IBM SPSS Statistics vs. MATLAB

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM SPSS Statistics
Score 8.5 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
MATLAB
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
MatLab is a predictive analytics and computing platform based on a proprietary programming language. MatLab is used across industry and academia.
$49
per student license
Pricing
IBM SPSS StatisticsMATLAB
Editions & Modules
Subscription
$99.00
per month
Base
$3,610
one-time fee per user
Standard
$7,960
one-time fee per user
Professional
$15,900
one-time fee per user
Premium
$23,800
one-time fee per user
Student
$49
per student license
Student
$49
per student suite license
Home
$149
perpetual license
Education
$250
per year
Education
$500
perpetual license
Standard
$860
per year
Standard
2,150
perpetual license
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM SPSS StatisticsMATLAB
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
IBM SPSS StatisticsMATLAB
Considered Both Products
IBM SPSS Statistics
Chose IBM SPSS Statistics
MATLAB is far more powerful at modeling massive data sets and allows for further individualizations that are often needed at research. MATLAB can also analyze pictures and run analysis on them. However SPSS is very good for what it is meant for.
Chose IBM SPSS Statistics
Capabilities like effective data predictive analysis production, Cloud data visualization and the ability to handle a large amount of different business data at once using IBM SPSS Statistics is nice and also the collaboration functionalities are the best. The platform helps …
Chose IBM SPSS Statistics
We tend to shy away from open source where possible. with SPSS from our feeder university system for our co-op interns, this is a great transition and a low barrier to getting them working quickly.
Chose IBM SPSS Statistics
Cost was a leading factor
Chose IBM SPSS Statistics
SPSS is much easier to learn even for people with basic knowledge of statistics.
Chose IBM SPSS Statistics
Stacks up pretty well, as this is the best geospatial analysis tool next only to ArcGIS, but does almost everything that other packages do almost as well. However, there is a considerable need to improve and include new techniques like the random forest, etc. which IBM SPSS …
MATLAB
Chose MATLAB
MATLAB is much better at performing statistical analysis processes. It is a much more powerful program for dealing with large amounts of, or complicated, data sets. While other programs have a more friendly user interface, MATLAB is good if you have some experience with coding, …
Chose MATLAB
I use MATLAB, R Studio, and SPSS for data analysis needs. Each has their own positives and negatives that they bring to the table. I primarily use MATLAB for modeling due to ease of use and the maintenance of base code in this format.
Chose MATLAB
This is the most unpolished and raw product out of these three products which make this product to reach high scale in operations. The in-depth and strong open source support makes it a great product to work with. However, the visualization, UI still needs improvement in MATLAB …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
IBM SPSS StatisticsMATLAB
Small Businesses
IBM SPSS Modeler
IBM SPSS Modeler
Score 7.8 out of 10
IBM SPSS Modeler
IBM SPSS Modeler
Score 7.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Posit
Posit
Score 9.1 out of 10
Posit
Posit
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM SPSS Modeler
IBM SPSS Modeler
Score 7.8 out of 10
IBM SPSS Modeler
IBM SPSS Modeler
Score 7.8 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
IBM SPSS StatisticsMATLAB
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(85 ratings)
8.1
(53 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.6
(22 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(14 ratings)
9.9
(4 ratings)
Availability
6.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
6.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
6.4
(12 ratings)
9.5
(7 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.7
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
5.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
5.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
5.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
5.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
5.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM SPSS StatisticsMATLAB
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM
SPSS is well-suited for the following: 1) User Behavior Analysis: SPSS handles large datasets to analyze user behavior data. 2) Customer Satisfaction / Foundational Surveys: SPSS facilitates analysis of quant data from satisfaction surveys, keeping us informed about customer needs and preferences. 3) A/B test analysis: SPSS statistical tools for A/B test analysis, which helps optimize user experience of our products. Scenarios where SPSS are less appropriate: 1) Qualitative Data Analysis: I do not use SPSS for open-ended survey responses/qual data. 2) Live/in-vivo data analysis: SPSS is not ideal for real-time data processing. 3) Complex Data Integration: SPSS isn’t the best fit for complex data integration tasks
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MathWorks
MATLAB really does best for solving computational problems in math and engineering. Especially when you have to use a lot of functions in your solving process, or if you have a nonlinear equation that must be iteratively solved. [MATLAB] can also perform things like integration and derivation on your equations that you put into it.
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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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MathWorks
  • It has a very user friendly library which helps users learn this software fairly quickly in a short span of time.
  • The graphical user interface provided by the software is really good.
  • The code that a person writes allows options for debugging.
  • One can visualize the flow of control of their code inside MATLAB.
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Cons
IBM
  • It would be beneficial to have AMOS as part of the SPSS package instead of purchasing it separately.
  • It would be beneficial to have other statistical tests, such as PROCESS, be part of the standard SPSS tests instead of having the need to run a syntax to have it installed.
  • My dataset tends to be smaller, and I have never had any issues with using SPSS. I heard that SPSS may not be optimal when handling large datasets.
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MathWorks
  • MatLab is pricier than most of its competitors and because of this reason, many organizations are moving towards cheaper alternatives - mostly Python.
  • MatLab is inefficient when it comes to performing a large number of iterations. It gets laggy and often crashes. Python is better in this regard.
  • There is a limited number of hardware options (mostly NI) that can be connected directly to the data acquisition toolbox.
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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
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MathWorks
No answers on this topic
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.
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MathWorks
MATLAB is pretty easy to use. You can extend its capabilities using the programming interface. Very flexible capabilities when it comes to graphical presentation of your data (so many different kinds of options for your plotting needs). Anytime you are working with large data sets, or with matrices, MATLAB is likely to be very helpful.
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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
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MathWorks
No answers on this topic
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.
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MathWorks
No answers on this topic
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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MathWorks
The built-in search engine is not as performing as I wish it would be. However, the YouTube channel has a vast library of informative video that can help understanding the software. Also, many other software have a nice bridge into MATLAB, which makes it very versatile. Overall, the support for MATLAB is good.
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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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MathWorks
No answers on this topic
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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MathWorks
How MATLAB compares to its competition or similar open access tools like R (programming language) or SciLab is that it's simply more powerful and capable. It embraces a wider spectrum of possibilities for far more fields than any other environment. R, for example, is intended primarily for the area of statistical computing. SciLab, on the other hand, is a similar open access tool that falls very short in its computing capabilities. It's much slower when running larger scripts and isn't documented or supported nearly as well as MATLAB.
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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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MathWorks
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
IBM
  • IBM SPSS has allowed me to quickly analyze data for research.
  • IBM SPSS has allowed me to complete analyses in order to submit research findings to conferences and complete manuscripts.
  • IBM SPSS has enabled me to meet research objectives set out in grant proposals.
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MathWorks
  • MATLAB helps us quickly sort through large sets of data because we keep the same script each time we run an analyzation, making it very efficient to run this whole process.
  • The software makes it super easy for us to create plots that we can then show to investors or clients to display our data.
  • We are also looking to create an app for our product, and we will not be able to do that on MATLAB, therefore creating a limiting issue and a new learning curve for a programming language.
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