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
SAS Enterprise Miner
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
SAS Enterprise Miner is a data science and statistical modeling solution enabling the creation of predictive and descriptive models on very large data sources across the organization.
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.
SAS Enterprise Miner is world-class software for individuals interested in developing reproducible models in a reasonable amount of time. Perhaps the most useful part of SAS Enterprise Miner is the ability to compare models with other models without writing code. The ensemble modeling capabilities is the easiest way to do ensemble modeling I have come across. SAS Enterprise Miner is well-suited for beginning to advanced analysts who know something about advanced analytics. The software is not well-suited for analysts or companies that have little interest in advanced modeling.
Enterprise Miner is really visual and lets you do a whole lot without actually going into the detailed options. For decent results, you should really explore the different advanced options though.
The recent versions of Miner allow users to use R code in Miner. You can then compare several models and approach to get the best performing model.
The resulting data is really well displayed and easy to understand (ex: the lift graph, score ranking, etc.)
Miner has the ability to integrate custom SAS code which allows the user to add functionalities that are specific to the project.
With large data sets, SAS Enterprise Miner sometimes takes a long time to run. Sometimes you have to just leave your computer running while Enterprise Miner does its thing.
If you want complete control over the modeling framework, you have to take what Enterprise Miner does and customize it. SAS seems to be working hard on making things easier to customize, but it's not completely there yet.
The graphic capabilities of SAS Enterprise Miner leave a lot to be desired, especially in the era of self-service business intelligence software.
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.
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.
I have contacted SAS twice in the past year and they have been super responsive both times. They solved my problem. I am also registered for an in-person class next month and they called today to tell me that it will be an online-only session. They apologized for the change and registered me for the online version. Super helpful!
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.
SAS EM has a very great set of machine learning and predictive analytics toolsets, which helped our organization achieve its goals. We used other tools, but for us, SAS EM was the most intuitive and easy to learn the tool and it provides greater data exploration and data preparation capabilities compared to the other tools we used.
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.
