Azure Machine Learning vs. IBM Watson Discovery

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Azure Machine Learning
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft's Azure Machine Learning is and end-to-end data science and analytics solution that helps professional data scientists to prepare data, develop experiments, and deploy models in the cloud. It replaces the Azure Machine Learning Workbench.
$0
per month
IBM Watson Discovery
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
IBM offers Watson Discovery, a natural language processing (NLP) application with options to measure sentiment, detect entities, semantic roles, and other concepts.N/A
Pricing
Azure Machine LearningIBM Watson Discovery
Editions & Modules
Studio Pricing - Free
$0.00
per month
Production Web API - Dev/Test
$0.00
per month
Studio Pricing - Standard
$9.99
per ML studio workspace/per month
Production Web API - Standard S1
$100.13
per month
Production Web API - Standard S2
$1000.06
per month
Production Web API - Standard S3
$9999.98
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Azure Machine LearningIBM Watson Discovery
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Azure Machine LearningIBM Watson Discovery
Best Alternatives
Azure Machine LearningIBM Watson Discovery
Small Businesses
InterSystems IRIS
InterSystems IRIS
Score 8.0 out of 10
Yext
Yext
Score 7.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Posit
Posit
Score 10.0 out of 10
Guru
Guru
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Posit
Posit
Score 10.0 out of 10
Guru
Guru
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Azure Machine LearningIBM Watson Discovery
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(4 ratings)
8.7
(26 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Usability
7.0
(2 ratings)
5.1
(3 ratings)
Support Rating
7.9
(2 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Azure Machine LearningIBM Watson Discovery
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft
For [a] data scientist require[d] to build a machine learning model, so he/she didn't worry about infrastructure to maintain it.
All kind of feature[s] such as train, build, deploy and monitor the machine learning model available in a single suite.
If someone has [their] own environment for ML studio, so there [it would] not [be] useful for them.
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IBM
Overall, IBM Watson Discovery is an amazing technology that we use with our clients to address various business problems, but the biggest challenge has always been about ingesting, analyzing, enriching, and searching huge collections of documents and allowing our end users and SMEs to be able to search for what they need to reduce the time and efforts spent daily on a manual search through various collections of documents. We have successfully managed to reduce manual work by over 80%, and now our SMEs are being used for the skills they have to gather insights rather than do manual work.
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Pros
Microsoft
  • User friendliness: This is by far the most user friendly tool I've seen in analytics. You don't need to know how to code at all! Just create a few blocks, connect a few lines and you are capable of running a boosted decision tree with a very high R squared!
  • Speed: Azure ML is a cloud based tool, so processing is not made with your computer, making the reliability and speed top notch!
  • Cost: If you don't know how to code, this is by far the cheapest machine learning tool out there. I believe it costs less than $15/month. If you know how to code, then R is free.
  • Connectivity: It is super easy to embed R or Python codes on Azure ML. So if you want to do more advanced stuff, or use a model that is not yet available on Azure ML, you can simply paste the code on R or Python there!
  • Microsoft environment: Many many companies rely on the Microsoft suite. And Azure ML connects perfectly with Excel, CSV and Access files.
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IBM
  • It is an excellently fast platform with documents and the answers to queries.
  • With automation learning beneficial as it saves time.
  • When searching for a document, everything stays located and easy to find.
  • Acceptance of various documents.
  • It has a quite comfortable Technical support, always available when required.
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Cons
Microsoft
  • It would be great to have text tips that could ease new users to the platform, especially if an error shows up
  • Scenario-based documentation
  • Pre-processing of modules that had been previously run. Sometimes they need to be re-run for no apparent reason
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IBM
  • I believe AI should be more flexible about providing data. However, it's understandable that you need to provide the details you need in a more specific and detailed way.
  • The interface could use more tweaking. Being new to the program, it was kind of hard to navigate.
  • Luckily, there was a customized feature of the dashboard that I could set up, and having something that you know where you are placed always feels familiar and comfortable.
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Usability
Microsoft
Easy and fastest way to develop, test, deploy and monitor the machine learning model.
- Easy to load the data set
-Drag and drop the process of the Machine learning life cycle.
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IBM
IBM Watson Discovery has the best user capabilities and easily transform business decision-making portfolio. The automation system saves time used in data analysis as opposed to manual research that consumes a lot of time. The visualization across the dashboard enables my team to interpret complex data and use it to make reliable marketing decisions.
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Support Rating
Microsoft
Support is nonexistent. It's very frustrating to try and find someone to actually talk to. The robot chatbots are just not well trained.
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IBM
Similar to all IBM Watson and Salesforce product solutions, the overall support would be a 10/10. Their provided FAQ's help with frequently experienced issues and if still unable to figure something out, their customer service representatives are always super responsive. With instant chat functions available, it is easy to ask a quick question rather than sitting on hold.
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Implementation Rating
Microsoft
Not sure
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IBM
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Microsoft
It is easier to learn, it has a very cost effective license for use, it has native build and created for Azure cloud services, and that makes it perfect when compared against the alternatives. As a Microsoft tool, it has been built to contain many visual features and improved usability even for non-specialist users.
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IBM
Discovery differs from its competitors due to the better ease of implementation and the high level of natural language recognition, it is equal in integration resources such as API and workflow or process pipeline, but it loses in the price for a high volume of documents and/or research. If you own or plan to use other services from the IBM Watson family, there is no doubt that Watson discovery is your best option. Another important point is if you plan to use a cloud or on-premise service (local server or private cloud).
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Return on Investment
Microsoft
  • Productivity: Instead of coding and recoding, Azure ML helped my organization to get to meaningful results faster;
  • Cost: Azure ML can save hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars for an organization, since the license costs around $15/month per seat.
  • Focus on insights and not on statistics: Since running a model is so easy, analysts can focus more on recommendations and insights, rather than statistical details
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IBM
  • We find its Enterprise plan expensive for a country of LATAM. For US or Europe based businesses, looks great.
  • A Big Data and massive queries based company would find the service expensive. Maybe a flat price plan would be helpful.
  • Have you thought in making a cheaper plan where you take the learning from your customer's data to enrich your AI tool?
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ScreenShots