IBM SPSS Statistics vs. Tableau Desktop

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM SPSS Statistics
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
SPSS Statistics is a software package used for statistical analysis. It is now officially named "IBM SPSS Statistics". Companion products in the same family are used for survey authoring and deployment (IBM SPSS Data Collection), data mining (IBM SPSS Modeler), text analytics, and collaboration and deployment (batch and automated scoring services).
$99
per month per user
Tableau Desktop
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Tableau Desktop is a data visualization product from Tableau. It connects to a variety of data sources for combining disparate data sources without coding. It provides tools for discovering patterns and insights, data calculations, forecasts, and statistical summaries and visual storytelling.
$70
per month
Pricing
IBM SPSS StatisticsTableau Desktop
Editions & Modules
Base
USD 3,830
one-time fee per user
Standard
USD 8,440
one-time fee per user
Professional
USD 16,900
one-time fee per user
Premium
USD 25,200
one-time fee per user
Monthly subscription
USD 99
per month per user
Annual subscription
USD 1,188.00
per year per user
Tableau Creator
$70.00
Per User / Per Month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM SPSS StatisticsTableau Desktop
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsAll pricing plans are billed annually.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
IBM SPSS StatisticsTableau Desktop
Considered Both Products
IBM SPSS Statistics
Chose IBM SPSS Statistics
If I didn't want to code, IBM SPSS would be after JMP and Tableau, and before SAS and R. The user interface is very clunky compared to the analytics software I stated. You could definitely learn to do basic analysis faster in SAS than SPSS. I selected SPSS to test the …
Chose IBM SPSS Statistics
I also use or have used Tableau, Excel, and R (wasn’t able to list R above). Tableau is better for visualizations, Excel works for generalized/more basic statistical analysis but lacks more complex features, and R has been difficult for me to master and lacks the UI and ease of …
Chose IBM SPSS Statistics
Compared to Stata, python and MPlus, SPSS is more user friendly especially for beginners. It displays data and output in easily readable formats and makes statistics fun and easy. However, Stata, python and MPlus are more ideal for complex statistical methods like structural …
Chose IBM SPSS Statistics
Easier to build ensembles and also in forecasting than with Python. De trending and deseasonalizing data are far easier.
Chose IBM SPSS Statistics
Two alternatives I considered before choosing SPSS are the programming languages R and Julia Statistics. Both are freely available, open-source packages for sophisticated statistical analysis and visualization. In my case, I preferred SPSS to these somewhat newer options due …
Chose IBM SPSS Statistics
SAS is more sophisticated and can be made more streamlined with SQL. SPSS has easier and user friendlier user experiences.
Chose IBM SPSS Statistics
Select IBM SPSS because it is a program that is easier to use than RStudio [which] requires the application of much more work hours to master and make the most of each of the tools it offers.

Chose IBM SPSS Statistics
I use Stata for tasks that SPSS cannot support, but ultimately SPSS has a short learning curve, strong statistical processing, and a mature tool set. SAS is also mature, but more programming based. JMP tries to 2nd guess what I need. NOTE: R (open source) is a great option …
Chose IBM SPSS Statistics
SPSS is enormously broad-featured. They just do a lot of analysis that is beyond the capabilities of even the best survey research platforms.
Chose IBM SPSS Statistics
I have used SAS, R, Systat, Stata, Excel, Access and I continually find myself using SPSS to do the same set of tasks I would be using the previously named software to do. It's an all encompassing software that is very easy to use but can become as powerful an analytical tool …
Chose IBM SPSS Statistics
Graphics within SPSS provide you with a general framework for understanding your data, so that you will be better able to interpret the complex inferential procedures that follow.
Tableau Desktop

No answer on this topic

Features
IBM SPSS StatisticsTableau Desktop
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
IBM SPSS Statistics
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.4
174 Ratings
3% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings8.1144 Ratings
Customizable dashboards00 Ratings8.9173 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings8.1150 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
IBM SPSS Statistics
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.3
171 Ratings
4% above category average
Drill-down analysis00 Ratings8.4166 Ratings
Formatting capabilities00 Ratings8.3169 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings7.9125 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration00 Ratings8.4164 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
IBM SPSS Statistics
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.1
165 Ratings
2% below category average
Publish to Web00 Ratings7.9154 Ratings
Publish to PDF00 Ratings7.7153 Ratings
Report Versioning00 Ratings7.9119 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings8.7127 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings8.277 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
IBM SPSS Statistics
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.1
163 Ratings
3% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)00 Ratings8.4161 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings8.4155 Ratings
Predictive Analytics00 Ratings8.5130 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings7.26 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
IBM SPSS Statistics
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.7
148 Ratings
2% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)00 Ratings8.8144 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model00 Ratings8.5124 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)00 Ratings8.5135 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings8.99 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings8.982 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
IBM SPSS Statistics
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
7.9
140 Ratings
1% above category average
Responsive Design for Web Access00 Ratings8.7129 Ratings
Mobile Application00 Ratings7.0100 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile00 Ratings7.5121 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
IBM SPSS Statistics
-
Ratings
Tableau Desktop
8.2
66 Ratings
5% above category average
REST API00 Ratings8.058 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings8.252 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings8.150 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings9.247 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings8.154 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings7.747 Ratings
Best Alternatives
IBM SPSS StatisticsTableau Desktop
Small Businesses
IBM SPSS Modeler
IBM SPSS Modeler
Score 7.3 out of 10
Yellowfin
Yellowfin
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Posit
Posit
Score 9.9 out of 10
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Posit
Posit
Score 9.9 out of 10
Jaspersoft Community Edition
Jaspersoft Community Edition
Score 9.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
IBM SPSS StatisticsTableau Desktop
Likelihood to Recommend
7.9
(99 ratings)
8.5
(203 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.6
(23 ratings)
7.5
(41 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(15 ratings)
8.0
(72 ratings)
Availability
6.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(11 ratings)
Performance
6.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(10 ratings)
Support Rating
6.4
(12 ratings)
1.2
(57 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.4
(4 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(5 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.7
(7 ratings)
8.0
(34 ratings)
Configurability
5.0
(1 ratings)
7.0
(3 ratings)
Ease of integration
5.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
5.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(4 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
5.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
5.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM SPSS StatisticsTableau Desktop
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM
I described earlier that the only scenarios where I use SPSS are those where we have legacy projects that were developed in the late 90s or early 2000s using SPSS, and for some reason, the project (data set, scope, etc.) hasn't changed in 24+ years. This counts for 1-2 out of around 80 projects that I run. Whenever possible, I actively have my team move away from SPSS, even when that process is painful.
Read full review
Tableau
The best scenario is definitely to collect data from several sources and create dedicated dashboards for specific recipients. However, I miss the possibility of explaining these reports in more detail. Sometimes, we order a report, and after half a year, we don't remember the meaning of some data (I know it's our fault as an organization, but the tool could force better practices).
Read full review
Pros
IBM
  • 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.
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Tableau
  • An excellent tool for data visualization, it presents information in an appealing visual format—an exceptional platform for storing and analyzing data in any size organization.
  • Through interactive parameters, it enables real-time interaction with the user and is easy to learn and get support from the community.
Read full review
Cons
IBM
  • collaboration - SPSS lacks collaboration features which makes it near impossible to collaborate with my team on analysis. We have to send files back and forth, which is tedious.
  • integration - I wish SPSS had integration capabilities with some of the other tools that I use (e.g., Airtable, Figma, etc.)
  • user interface - this could definitely be modernized. In my experience, the UI is clunky and feels dated, which can negatively impact my experience using the tool.
Read full review
Tableau
  • Pricing should be more user-friendly and usage-driven
  • Making edits to the production reports is fairly tough and has a vast scope of additional capabilities
  • Tableau Desktop should be able to differentiate itself from the Tableau server else there is no major meaning of two different products being offered
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
IBM
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
Read full review
Tableau
Our use of Tableau Desktop is still fairly low, and will continue over time. The only real concern is around cost of the licenses, and I have mentioned this to Tableau and fully expect the development of more sensible models for our industry. This will remove any impediment to expansion of our use.
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Usability
IBM
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.
Read full review
Tableau
Tableau Desktop has proven to be a lifesaver in many situations. Once we've completed the initial setup, it's simple to use. It has all of the features we need to quickly and efficiently synthesize our data. Tableau Desktop has advanced capabilities to improve our company's data structure and enable self-service for our employees.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
IBM
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
Read full review
Tableau
When used as a stand-alone tool, Tableau Desktop has unlimited uptime, which is always nice. When used in conjunction with Tableau Server, this tool has as much uptime as your server admins are willing to give it. All in all, I've never had an issue with Tableau's availability.
Read full review
Performance
IBM
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.
Read full review
Tableau
Tableau Desktop's performance is solid. You can really dig into a large dataset in the form of a spreadsheet, and it exhibits similarly good performance when accessing a moderately sized Oracle database. I noticed that with Tableau Desktop 9.3, the performance using a spreadsheet started to slow around 75K rows by about 60 columns. This was easily remedied by creating an extract and pushing it to Tableau Server, where performance went to lightning fast
Read full review
Support Rating
IBM
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
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Tableau
Tableau support has been extremely responsive and willing to help with all of our requests. They have assisted with creating advanced analysis and many different types of custom icons, data formatting, formulas, and actions embedded into graphs. Tableau offers a weekly presentation of features and assists with internal company projects.
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In-Person Training
IBM
No answers on this topic
Tableau
It is admittedly hard to train a group of people with disparate levels of ability coming in, but the software is so easy to use that this is not a huge problem; anyone who can follow simple instructions can catch up pretty quickly.
Read full review
Online Training
IBM
No answers on this topic
Tableau
I think the training was good overall, but it was maybe stating the obvious things that a tech savvy young engineer would be able to pick up themselves too. However, the example work books were good and Tableau web community has helped me with many problems
Read full review
Implementation Rating
IBM
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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Tableau
Again, training is the key and the company provides a lot of example videos that will help users discover use cases that will greatly assist their creation of original visualizations. As with any new software tool, productivity will decline for a period. In the case of Tableau, the decline period is short and the later gains are well worth it.
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Alternatives Considered
IBM
I have used R when I didn't have access to SPSS. It takes me longer because I'm terrible at syntax but it is powerful and it can be enjoyable to only have to wrestle with syntax and not a difficult UI.
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Tableau
I have used Power BI as well, the pricing is better, and also training costs or certifications are not that high. Since there is python integration in Power BI where I can use data cleaning and visualizing libraries and also some machine learning models. I can import my python scripts and create a visualization on processed data.
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Scalability
IBM
I am neutral because I have not had to look into scalability since I am using as a student.
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Tableau
Tableau Desktop's scaleability is really limited to the scale of your back-end data systems. If you want to pull down an extract and work quickly in-memory, in my application it scaled to a few tens of millions of rows using the in-memory engine. But it's really only limited by your back-end data store if you have or are willing to invest in an optimized SQL store or purpose-built query engine like Veritca or Netezza or something similar.
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Return on Investment
IBM
  • 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.
Read full review
Tableau
  • Tableau was acquired years ago, and has provided good value with the content created.
  • Ongoing maintenance costs for the platform, both to maintain desktop and server licensing has made the continuing value questionable when compared to other offerings in the marketplace.
  • Users have largely been satisfied with the content, but not with the overall performance. This is due to a combination of factors including the performance of the Tableau engines as well as development deficiencies.
Read full review
ScreenShots

IBM SPSS Statistics Screenshots

Screenshot of SPSS Statistics Forecasting. This enables users to build time-series forecasts regardless of their skill level.Screenshot of SPSS Statistics Missing Values. This feature is used to uncover missing data patterns, estimate summary statistics and impute missing values.Screenshot of SPSS Advanced Statistics. This enables univariate/multivariate modeling to reach more accurate conclusions in analyzing complex relationshipsScreenshot of SPSS Statistics Regression. These predict categorical outcomes and apply nonlinear regression procedures.Screenshot of IBM SPSS Statistics Neural Networks. These can discover complex relationships and improve predictive models.