Microsoft R Open / Revolution R Enterprise vs. pandas

If you are a MS shop specifically, or have more generic data requirement needs from Microsoft sourced data this will work well. If you have a lot of disparate data across a number of unique platforms/cloud systems/3rd party hosted data warehouses then this product will have issues or a lack of documentation on the net. Performance-wise this product is equal to other R platforms out there.

Incentivized

Pandas are great for quick and relatively simple analytics and visualizations

Pandas work well for exploratory ad-hoc analytic work

But , We had little success in implementing complicated predictive analytics. And large data sizes can be a problem.

Incentivized

• It allows distributed algorithm runs on Hadoop HDFS cluster
• It allows using different file formats such as SAS7BAT files or complex files in tab or comma delimited making data munging easier
• It provides scalable solutions by allowing users to re-use R scripts and distributing the computing over nodes through RHadoop

• It is easy to do statistical analysis
• It is easy to clean the data
• It is easy to produce graphs and charts to visualize

Incentivized

• Very steep learning curve... for such a quick and useful tool the learning curve is unacceptable.
• Very dangerous in the wrong hands. Because most add-ons are pre-written, you have to trust the community that malicious script is not used.

Incentivized

• There are a lot of libraries and ways to do visualization. Sometimes it is very confusing.
• Error handling can be a challenge. Sometimes the error messages do not provide valuable clues for the debugging.
• In our case, there are a bunch of different frameworks and libraries working together. I would rather work with one framework, well tuned for my use case

Incentivized

In general, Revolution Analytics brings a lot of value to the organization. The renewal decision would be based on return on investment in terms of quantified actionable insights that are getting generated against the cost of the product. Additionally, market brand of the tool and reputation risk in terms of possible acquisition and its impact to overall organizational analytic strategy would be considered as well.

It is good, easy to use, improvements are being made to the product and more info being shared in the community. It just needs some more time to become more integrated to other platforms and tools/data out there.

Incentivized

Over the years, we tried a lot of different frameworks and tools, homegrown and commercial. Pandas provide the best results.

It is lightweight, flexible and easy to implement.

Incentivized

Generally support comes through the forums and user generated channels which are helpful, easy to access, quickly turned around and provided by knowledgeable users. However the support channels are not employees and the channels are often used as a way to learn quick difficult elements of R. Better design, users interface and tutorial options would alleviate the need for this sort of interaction.

Incentivized

The two are different products for different purposes. But for someone who has little or no experience in R programming, Power BI would be better for starting with. Having said that, Microsoft R is built on R, thus allowing for customization of complex calculations not typically available otherwise.

Incentivized

All these frameworks are great for gathering data and providing some initial analysis. But for real performance debugging work one needs more than tools provided by this tools. That's where the pandas excel.

Incentivized

• Helped save company money versus buying other stat software

Incentivized

• Performance debugging was time consuming and mostly poorly automated exploratory process. Once we started use pandas for these tasks, it really moved the needle. Pandas are instrumental to provide actionable insights. As a result we were able to improve notably cloud software resource utilization and performance
• Analytics implemented with pandas allow us to detect and. address problems in our APIs before they are notable to our customers

Incentivized