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What Most Don't Know About Spotfire
Updated June 18, 2015

What Most Don't Know About Spotfire

Colin McClelland | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Reseller

Software Version

7.0

Overall Satisfaction with TIBCO Spotfire

Spotfire is used to create internal reports for sales and marketing efforts. It is also presented as a potential BI solution for clients.
  • Not only does Spotfire provide recommended visualizations based upon the data you want to look at, it will then build those visualizations for you, taking half the clicks as other BI tools.
  • Spotifire allows you to create detailed visualizations from multiple data sources and tables on the same page. You cannot do this with Tableau.
  • Spotfire automatically creates and populates a filter panel based on the columns of the tables you import. With Tableau you have to build each filter panel from scratch.
  • Spotire could advertise it's user community more so that more customers are aware of it.
Spotfire isn't based on Cores, Nodes, or RAM, therefore you only pay for what you need, and can easily add additional users or functionality at any point in the future without affecting performance. This is a big differentiator. With competitors like Tableau, you have to guesstimate future load and demand and then pay for it before you need it.

Spotfire automatically creates and populates a filter panel based upon the columns in the loaded data tables; Tableau doesn't. Spotfire allows you to create detailed visualizations from multiple data sets to view and interact with on the same page; Tableau doesn't. Spotfire not only recommends visualizations based on the data you want to look at, it builds those visualizations for you. The competition doesn't do this. And of course, the powerful predictive analytics engine can't be beat.
With the new subscription based pricing, Spotfire is extremely competitive with other BI tools. With the predictive analytics component included, it's like getting a free add on!
Company Wide.
If it has a JDBC or ODBC connector, Spotfire can connect to it. Spotfire eliminates the need for a separate data warehouse. Spotfire can easily merge data from disparate data sources, both structured and unstructured, to mash up and drill down to granular details.
Spotfire allows for collaboration through bookmarks, versioning, and Tibbr, Spotfire's online community. Report distribution can be automated and distributed via email or published to the Spotfire library. In addition to the three default user licenses and associated permissions, further restrictions, access, and viewing capabilities can be set by the Spotfire administrator, which can be as specific as, e.g., not allowing a user or group to view bar charts.
If you only want to pay for what you currently need, are not sure how much you'll need to scale in the future (but don't want any restrictions) or if you're looking for a powerful predictive analytics engine embedded into a BI tool, than Spotfire is definitely a tool to consider. Since Spotfire's memory engine is not dependent upon Cores or Nodes (unlike Tableau), you don't have to estimate how much processing power you need or will need. You only buy what you need, and scaling as far and as wide as your organization demands is as easy as purchasing additional licenses.

Spotfire Feature Ratings

BI Platform ()
Not Rated
Supported Data Sources ()
Not Rated
9.7
Pixel Perfect reports
10
Customizable dashboards
9
Report Formatting Templates
10
10.0
Drill-down analysis
10
Formatting capabilities
10
Integration with R or other statistical packages
10
Report sharing and collaboration
10
9.8
Publish to Web
10
Publish to PDF
10
Report Versioning
9
Report Delivery Scheduling
10
10.0
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
10
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
10
Predictive Analytics
10
10.0
Multi-User Support (named login)
10
Role-Based Security Model
10
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
10
8.7
Responsive Design for Web Access
10
Mobile Application
8
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
8
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding ()
Not Rated

Using TIBCO Spotfire

Drag and drop almost everything. The recommendations feature is awesome and actually BUILDS the visualizations for you, unlike some of the competitors.
ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Technical support not required
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
Familiar
None
  • Multiple visualizations on the same page
  • Drill down and predictive analytic capabilities
  • filtering
  • data mash up and manipulation
Yes