IBM SPSS Statistics vs Starburst Galaxy comparison

Why PeerSpot?

IBM and Starburst are both solutions in the Data Science Platforms category. IBM is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.8, while Starburst is ranked #7 with an average rating of 9.3. IBM holds a 3.5% mindshare in Data Science Platforms, compared to Starburst’s 1.5% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Starburst users who would recommend it.

IBM SPSS Statistics

Read 41 IBM SPSS Statistics reviews

7,146 Views
4,431 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Starburst Galaxy

Read 12 Starburst Galaxy reviews

2,242 Views
1,726 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM SPSS Statistics

Starburst Galaxy

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM SPSS Statistics and Starburst Galaxy based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Data Science Platforms solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM SPSS Statistics vs. Starburst Galaxy Report (Updated: September 2026).

Buyer's Guide

IBM SPSS Statistics vs. Starburst Galaxy

September 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 917,433 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

IBM SPSS Statistics

Ranking in Data Science Platforms

8th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Mining (2nd), AI Data Analysis (13th), AI Research (7th)

Starburst Galaxy

Ranking in Data Science Platforms

7th

Average Rating

9.4

Reviews Sentiment

2.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Streaming Analytics (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Data Science Platforms category, the mindshare of IBM SPSS Statistics is 3.5%, down from 4.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Starburst Galaxy is 1.5%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Science Platforms Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Starburst Galaxy	1.5%
IBM SPSS Statistics	3.5%
Other	95.0%

Data Science Platforms

Featured Reviews

EzzAbdelfattah

Associate Professor Of Statistics at a university with 10,001+ employees

Advanced predictive analytics have supported my research and student projects across many methods

The only function I may need to be added or hope to be added to IBM SPSS Statistics is how to treat unstructured data. This mainly exists with IBM SPSS Modeler, but I do not think it is able to treat something like videos and similar content unless you are using languages like Python inside IBM SPSS Modeler or inside IBM SPSS Statistics. For the menu itself, for the selection, it does not exist. Thinking of the future, I believe that the owners of IBM SPSS Statistics should think about improving the package itself to be able to treat unstructured data.

Read full review

Pedromachado Ventura

Data Analyst at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

Unified SQL layer has streamlined access to distributed historical data for analytics and reporting

One area that I think could be improved is the experience when performance issues occur. When a query is slow, it is not always immediately obvious to me whether the bottleneck comes from Starburst Galaxy itself, the underlying data source, the query design, or the reporting tool. Better visibility into query performance and easier diagnostics for non-administrators would be useful. Another potential improvement would be enhancing the experience with BI tools to make it more seamless. I work a lot with Power BI, and when you are working with larger data sets, performance can sometimes depend on several different layers. Having more visibility into what is happening between the BI tool, Starburst Galaxy, and the underlying source would be helpful. I also think onboarding could be a little more accessible for analysts. There is good technical documentation, but sometimes I just need to understand the best way to approach a common use case without diving too deep into the platform architecture. The main improvement would be troubleshooting. I have not used the AI capabilities extensively, so I cannot give a detailed assessment. I am not sure if my organization has the full capabilities of Starburst Galaxy, but I think adding AI on top of the data layer is interesting, especially if it can help users discover data, understand data sets, and interact with them more naturally. For governance and security, one of the strengths of Starburst Galaxy is that you can centralize access to data while still controlling what different users are allowed to see. Role-based access, fine-grained permissions, and data masking are important because giving people easier access to data should not mean giving everyone access to everything. I think that is even more important than any AI capabilities that are introduced. If you do introduce AI, I think it should respect exactly the same data permissions and governance rules as the user that is accessing the data.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"SPSS is perfectly adequate if all you want are some results."

"The most valuable features mainly include factor analysis, correlation analysis, and geographic analysis."

"It is perfectly adequate if all you need are the results and not the trail of evidence."

"Most of the product features are good but I particularly like the linear regression analysis."

"The solution has numerous valuable features. We particularly like custom tabs. It's very useful. We end up analyzing a lot of software data, so features related to custom tabs are really helpful."

"They have many existing algorithms that we can use and use effectively to analyze and understand how to put our data to work to improve what we do."

"The current features meet with the needs of our company."

"IBM SPSS Statistics depends on AI."

More IBM SPSS Statistics pros

"Starburst has provided us with virtually guaranteed performance on complex queries across datasets that are in the tens of gigabytes which complete in seconds."

"Starburst Galaxy serves the best purpose for me because if my SLAs are not met with my customers, they will raise a case, and I have tried many other tools, but Starburst Galaxy fits the best."

"Starburst Galaxy is becoming a cornerstone of our data platform, empowering us to make smarter and faster decisions across the organization."

"Starburst Galaxy has significantly improved our data architecture flexibility and performance management by solving cross-database query challenges and enabling us to utilize iceberg tables externally across our entire data ecosystem."

"Starburst Galaxy has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to rethink the strategy for data and architect data differently; instead of having multiple data marts and siloed data marts, we have a unified vision, and that is how it is changing."

"I use Starburst as a cost-efficient hosted option for Trino for data integration and ad-hoc analysis across a broad range of data sources."

"I am now able to answer questions in a couple of minutes that would otherwise take hours or days of time for my data engineering teams."

"Starburst Galaxy serves as our primary SQL-based data processing engine, a strategic decision driven by its seamless integration with our AWS cloud infrastructure and its ability to deliver high performance with low-latency responses."

More Starburst Galaxy pros

Cons

"I do think that the design of the experience can be improved."

"It could allow adding color to data models to make them easier to interpret."

"If there is any self-generation data collection plan (DCP), it would be helpful in gathering data. It would also be useful if there is a function to scale it up to, let's say, UiPath and have it consolidate and integrate into a UiPath solution."

"The statistics should be more self-explanatory with detailed automated reports."

"I recently moved away from SPSS and started using KNIME since it is particularly easier for students."

"I don't believe this solution would be the best for companies that need to scale."

"Following the SPSS manual is cumbersome. It's a good, exhaustive manual, but it's not practical to use."

"SPSS is a tool that's been around since the late 60s, and it's the universal worldwide standard for quantitative social science data analysis. That said, it does seem a bit strange to me that the graphical output functions are so clunky after all these years. The output of charts and graphs that SPSS produces is hideous."

More IBM SPSS Statistics cons

"The most persistent issue is the cluster spin-up time."

"I would like Starburst to leverage AI to improve usability. Data lakes are complicated and difficult for users to explore."

"Starburst Galaxy can be improved by discovering unstructured data and building in streaming ingestion because we are currently using Kafka for that purpose."

"There is still room for improved usability and diagnostics, especially for users who are not platform specialists."

"Cluster startup time is another pain point, typically 3 to 5 minutes, which is not the worst with proper planning but can be annoying for ad-hoc work."

"As a hosted option, I wish I had more control over the cluster configuration, specifically regarding some of the more advanced options."

"I think there are areas of improvement with respect to AI adaptability, and also in general, the amount of connectors working with other tools are areas where it can be expanded."

"Cluster startup time can be slow, sometimes taking over a minute."

More Starburst Galaxy cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of this solution is a little bit high, which was a problem for my company."

"If it requires lot of data processing, maybe switching to IBM SPSS Clementine would be better for the buyer."

"It's quite expensive, but they do a special deal for universities."

"While the pricing of the product may be higher, the accompanying service and features justify the investment."

"We think that IBM SPSS is expensive for this function."

"SPSS is an expensive piece of software because it's incredibly complex and has been refined over decades, but I would say it's fairly priced."

"Our licence is on a yearly renewal basis. While pricing is not the primary concern in our evaluation, as products are assessed by whether they can meet our user needs and expertise, the cost can be a limiting factor in the number of licences we procure."

"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten."

More IBM SPSS Statistics pricing and cost advice

Information not available

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Science Platforms solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Manufacturing Company

University

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

30%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	20

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	4

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM SPSS Statistics?

I think the price of the solution is very reasonable. The cost depends; you have the option for subscription or you can purchase the license. Most of our customers are paying every year for a type ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM SPSS Statistics?

One of the frustrations I have with IBM SPSS Statistics is the licensing, which is more of a company issue because we have limited licenses and have to ask someone to get off IBM SPSS Statistics so...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM SPSS Statistics?

My main use case for IBM SPSS Statistics involves data cleaning and tabulation. I also use it sometimes for data validation. I use IBM SPSS Statistics to perform correlations, check data, remove re...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Starburst Galaxy?

I recommend experimenting with different cluster sizes to determine what works best for your particular use case.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Starburst Galaxy?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Starburst Galaxy?

I have mainly used Starburst Galaxy as a query and access layer for analytical data, as my current work involves dealing with data stored across different platforms, including Hive and SingleStore....

See all answers

Comparisons

IBM SPSS Modeler vs IBM SPSS Statistics

Compared 11% of the time

Databricks vs IBM SPSS Statistics

Compared 8% of the time

Altair RapidMiner vs IBM SPSS Statistics

Compared 5% of the time

Alteryx One vs IBM SPSS Statistics

Compared 5% of the time

KNIME Business Hub vs IBM SPSS Statistics

Compared 4% of the time

More IBM SPSS Statistics Competitors

Starburst Enterprise vs Starburst Galaxy

Compared 19% of the time

Databricks vs Starburst Galaxy

Compared 10% of the time

Dremio vs Starburst Galaxy

Compared 6% of the time

Qlik Talend Cloud vs Starburst Galaxy

Compared 5% of the time

Alteryx One vs Starburst Galaxy

Compared 3% of the time

More Starburst Galaxy Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM SPSS Statistics

October 2026

Download IBM SPSS Statistics product report

Buyer's Guide

Starburst Galaxy

September 2026

Download Starburst Galaxy product report

Also Known As

SPSS Statistics

No data available

Overview

IBM SPSS Statistics is renowned for its intuitive interface and robust statistical capabilities. It efficiently handles large datasets, making it essential for data analysis, quantitative research, and business decision-making.

IBM SPSS Statistics offers extensive functionality supporting both beginners and experts. It is used for data analysis across industries, accommodating advanced statistical modeling such as regression, clustering, ANOVA, and decision trees. Users benefit from its quick model building and ease of use, which are indispensable in data exploration and decision-making. Room for improvement includes charting, visualization, data preparation, AI integration, automation, multivariate analysis, and unstructured data handling. Enhancements in importing/exporting features, cost efficiency, interface improvements, and user-friendly documentation are sought after by users looking for alignment with modern data science practices.

What are IBM SPSS Statistics' most notable features?

Intuitive Interface: Simplifies navigation for both beginners and experts.
Predictive Analytics: Advanced modeling capabilities for future trends.
Robust Statistical Functions: Includes regression, clustering, ANOVA, and decision trees.
Large Dataset Handling: Efficiently manages complex and sizable data.
Customizable Tables: Users can create tailored reports and exports.

What benefits and ROI do users report in reviews?

Ease of Use: Streamlined processes for rapid analysis.
Advanced Functionality: Comprehensive tools for diverse research needs.
Quick Model Building: Speeds up predictive and statistical analysis.
Versatile Application: Suitable for academic, business, and social science research.

IBM SPSS Statistics is implemented broadly, including academic research for in-depth studies, business analytics for informed decision making, and in the social sciences for comprehensive data exploration. Organizations utilize its advanced features like AI integration and automated modeling across sectors to gain actionable insights, streamline data processes, and support research initiatives.

IBM

Starburst Galaxy offers rapid query speeds and robust cluster management, enhancing data engineering efficiency while supporting AWS integrations and cross-database functionality. Users benefit from its advanced data integration and federated querying capabilities.

Starburst Galaxy stands out with a compute-focused architecture that excels in facilitating seamless data integration. Technological innovations like autoscaling clusters and automated metadata management optimize operations in multi-tenant environments. With a keen emphasis on compatibility, the platform provides support for AWS Glue and enables federated querying across S3, Snowflake, and Redshift. This adaptability ensures comprehensive ETL processes and enhances analytics through querying SQL Server, Google Sheets, and blob stores. While noted for its robust capabilities, users seek improvements in cluster startup times, Tableau and AI support, and desire infrastructure-as-code enhancements.

What are Starburst Galaxy's key features?

Rapid Query Speeds: Enhances data processing with quick responses.
Cluster Autoscaling: Optimizes resource allocation for varying workloads.
Federated Querying: Cross-database functionality for seamless integration.
Compute-Focused Architecture: Ensures efficiency and scalability.
Automated Metadata Management: Streamlines data handling processes.
AWS Integration: Broad compatibility with AWS services.

What benefits should users evaluate in reviews?

Data Engineering Efficiency: Reduces operating expenses and improves productivity.
Cost Reduction: Highlights lower storage costs with efficient data handling.
Seamless Integration: Enables robust data integration across various platforms.
Cluster Management: Supports diverse workloads with advanced management tools.

In industries focusing on large-scale data efforts, Starburst Galaxy plays an essential role in connecting data sources like Amazon S3 and RDS, streamlining tasks in data engineering and ad-hoc analysis across complex environments. Teams leverage its cross-database querying to boost AWS analytics, with features tailored for sectors needing agile data solutions, from ETL pipelines to secure data federation.

Starburst

Sample Customers

LDB Group, RightShip, Tennessee Highway Patrol, Capgemini Consulting, TEAC Corporation, Ironside, nViso SA, Razorsight, Si.mobil, University Hospitals of Leicester, CROOZ Inc., GFS Fundraising Solutions, Nedbank Ltd., IDS-TILDA

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

IBM SPSS Statistics vs. Starburst Galaxy

September 2026

Free Report: IBM SPSS Statistics vs. Starburst Galaxy

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM SPSS Statistics vs. Starburst Galaxy and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our IBM SPSS Statistics vs. Starburst Galaxy report.

See our list of best Data Science Platforms vendors.

We monitor all Data Science Platforms reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.