SPSS Statistics?
The only function I may need to be added or hope to be added to IBM SPSS Statistics is how to treat unstructured data. This mainly exists with IBM SPSS Modeler, but I do not think it is able to tre...
What is your primary use case for IBM SPSS Statistics?
I do use IBM SPSS Statistics, and even my students are using it for their projects and reports while working on PhD or Master's degrees. They are analyzing data using it. In comparison with other s...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Starburst Galaxy?
I recommend experimenting with different cluster sizes to determine what works best for your particular use case.
What needs improvement with Starburst Galaxy?
Starburst Galaxy can be improved by discovering unstructured data and building in streaming ingestion because we are currently using Kafka for that purpose. We rely on third-party tools for ingesti...
What is your primary use case for Starburst Galaxy?
My main use case for Starburst Galaxy is querying petabytes of data across vast data sources, and I use a federated query engine to join data sources from different databases and then join them usi...
 

Also Known As

SPSS Statistics
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

LDB Group, RightShip, Tennessee Highway Patrol, Capgemini Consulting, TEAC Corporation, Ironside, nViso SA, Razorsight, Si.mobil, University Hospitals of Leicester, CROOZ Inc., GFS Fundraising Solutions, Nedbank Ltd., IDS-TILDA
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Find out what your peers are saying about IBM SPSS Statistics vs. Starburst Galaxy and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.