Frontline Systems Analytic Solver is an Excel add-on for performing data mining, and predictive analytics from within Microsoft Excel.
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KNIME Analytics Platform
Score 8.3 out of 10
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KNIME enables users to analyze, upskill, and scale data science without any coding. The platform that lets users blend, transform, model and visualize data, deploy and monitor analytical models, and share insights organization-wide with data apps and services.
Based on my limited experience and use, and therefore limited global knowledge of the software, I would recommend it especially if the data that will be used as inputs to the model has previously worked on a spreadsheet such as Excel. I would also recommend it to analyze problems of medium and small size. Given the experience I have had when I have used it with large problems, there have been noticeable decreases in the speed of response (which are not associated with the size of the system of equations involved in the calculation). Excellent for processing linear programming models.
KNIME Analytics Platform is excellent for people who are finding Excel frustrating, this can be due to errors creeping in due to manual changes or simply that there are too many calculations which causes the system to slow down and crash. This is especially true for regular reporting where a KNIME Analytics Platform workflow can pull in the most recent data, process it and provide the necessary output in one click. I find KNIME Analytics Platform especially useful when talking with audiences who are intimidated by code. KNIME Analytics Platform allows us to discuss exactly how data is processed and an analysis takes place at an abstracted level where non-technical users are happy to think and communicate which is often essential when they are subject matter experts whom you need for guidance. For experienced programmers KNIME Analytics Platform is a double-edged sword. Often programmers wish to write their own code because they are more efficient working that way and are constrained by having to think and implement work in nodes. However, those constraints forcing development in a "KNIME way" are useful when working in teams and for maintenance compared to some programmers' idiosyncratic styles.
On the few occasions when I have used it to deal with problems of optimization of relatively large parameters (with a large number of restrictions and decision variables), the program has been slower, not substantially but slower, than programs such as the WinQsb, even when the latter runs on 32-bit machines and not 64. That has caught my attention, even though it is not a real problem for the uses I give to the program.
Given my partial function as a university professor, it has been much more effective and practical to use other software, due to the limited options that the educational license associated with the software has.
We are happy with Knime product and their support. Knime AP is versatile product and even can execute Python scripts if needed. It also supports R execution as well; however, it is not being used at our end
KNIME Analytics Platform offers a great tradeoff between intuitiveness and simplicity of the user interface and almost limitless flexibility. There are tools that are even easier to adopt by someone new to analytics, but none that would provide the scalability of KNIME when the user skills and application complexity grows
KNIME's HQ is in Europe, which makes it hard for US companies to get customer service in time and on time. Their customer service also takes on average 1 to 2 weeks to follow up with your request. KNIME's documentation is also helpful but it does not provide you all the answers you need some of the time.
KNIME Analytics Platform is easy to install on any Windows, Mac or Linux machine. The KNIME Server product that is currently being replaced by the KNIME Business Hub comes as multiple layers of software and it took us some time to set up the system right for stability. This was made harder by KNIME staff's deeper expertise in setting up the Server in Linux rather than Windows environment. The KNIME Business Hub promises to have a simpler architecture, although currently there is no visibility of a Windows version of the product.
We believe in building the models in Excel. A limitation with Excel is that Excel Solver can not take more than 200 decision variables with multiple constraints. It is cheap in terms of license and maintenance fees against other softwares which are available in the market.
Having used both the Alteryx and [KNIME Analytics] I can definitely feel the ease of using the software of Alteryx. The [KNIME Analytics] on the other hand isn't that great but is 90% of what Alteryx can do along with how much ease it can do. Having said that, the 90% functionality and UI at no cost would be enough for me to quit using Alteryx and move towards [KNIME Analytics].
- It has allowed finding ways to optimize (minimizing costs or times) the field processes involved in various projects.
It has even allowed, in specific cases where it was used for that purpose, to optimize the allocation of resources (people) to work in different jobs that present weekly variations of the activity that these people must perform.
It has allowed the sensitivity analysis of projects to changes in the decision variables related to them, which, and in very dynamic and changing environments, resulted in substantial decreases in money losses.
It is suited for data mining or machine learning work but If we're looking for advanced stat methods such as mixed effects linear/logistics models, that needs to be run through an R node.
Thinking of our peers with an advanced visualization techniques requirement, it is a lagging product.
