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Spotfire from a developer's perspective.
Updated October 09, 2017

Spotfire from a developer's perspective.

Jose Leviaguirre | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with TIBCO Spotfire

  • Spotfire is an analytical tool more than a reporting tool. It is highly customizable via its API but it has enough out-of-the-box features to get the job done.
  • It does some data management, but it is recommended to have the backend data clean and in place for great and reliable output. It has many statistical functions so adding columns on the fly is a breeze.
  • Spotfire is referred to within the analytics community as "Excel on steroids".
  • It is a great tool for highly interactive visualizations and drill down.
  • Many features are hidden and hard to find, but like the new version of MS Office with the ribbon replacing menus and toolbars, it's all about experience and learning the interface.
Frequent updates. There are about two new versions every year.
Spotfire is not just a tool. It's a Framework. The product is highly customizable. As a .NET product, it can be easily customized using either the .NET framework or IronPython. R is also easily integrated for statistical computational features that require more than the out of the box functionality.

Using TIBCO Spotfire

Spotfire analytical nature makes it easy to plot interactive data on a map. It is flexible enough to have different map layers and WMS (Web Map Service) besides the out of the box google-like map. If this is not enough, you can use your own custom images on top to plot other than geographical data, not to mention that it supports Shape Files making the map visualization powerful and flexible. It's like having a mini GIS system within Spotfire without having to install any additional extensions, drivers or plugins. I gave it a nine because there is always room for improvement.

Upgrading TIBCO Spotfire

Yes - 7.5 is a little bit different than 7.0 and previous versions. Admin interface is all new and easier to manage! No need to rely on IE anymore regarding the client. Seems that webplayer, automation services are now 'nodes' and everything is centrally managed now.