Posit vs. Spotfire

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Posit
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
Posit, formerly RStudio, is a modular data science platform, combining open source and commercial products.N/A
Spotfire
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Spotfire, formerly known as TIBCO Spotfire, is a visual data science platform that combines visual analytics, data science, and data wrangling, so users can analyze data at-rest and at-scale to solve complex industry-specific problems.N/A
Pricing
PositSpotfire
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
PositSpotfire
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional DetailsFor Enterprise engagements, contact Spotfire directly for a custom price quote.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
PositSpotfire
Considered Both Products
Posit
Chose Posit
inter-departmental collaboration - my first choice would be TIBCO Spotfire natural language processing and knowledge graphs - my first choice would be Python information security & visualizations (including d3.js libraries) - my first choice is RStudio
Chose Posit
For R and Python users, it’s one of the best tool available for developing, testing and deploying products.

Cost-wise, it's a bigger bang for the buck than other platforms that were evaluated.
Chose Posit
RStudio is code based, so in the beginning tools like Spotfire and Tableau have thier advantages since many things are already built in, but in terms of flexibility RStudio will win over the longer term.

The cost of RStudio and RStudio Connect is very reasonable [for a] small …
Chose Posit
RStudio is preferable to SPSS and SAS mainly because it is much lower cost to use even having a server license that we pay for the SAS licenses we used to have are too expensive and ultimately we decided to move away from using SAS for our reporting and data modeling needs.
Chose Posit
As for now, RStudio has no significant competitors on the market. As I have mentioned before, to date, it is the best possible option to take, if you wish to use R programming language with IDE, because it is the most powerful one.
Spotfire
Chose Spotfire
Ease of integration with open source R and mapping feature are positive.
Chose Spotfire
Spotfire is significantly ahead of both products from an ETL and data ingestion capability. Spotfire also has substantially better visualizations than Power BI, and although the native visualizations aren't as flexible in Tableau, Spotfire enables users to create completely …
Chose Spotfire
Spotfire is the best application for power users by virtue of its wide variety of visualizations, incorporated analytics, superior data canvas, and ability to integrate code such as R or Python. The learning curve is steeper and the menus are Windows 7 once you are past some …
Chose Spotfire
The latest version of Spotfire enables users to join data without any friction. For example, if the column in one table has different prefixes and/or postfixes, the tool would automatically join the two tables together without causing any potential debugging alarm or issues …
Chose Spotfire
I feel Tableau is more rigid and not flexible compared to Spotfire. I feel that difference while working with retail data that has more than 10 million records. On Tableau, it took almost 10 minutes to open up a report. Whereas Spotfire did this in a minute. Our data is also …
Chose Spotfire
Again coding in R is not very comfirtable for all. Spotfire makes playing with data really easy.
Chose Spotfire
I've used Microsoft PowerBI in the past and it was a pleasant experience. The UI was very intuitive and had a MS Office-like vibe, which made the introduction quite smooth at the beginning. As I started using it more and more, it became clear to me that PowerBI's analytical …
Chose Spotfire
IBM Cognos plays a bigger role at our company and Spotfire is still catching up to it in terms of automation, security, etc.
Chose Spotfire
I have not really used it so much...my impression was that Spotfire has a better processing engine for large data, while Tableau delivers a more beautiful display of data.
Features
PositSpotfire
Platform Connectivity
Comparison of Platform Connectivity features of Product A and Product B
Posit
9.2
27 Ratings
9% above category average
Spotfire
7.2
8 Ratings
15% below category average
Connect to Multiple Data Sources8.026 Ratings7.88 Ratings
Extend Existing Data Sources9.927 Ratings7.48 Ratings
Automatic Data Format Detection9.926 Ratings7.88 Ratings
MDM Integration00 Ratings6.05 Ratings
Data Exploration
Comparison of Data Exploration features of Product A and Product B
Posit
9.0
27 Ratings
7% above category average
Spotfire
9.1
8 Ratings
8% above category average
Visualization8.027 Ratings9.08 Ratings
Interactive Data Analysis10.024 Ratings9.28 Ratings
Data Preparation
Comparison of Data Preparation features of Product A and Product B
Posit
9.9
26 Ratings
20% above category average
Spotfire
7.4
8 Ratings
9% below category average
Interactive Data Cleaning and Enrichment10.024 Ratings7.28 Ratings
Data Transformations9.926 Ratings8.08 Ratings
Data Encryption00 Ratings7.05 Ratings
Built-in Processors00 Ratings7.55 Ratings
Platform Data Modeling
Comparison of Platform Data Modeling features of Product A and Product B
Posit
10.0
22 Ratings
17% above category average
Spotfire
7.6
8 Ratings
10% below category average
Multiple Model Development Languages and Tools9.922 Ratings7.57 Ratings
Single platform for multiple model development9.922 Ratings7.68 Ratings
Self-Service Model Delivery10.019 Ratings6.76 Ratings
Automated Machine Learning00 Ratings8.55 Ratings
Model Deployment
Comparison of Model Deployment features of Product A and Product B
Posit
9.9
18 Ratings
15% above category average
Spotfire
7.4
7 Ratings
14% below category average
Flexible Model Publishing Options10.018 Ratings7.87 Ratings
Security, Governance, and Cost Controls9.915 Ratings7.07 Ratings
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PositSpotfire
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Score 8.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Mathematica
Mathematica
Score 7.0 out of 10
Posit
Posit
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
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Posit
Posit
Score 10.0 out of 10
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User Ratings
PositSpotfire
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(123 ratings)
8.4
(351 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.7
(17 ratings)
9.6
(30 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(4 ratings)
8.0
(27 ratings)
Availability
9.4
(3 ratings)
9.0
(14 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
7.1
(14 ratings)
Support Rating
8.9
(9 ratings)
8.7
(27 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.3
(52 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(55 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.3
(4 ratings)
8.4
(17 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(1 ratings)
7.1
(3 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.2
(3 ratings)
7.0
(4 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
PositSpotfire
Likelihood to Recommend
Posit (formerly RStudio)
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.
Read full review
Spotfire
A high level of data integration is available here it supports various data sources and so on. Collaborating features allow users to give access to the dashboard and merge data analytics with other team members. It can meet the demands of both small and large size business enterprises. A customized dashboard and reports are provided to meet the specific needs and get support of extensibility through APIs and customized scripts.
Read full review
Pros
Posit (formerly RStudio)
  • 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.
Read full review
Spotfire
  • It has the best coding integration (python, R) of any BI product
  • The ability to work with very large datasets (10 mil+) is better than competitors
  • Export options are more complete and have better functionality
  • The data canvas is the best tool to join and transform data vs. competitors
Read full review
Cons
Posit (formerly RStudio)
  • 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.
Read full review
Spotfire
  • The donut chart is I guess a powerful illustrations but I hope it should be done quite simple in Spotfire. But in Spotfire there are lots of steps involve just to build a simple donut chart.
  • Table calculation (like Row or Column Differences) should be made simple or there should be drag and drop function for Table Calculation. No need for scripting.
  • Information Link should be changed. If new columns are added to the table just refreshing the data should be able to capture the new column. No need extra step to add column
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Posit (formerly RStudio)
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.
Read full review
Spotfire
-Easy to distribute information throughout the enterprise using the webplayer. -Ad hoc analysis is possible throughout the enterprise using business author in the webplayer or the thick client. -Low level of support needed by IT team. Access interfaces with LDAP and numerous other authentication methods. -Possible to continually extend the platform with JavaScript, R scripts, HTML, and custom extensions. -Ability to standardize data logic through pre-built queries in the Information Designer. Everyone in the enterprise is using the same logic -Tagging and bookmarking data allows for quick sharing of insights. -Integration with numerous data sources... flat files, data bases, big data, images, etc. -Much improved mapping capability. Also includes the ability to apply data points over any image.
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Usability
Posit (formerly RStudio)
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
Read full review
Spotfire
Basic tasks like generating meaningful information from large sets of raw data are very easy. The next step of linking to multiple live data sources and linking those tables and performing on the fly analysis of the imported data is understandably more difficult.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Posit (formerly RStudio)
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
Read full review
Spotfire
Even though, it's a rather stable and predictable tool that's also fast, it does have some bugs and inconsistencies that shut down the system. Depending on the details, it could happen as often as 2-3 times a week, especially during the development period.
Read full review
Performance
Posit (formerly RStudio)
No answers on this topic
Spotfire
Generally, the Spotfire client runs with very good performance. There are factors that could affect performance, but normally has to do with loading large analysis files from the library if the database is located some distance away and your global network is not optimal. Once you have your data table(s) loaded in the client application, usually the application is quite good performance-wise.
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Support Rating
Posit (formerly RStudio)
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.
Read full review
Spotfire
Support has been helpful with issues. Support seems to know their product and its capabilities. It would also seem that they have a good sense of the context of the problem; where we are going with this issue and what we want the end outcome to be.
Read full review
In-Person Training
Posit (formerly RStudio)
No answers on this topic
Spotfire
The instructor was very in depth and provided relevant training to business users on how to create visualizations. They showed us how to alter settings and filter views, and provided resources for future questions. However, the instructor failed to cover data sources, connecting to data, etc. While it was helpful to see how users can use the data to create reports, they failed to properly instruct us on how to get the dataset in to begin with. We are still trying to figure out connections to certain databases (we have multiple different types).
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Online Training
Posit (formerly RStudio)
No answers on this topic
Spotfire
The online training is good, provides a good base of knowledge. The video demonstrations were well-done and easy to follow along. Provided exercises are good as well, but I think there could be more challenging exercises. The training has also gone up in price significantly in the last 3 years (in USD, which hurts us even more in Canada), and I'm not sure it is worth the money it now costs (it is worth how much it cost 3 years ago, but not double that.)
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Implementation Rating
Posit (formerly RStudio)
We did it at the individual level: anyone willing to code in R can use it. No real deployment involved.
Read full review
Spotfire
The original architecture I created for our implementation had only a particular set of internal business units in mind. Over the years, Spotfire gained in popularity in our company and was being utilized across many more business units. Soon, its usage went beyond what the original architectural implementation could provide. We've since learned about how the product is used by the different teams and are currently in the middle of rolling out a new architecture. I suggest:
  • Have clearly defined service level agreements with all the teams that will use Spotfire. Your business intelligence group might only need availability during normal working hours, but your production support group might need 24/7 availability. If these groups share one Spotfire server, maintenance of that server might be a problem.
  • Know the different types of data you will be working with. One group might be working with "public" data while another group might work with sensitive data. Design your Library accordingly and with the proper permissions.
  • Know the roles of the users of Spotfire. Will there only be a small set of report writers or does everyone have write access to the Library?
  • ALWAYS add a timestamp prompt to your reports. You don't want multiple users opening a report that will try and pull down millions of rows of data to their local workstations. Another option, of course, is to just hard code a time range in the backing database view (i.e. where activity_date >= sysdate - 90, etc.), but I'd rather educate/train the user base if possible.
  • This probably goes without saying, but if possible, point to a separate reporting database or a logical standby database. You don't want the company pounding on your primaries and take down your order system.
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Alternatives Considered
Posit (formerly RStudio)
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.
Read full review
Spotfire
Spotfire is significantly ahead of both products from an ETL and data ingestion capability. Spotfire also has substantially better visualizations than Power BI, and although the native visualizations aren't as flexible in Tableau, Spotfire enables users to create completely custom javascript visaualizations, which neither Tableau or Power BI has. Tableau and Power BI are likely only superior to Spotfire with respect to embedded analysis on a website.
Read full review
Scalability
Posit (formerly RStudio)
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.
Read full review
Spotfire
In an enterprise architecture, if Spotfire Advanced Data services(Composite Studio),data marts can be managed optimally and scalability in a data perspective is great. As the web player/consumer is directly proportional to RAM, if the enterprise can handle RAM requirement accomodating fail over mechanisms appropraitely, it is definitely scalable,
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Return on Investment
Posit (formerly RStudio)
  • 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).
Read full review
Spotfire
  • It is costly, so not suitable for small scale implementations.
  • Dashboards are as good as the developer, so need experience to get most out of it
  • You need to be on Spotfire 11 at least to implement out of the box visualizations
  • Integration with Python and R is a game changer, it comes very handy to onboard data scientists without much hassle
  • performance is exceptionally well.
  • Secure
Read full review
ScreenShots

Posit Screenshots

Screenshot of Posit runs on most desktops or on a server and accessed over the webScreenshot of Posit supports authoring HTML, PDF, Word Documents, and slide showsScreenshot of Posit supports interactive graphics with Shiny and ggvisScreenshot of Shiny combines the computational power of R with the interactivity of the modern webScreenshot of Remote Interactive Sessions: Start R and Python processes from Posit Workbench within various systems such as Kubernetes and SLURM with Launcher.Screenshot of Jupyter: Author and edit Python code with Jupyter using the same Posit Workbench infrastructure.

Spotfire Screenshots

Screenshot of Smart Visual AnalyticsScreenshot of Geospatial AnalyticsScreenshot of Intelligent Data WranglingScreenshot of Point-and-click Data ScienceScreenshot of Real-time Streaming Analytics