FluidSurveys (Discontinued) vs. IBM SPSS Statistics

For surveys, and for centralized info-gathering, FluidSurveys provides an excellent solution. There are other programs out there which provide a wider range of solutions (i.e., they can be used for surveying AND comprehensive online engagement, rather than just a data-gathering type of consultation); however, for programming and implementing surveys, FluidSurveys has an effective variety of strengths and options that make it optimal for users who are focused specifically on surveys.

IBM SPSS Statistics is well suited for pretty much any data analytic scenario. It can handle extremely complex and large-scale datasets with ease. It especially shines if you have to do any kind of analyses that involve significance testing. Being able to do any number of significance tests (i.e., t-tests, chi-square, ANOVAs, etc.) right inside the tool is very valuable. The only scenario I would say it is less appropriate is if you need to work on a very small dataset and answer very simple questions, like frequencies or averages. In those cases, something like Excel could probably do the job just as easily.

Incentivized

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• User-friendly. For the majority of the general and basic tools you can use with FluidSurveys to build surveys are simple to use and intuitive. When certain issues come up, the service is quick (chat room) and effective.
• Anonymity: the software has the reputation of being safer in terms of safeguarding private information the respondents share by answering surveys (this is mainly due to the fact that the servers are in Canada). Thus, indirectly, they increase response rates.
• Extensive possibilities: FluidSurveys offers a plethora of possibilities and options that really renders the experience interesting in terms of micro-managing each details of the surveys you are sending out there. When the invitation leaves by email, it is exactly how you want it.

• SPSS has been around for quite a while and has amassed a large suite of functionality. One of its longest-running features is the ability to automate SPSS via scripting, AKA "syntax." There is a very large community of practice on the internet who can help newbies to quickly scale up their automation abilities with SPSS. And SPSS allows users to save syntax scripting directly from GUI wizards and configuration windows, which can be a real life-saver if one is not an experienced coder.
• Many statistics package users are doing scientific research with an eye to publish reproducible results. SPSS allows you to save datasets and syntax scripting in a common format, facilitating attempts by peer reviewers and other researchers to quickly and easily attempt to reproduce your results. It's very portable!
• SPSS has both legacy and modern visualization suites baked into the base software, giving users an easily mountable learning curve when it comes to outputting charts and graphs. It's very easy to start with a canned look and feel of an exported chart, and then you can tweak a saved copy to change just about everything, from colors, legends, and axis scaling, to orientation, labels, and grid lines. And when you've got a chart or graph set up the way you like, you can export it as an image file, or create a template syntax to apply to new visualizations going forward.
• SPSS makes it easy for even beginner-level users to create statistical coding fields to support multidimensional analysis, ensuring that you never need to destructively modify your dataset.
• In closing, SPSS's long and successful tenure ensures that just about any question a new user may have about it can be answered with a modicum of Google-fu. There are even several fully-fledged tutorial websites out there for newbie perusal.

Incentivized

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• There should be more flexibility and customizability with regard to survey design (e.g. background, fonts...)

• Cost is becoming prohibitive.
• Availability of procedures in the base package seems to be dwindling.
• The copy-and-paste function from output to Excel is not as easy as it once was (now I have to do a "paste special").
• Text and date handling are terrible.
• Need to include AI-based NLP for survey verbatims and other text-based fields. This is becoming increasingly important in the CX world, yet SPSS seems to be ignoring it.

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Note: I am responding to this question as a user of the system and not a representative of my organization.

On a personal level/as a user only, I would definitely continue to use FluidSurveys.On a personal level/as a user only, I would definitely continue to use FluidSurveys.

Both
money and time are essential for success in terms of return on investment for any kind of research based project work. Using a Likert-scale questionnaire is very easy for data entry and analysis
using IBM SPSS. With the help of IBM SPSS, I found very fast and reliable data
entry and data analysis for my research. Output from SPSS is very easy to
interpret for data analysis and findings

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I think the average person can very quickly pick up on the basics of the system: they would have no problems programming and launching a basic survey. Organizations may benefit from having people of different backgrounds getting their hands dirty in the system: at a minimum, both web programmers and opinion research advisors should be solicited for input or help.

Probably because I have been using it for so long that I have used all of the modules, or at least almost all of the modules, and the way SPSS works is second nature to me, like fish to swimming.

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SPSS can tend to crash when I am trying to do a lot of data. This can slow me down when I need to do a lot of data

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SPSS does the job, but it can be slow. I do have to plan a lot of time to get through a huge amount of data.

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I have not contacted IBM SPSS for support myself. However, our IT staff has for trying to get SPSS Text Analytics Module to work. The issue was never resolved, but I'm not sure if it was on the IT's end or on SPSS's end

Have a plan for managing the yearly upgrade cycle. Most users work in the desktop version, so there needs to be a mechanism for either pushing out new versions of the software or a key manager to deal with updated licensing keys. If you have a lot of users this needs to be planned for in advance.

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Although I do not have much experience with Survey Monkey, the only two reasons why I choose FluidSurveys is that clients demand it (privacy and anonymity) and because managing multiple surveys at a time is easier. As for ODK Collect, I think it is a valuable alternative to FluidSurveys if you have time to learn the coding (not very complicated). ODK is a little less user friendly and you cannot address small details as you can with FluidSurveys (e.g.: formatting).

If you have made it this far, you should have a very good idea of how SPSS stacks up the competition (data processing and analytics tools). Even the free ones, such as r Studio or Stata, are leaps and bounds ahead of SPSS. IBM is resting on a reputation developed nearly 30 years ago and has shown no desire to improve.

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I am neutral because I have not had to look into scalability since I am using as a student.

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• Confidentiality of data is a big concern for our company, and we feel more secure working with a Canadian company. Our clients feel more secure, too.

• I found SPSS easier to use than SAS as it's more intuitive to me.
• The learning curve to use SPSS is less compared to SAS.
• I used SAS, to a much lesser extent than SPSS. However, it seems that SAS may be more suitable for users who understand programming. With SPSS, users can perform many statistical tests without the need to know programming.

Incentivized

Invited by TrustRadius (TR) on Vendor's Behalf

A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info