SQA Engineer in Social Media at National Foreign Language Center, University of Maryland (Information Technology and Services, 1-10 employees)
Chose Gephi
I have used RStudio and Rattle for Data Analytics and although RStudio is more powerful for cleaning and mining large sets of data, Rattle is not that efficient in graph visualization where Gephi comes out as a winner.
It is well suited for projects that are more discovery related. If this is a one-time project that we create a visual for, this would definitely make sense to use. If this is an ongoing analysis (monthly for example), we might look to another software that we would be able to automate a little further in how the visualization comes together
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. More Info
In my humble opinion, if you are working on something related to Statistics, RStudio is your go-to tool. But if you are looking for something in Machine Learning, look out for Python. The beauty is that there are packages now by which you can write Python/SQL in R. Cross-platform functionality like such makes RStudio way ahead of its competition. A couple of chinks in RStudio armor are very small and can be considered as nagging just for the sake of argument. Other than completely based on programming language, I couldn't find significant drawbacks to using RStudio. It is one of the best free software available in the market at present.
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
In comparison to other tools such as GraphWiz or Circos, Gephi comes with an intuitive, easy-to-use interface that makes it easy to load your data, and quickly start building all sorts of different graphs. There's absolutely no code that needs to be written for either loading or modeling. And without downloading additional plug-ins, Gephi ships with quite a few standard graph models, as well as some "fun" extras such as the Sierpinski triangle, and a variety of force atlas types.
Most of the layout types (maybe all) are highly configurable, which can make for extremely customized and unique displays of your data. Again, none of this requires the user to write any code. That said, it is possible to script custom functionality for your models, or even update the Java source code yourself, if you feel like getting technical. Gephi builds are available on GitHub, and the developers encourage people to contribute ideas, improvements, and plug-ins.
There's a plug-in for Gephi that allows for streaming data to update your model. This essentially allows you to create near realtime graphs of your data in motion. This plug-in was by far the biggest reaston we invested time in the product; to create animated data visualizations without exhaustive hours in development.
The support is incredibly professional and helpful, and they often go out of their way to help me when something doesn't work.
The one-click publishing from RStudio Connect is absolutely amazing, and I really like the way that it deploys your exact package versions, because otherwise, you can get in a terrible mess.
Python doesn't feel quite as native as R at the moment but I have definitely deployed stuff in R and Python that works beautifully which is really nice indeed.
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. More Info
I (and many others) have had to expand Gephi's memory manually by experimenting with the configuration file. I'm glad it's possible, but it should be easier.
Gephi sometimes crashes inexplicably and loses your work, so I have developed a habit of explicitly exporting versions of my graphs as csv's, but I think this should be handled automatically in Gephi.
Because it is prone to crash, ideally, Gephi would help the user manage his/her use, by estimating processing and memory for very large tasks and prompting the user to confirm their requests before executing. Instead, I just tend to avoid certain functions.
Python integration is newer and still can be rough, especially with when using virtual environments.
RStudio Connect pricing feels very department focused, not quite an enterprise perspective.
Some of the RStudio packages don't follow conventional development guidelines (API breaking changes with minor version numbers) which can make supporting larger projects over longer timeframes difficult.
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
While Gephi isn't perfect, it's a powerful tool for mathematical graph modelling that's hard to find in other products, particularly by way of its interface. It grants non-software developers access to a point-and-click way of creating accurate, beautiful visualizations that would normally take hours in other applications. The fact that it allows for live streaming data is also something that's hard to come by, at least for visualization software
There is no viable alternative right now. The toolset is good and the functionality is increasing with every release. It is backed by regular releases and ongoing development by the RStudio team. There is good engagement with RStudio directly when support is required. Also there's a strong and growing community of developers who provide additional support and sample code.
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
Gephi is very intuitive and the fact that it shows its process helps the user understand what's going on. However, the animation features can really slow it down and there isn't a way to shut them off. Furthermore, the failures on saving mean you frequently have to start over. These problems disrupt the workflow and can be frustrating.
For someone who learns how to use the software and picks up on the "language" of R, it's very easy to use. For beginners, it can be hard and might require a course, as well as the appropriate statistical training to understand what packages to use and when
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. More Info
RStudio is very available and cheap to use. It needs to be updated every once in a while, but the updates tend to be quick and they do not hinder my ability to make progress. I have not experienced any RStudio outages, and I have used the application quite a bit for a variety of statistical analyses
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
Since R is trendy among statisticians, you can find lots of help from the data science/ stats communities. If you need help with anything related to RStudio or R, google it or search on StackOverflow, you might easily find the solution that you are looking for.
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. More Info
The interactivity in Gephi and the quality of the output figures are impressive. However, the selling point was the fact that we were able to link Gephi into our pipeline using Java's interface. Other products were less customizable and lacking of the sophistication Gephi provided without too much pain during the liking process.
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. More Info
RStudio was provided as the most customizable. It was also strictly the most feature-rich as far as enabling our organization to script, run, and make use of R open-source packages in our data analysis workstreams. It also provided some support for python, which was useful when we had R heavy code with some python threaded in. Overall we picked Rstudio for the features it provided for our data analysis needs and the ability to interface with our existing resources.
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
RStudio is very scalable as a product. The issue I have is that it doesn't necessarily fit in nicely with the mainly Microsoft environment that everybody else is using. Having RStudio for us means dedicated servers and recruiting staff who know how to manage the environment. This isn't a fault of the product at all, it's just part of the data science landscape that we all have to put up with. Having said that RStudio is absolutely great for running on low spec servers and there are loads of options to handle concurrency, memory use, etc.
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. More Info
I have only used the product for education purposes. I will not be the best person to provide details about ROI and business efficiency and customer service. I was personally very excited about the tool and am continuing my work on the tool.
Using it for data science in a very big and old company, the most positive impact, from my point of view, has been the ability of spreading data culture across the group. Shortening the path from data to value.
Still it's hard to quantify economic benefits, we are struggling and it's a great point of attention, since splitting out the contribution of the single aspects of a project (and getting the RStudio pie) is complicated.
What is sure is that, in the long run, RStudio is boosting productivity and making the process in which is embedded more efficient (cost reduction).
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
