Statistical Analysis Software

How We Ranked Statistical Analysis Software

This type of software needs to offer robust collection, transformation, and organization of data to detect useful information and provide accurate output that will enable you to make fact-based decisions. We make sure that each product listed here meets these requirements. Read along to find what else we take into consideration when curating our list of leading statistical programs.

Classification

Before starting our comparison, we classify the software depending on the business size they cater to. Some of them focus on small businesses and startups while others are a better fit for larger organizations. This aspect might influence the pricing, feature set, setup, and installation process, which is why it’s important to use to get the bigger picture before starting our evaluation.

Additionally, there might be some statistical software packages that serve specific industries so we take note of this too. Next, we consider the type of deployment. Cloud-based software doesn’t require license purchasing while the ones that are deployed on-premise can offer perpetual or subscription-based licenses.

Types of Statistical Tests

The best software should be able to conduct the essential statistical tests outlined below.

Correlational

Correlational tests look for relations between variables. There are several types of correlational tests. Pearson correlations test the strength of the cooperation between two continuous variables. Spearman correlation checks the strength of association between two ordinal variables while Chi-square looks at the strengths of the associations between two categorical variables.

Comparison of Means

Statistical software tools use comparison of means to test the difference between the means of variables. There are three important test types. Paired T-test looks for differences between two variables from the same population while an independent T-test targets differences between the same variables from different populations. The ANOVA test is intended for finding differences between group means after other variance in the outcome the variable is accounted for.

Regression

The regression tests provided by statistical analysis systems determine whether the change in one variable predicts change in another. Simple regression is a test that assesses how the change in the predictor variable predicts the change in the outcome variable. A multiple regression test meanwhile determines how a change in the predictor variable anticipates the change in the outcome variable.

Non-parametric

Non-parametric tests are used when the data doesn’t meet the hypothesis required for parametric tests. The Wilcoxon rank-sum test is one type of non-parametric test that assesses the difference between two independent variables, considering the magnitude and direction of difference. The Wilcoxon sign-rank test looks for differences between two related variables, considering the magnitude and direction of difference. The Sign test is intended for checking if two related variables are different, but only considers direction.

Essential Features

Next, we take note of the features of statistical software programs. What follows is a list of some of the crucial functionalities we look for in a product.

Support for Different Analytics

There are a variety of approaches for data analysis including business intelligence, real-time analytics, predictive analytics, and machine learning. The best software should support the use cases mentioned below.

Descriptive

This is the most common form of data analysis—it provides an overview of key metrics and measures, describing in detail something that has taken place in the past. Essentially, the statistical software should transform raw data into an easily understandable form. This means deriving patterns from past events or interpreting them so that you can shape better strategies in the future.

Diagnostic

Diagnostic analytics offers a deeper insight into a specific issue, uncovering its source and isolating the root-cause. Usually, it goes hand in hand with descriptive analytics.

Predictive

Predictive analytics provides insight into the forecast trends based on momentary events. This can mean predicting the probability of an event taking place in the future to estimate the exact time it will happen.

Prescriptive

This means finding the best course of action in a given scenario. Prescriptive analytics provides an emphasis on actionable insights along with a step-by-step process explanation.

Reports & Data Visualization

The data analytics software should be able to provide real-time insights that are crucial to achieving your mission. Visualization meanwhile shows where you stand on key metrics through easy-to-use graphical elements. The central dashboard of the software should be customizable and updated automatically so everyone in your organization is kept up to date while allowing you to make data-driven business decisions.

Tools for Sharing & Collaboration

The software should offer tools for documenting your work and sharing the charts and graphics. Some of them offer publication-ready charts and graphics while others provide the essential tools for customizing them before publishing. Either way, this process should be seamless and allow you smooth collaboration with others.

Ease of Use & Scalability

The best statistics software is easy to use and doesn’t require IT expertise. At the same time, it has the capacity to offer ad-hoc analysis and answer questions quickly. Another important aspect of this type of software is scalability. If your business accumulates big data volumes over time, this would require a platform that can manage it accordingly and offer useful insights.

Documentation

Comprehensive and helpful documentation is a must. The software for statistical analysis should provide answers to the most important questions and contain informative specifications and instructions in plain English, as well as simple examples. We also appreciate systems that offer training sessions.

Flexibility & Integration

Data analysis should support a variety of technologies and tools and be flexible enough to integrate with other systems like CRM platforms, accounting software, ERP systems, payroll, and data warehouse management software, as well as cloud apps, spreadsheets, and other third-party apps you already have in place. Besides saving your time and money, this will turn out to be quite beneficial for your data analysis programs.

Pricing

Last but not the least, we get to the pricing. We make sure to find and list products that offer fair pricing that aligns with industry averages. That said, we might list pricier options but only those that offer superb value for money. We appreciate products that offer free trials, money-back guarantee, and fair exit policies and give them a boost in rankings.

In-Depth Reviews of Statistical Analysis Software

IBM SPSS

At a Glance

SPSS software is designed to help businesses solve industry-specific issues and drive better decision-making. This robust and user-friendly platform caters to organizations of all types offering a suite of intuitive tools that address all aspects of the analytical process from data preparation to reporting. Additionally, this open source statistical software is flexible, scalable, and suitable for projects of all levels of complexity and sizes.

Pros

• User-friendly interface
• Great data modeling
• Tabular creation & modification
• Consistent presentation of data & results

Cons

• Pricey
• Default graphs are not publication-ready
• It could use better tools for data collection

Features

SPSS is an incredibly easy-to-use statistics software that allows you to perform analysis and create visualizations and reports even if you don’t have any coding experience. SPSS offers a variety of predictive models that allows you to tailor the strategy according to your customers’ needs. The personalized services meanwhile let you establish profitable, long-term relationships.

This software suite also lets you analyze customer opinions for surveys and other interactions, providing crucial insights into their individual interests and needs. SPSS supports efficient data conditioning that identifies invalid values, views patterns of missing data, summarizes variable distributions and reduces the time for data preparation.

Also, the Automated Data Preparation in this statistical analysis system allows you to prepare data in a single step. You can even automate common tasks through syntax.

SPSS further offers strong fraud protection. It monitors the infrastructure by analyzing every data bit and detecting any suspicious movements. Additionally, the statistical functions and procedures are stored apart from the data which further reduces the error risk.

Pricing

IBM SPSS offers subscription, and perpetual and term license. The subscription option is more flexible with easier purchasing, licensing, and management experience. Additional features include three add-ons that extend the license’s functionality, a monthly payment option, and top-notch security and scalability. The starting price of this model is $99 per authorized user per month.

With the perpetual or term licenses of this statistical analysis software, you can choose between base, standard, professional, and premium packages. These editions provide the essential capabilities that ensure high functionality. You can also customize your configuration to make sure it fits your needs. The pricing for the license is custom.

JMP

At a Glance

Designed to enable engineers and scientists to visually analyze data, JMP offers a full set of comprehensive and extensible tools. You can access data from different sources and perform statistical analysis to understand complex relationships and make new discoveries. You can share your findings with interactive dashboards and web visualizations.

Pros

• Detail-oriented graphs
• Easy data import & export
• Simple learning curve

Cons

• Possible crashes when loading big data
• Difficult to troubleshoot complex errors

Features

With JMP’s statistical analysis tools you can explore and access your data from different sources like text files, ODBC-compliant databases, or Excel files. You can also import data from other sources including web pages, SAS, and many types of flat sources like SPSS and HTML files. Additionally, the software automates the data cleaning tasks performing screening for entry errors, outliners, or missing values.

With dynamic tools for visualization, the JMP statistical analysis system makes statistical discovery more effective. You can move through data quickly, explore it, and graph it dynamically, and developing visualization that tells your story best. Launching data exploration is easy thanks to tools like regression, histograms, distribution fitting, and box plots. Descriptive statistics, a nonparametric test, statistical calculators and simulators, as well as power and sample size calculation are also part of JMP’s basic data analysis toolset.

The scenario analysis is one of the most distinctive features of this statistical analysis software. With the what-if scenarios, you can understand the factors that affect the predicted response and explore it. Once completing the analysis, you can easily visualize them and share them in graphs and understand the real value of the data. You can share your findings equally easily with the Graph Builder, generate PowerPoint presentations or create publication-ready graphics.

Pricing

JMP offers two types of licenses—personal and corporate. The personal license comes in at $125/month or $1,500/year. If you’re looking to leverage JMP for a larger group at your firm, you can get a fair discount. It’s simple—the more licenses you purchase, the more discounts you get.

Stata

At a Glance

Intuitive and accurate, Stata offers comprehensive statistical data analysis tools perfect for research in any discipline including medical, economics, behavioral science, finance, and marketing. The program integrates data analysis, modeling, management, and visualization.

Pros

• Reliable & fast
• An extensive built-in library of procedures
• High-quality graphics capabilities

Cons

• Expensive
• Clunky output format

Features

The intuitive point-and-click graphical UI adapts to different types of users and supports the needs of programmers, experienced researchers, and newbies alike. The integrated Graph Editor lets you customize graphs, save them in a variety of formats such as EPS, PNG, TIF, and SVG, and export them for publication. Also, thanks to the reproducible research unique for this data analytics software, you will be able to run old scripts or make use of the ones you create now in the future.

Stata automates the result reporting through dynamic markdown documents, Word, PDF, and Excel file formats, graphic schemes, and more. There are also plenty of tools for documenting analyses. The program automatically records the commands you type in, interactive sessions, and changes made to the spreadsheets. This is beneficial for reviewing and evaluating analyses. This statistical graphing software further lets you re-run recorded data as batch files or command scripts.

Pricing

Though fairly expensive, Stata offers several plans for business, nonprofit, student, and government use. Also, it offers options for new purchases, renewals, and upgrades and the prices for each depend on the features you want to be included. The prices for a new purchase for a single user for business and government use range between $765 and $1,395 per year. The annual price for concurrent use of this data analytics software falls between $1,365 and $4,880 while the price for site licenses is available upon request.

The single-user plan for education has two options—GradPlan for participating universities and education. The volume single user plan can cost anywhere between $470 and $2,675 a year and $470 or custom pricing for concurrent use. Annual Student Lab licenses range between $895 and $4,440 while the Site license price is custom and available upon request. The Student plan is available in 6-month, annual, and perpetual licenses ranging from $48 to $795.

MaxStat

At a Glance

MaxStat provides the best statistical tools for data analysis that are perfect for non-professional professional statisticians. The software guides you and chooses the statistical test you need based on a brief description of your data. Easy-to-use and affordable, MaxStat offers 100 statistical tests, 30 charting styles, and understandable reporting.

Pros

• Affordable
• No learning curve
• Easy-to-use & reliable

Cons

• Lacks statistical simulation options

Features

As we said, it takes only three steps to find the perfect test for your data and get results. MaxStat is the best statistics software for young researchers and students because it provides simple, step-by-step guidance. There is a complete software documentation with tutorials and screenshots, as well as a statistical textbook for the basics of statistics, which means that even total beginners can use MaxStat.

The software automatically chooses the best test and provides easy-to-understand results that can be exported into Excel or printed out. Once the statistical analysis is done, you can easily create graphs—MaxStat supports over 30 graphs styles including fully customizable bar, scatter plots, regression lines, and box-whisker. MaxStat also allows you to create and store notes about the analysis and graphs in a single project file. You can write reports and enrich them with lists, tables, and images, results, and graphs.

Pricing

What makes MaxStat one of the best data analysis software for educational purposes is that it has a free version dubbed Lite. If you want to use the MaxStat Pro 3.6 version, you’d have to buy an annual license that costs $90 (or, if you’re a student, $45) or the perpetual license which is a lifetime license and costs $112. MaxStat also offers special prices for five or more licenses, as well as license packages for universities. The prices for these are available upon request.

NCSS Data Analysis

At a Glance

NCSS Data Analysis provides an excellent selection of statistical and graphics tools for data analysis. Designed for researchers, consultants, scientists, and engineers, the software features integrated documentation, full support, and free training videos.

Pros

• Easy data import & export
• Simple & intuitive tools
• Visual data is easy to understand
• Customizable graphics

Cons

• Large data sets are not so easy to manipulate
• Pricey

Features

As one of the best statistical analysis software solutions out there, NCSS allows performing statistical analysis in a few steps. You can import or enter data manually in all major types of data files using the Data window and then open the desired analysis procedure. Next, you need to choose the columns and run the analysis for accurate results and graphics. The tools are easy to use and every option has built-in messages for additional help.

The software’s great transformation and filtering features simplify the process of data management. Additionally, NCSS makes it easy for you to choose the best data procedure by using the drag and drop menu, the category tree, or the procedure search.

This statistical graphing software offers more than 80 graphic procedures—some of them are part of general procedures while others are independent tools. Regardless, all of them are customizable so you have total control over the titles, layout, symbols, gridlines, and more. All results you get with the help of NCSS can be displayed in the output window. The graphics can be shown in a separate window where you can view, copy and paste, and save them.

Pricing

This statistical analysis program offers several pricing options. The most affordable one is the single-user license which expires after one year unless it’s renewed. You will receive future versions of the software automatically. The price for this option is $299. The Perpetual license is available for $595/single user. The other option is to get a non-expiring license with one year of upgrade maintenance for $779. The price of the upgrades ranges from $229 to $689.

Minitab 19

At a Glance

Minitab is a top statistical software platform for professionals, students, and educators. This Window-based platform provides the most trusted tools for streamlining the workflow, data analysis, visualization, as well as predictive and improvement analytics. Minitab 19 is an easy-to-use system with an intuitive interface and a broad support network.

Pros

• Powerful analysis
• Superb graphical reporting
• Excellent statistical methods for predictions
• Great for first-time users

Cons

• Developing scripts could be more intuitive
• Not as extensive as other software solutions
• Lack of integration options

Features

Minitab 19 comes packed with advanced features. Thanks to the descriptive and inferential statistics, you can easily identify distributions, outliers, correlations, and missing values. Data preparation is easier than ever with one-click imports and options to sort, alter, and recode.

Minitab 19’s machine learning capabilities and advanced statistical tools like factor analysis, logistic regression, and cluster variables provide deeper insight into your data. The Project Roadmaps let you share and replicate projects and streamline the workflow. Also, the software automatically displays Instant Insights on the dashboard so you can keep up with the statistics in real-time.

Minitab 19 also features robust graphical output that helps you visualize your results. Bubble plots, dotplots, scatterplots, charts, and timer series plots are only some of the options you can use. Graphs update automatically as data changes and you can easily zoom an area of interest to learn more about a specific result.

Aside from these features, Minitab 19 is one of the most popular statistical software solutions known for its superior user support. The Minitab Quick Start will introduce the basic functions of the software while the Assistant feature will guide you through the process and help you interpret the results. There is also an e-learning course, Quality Trainer, that includes lessons and exercises to help you learn statistics.

Pricing

Minitab 19 offers two types of pricing—an annual network license and a single license. The annual license is actually multi-user licensing which maximizes the usage and minimizes cost. The license includes upgrades to new versions of this software for data analysis and provides access to online or phone support delivered by the specialist team. The pricing is available upon request. You should contact the vendor to get a custom quote.

Purchasing a single-user license will cost you $1,595. You get access to online or phone support throughout the life of the software version you’ve purchased and one year into the release of the next version. An upgrade from existing license will cost you $895.

XLStat

At a Glance

XLStat is a comprehensive yet user-friendly statistical data analysis software that functions as an Excel add-on. Designed to serve businesses and universities alike, the solutions accommodate the needs of everyone from beginner to advanced levels. XLStat is used by the likes of Netflix, L’Oreal, Sony, and Yale University.

Pros

• Robust features for data preparation
• Intuitive interface
• Installs into Excel
• Easy-to-interpret output formats

Cons

• Unsuitable for processing a big dataset with 10mln rows
• This software doesn't work well on a Mac
• Limited data manipulation functions

Features

XLStat offers several products that cater to different needs. We’re reviewing the XLSTAT Basic features that are included in all solutions. You can use data sampling to create subsamples of observations from a set of univariate and multivariate data. This software for data analysis also offers coding by ranks, handling of missing data, contingency tables creation, variable transformations, and data management.

You can use the rich toolset which allows PCA, CA, PCAmix, MCA, DA, AHC, as well as factor analysis, and k-means and univariate clustering. Additionally, XLStat offers great data modeling options including linear and logistic regression, distribution fitting, ordinal logit model, Ordinary Least Squares regression, ANOVA, ANCOVA, and MANOVA.

The results you get from data analysis can be communicated through histograms, descriptive statistics, variable characterization, or pivot tables among the other options. Other prominent features of the XLStat Basic statistics software include a variety of visualization options, parametric and non-parametric, correlation/association, and outliers tests, as well as mathematical, workbook, menu bars management, and data management, and data export tools.

Pricing

XLStat offers single-user licenses for corporate, academic, or student use. The Basic package boasts all basic functions of the software and its yearly price per license is $276 for corporate use, $163 for academic use, and $50 for student use. The Basic + package of this analytical software ups the Basic plan with machine learning tools. It comes in at $502 for corporate, $276 for academic, and $73/license/year for student use.

The Applied package adds field-specific tools for marketing, quality, forecasting, life sciences, and sensory to the Basic+ offering. The prices for all three license types are $954, $445, and $101, respectively. The Premium license includes all 200+ features and offers fast support within 12 hours. The annual prices per single-user license range from $152 to $1,462.

SAS

At a Glance

SAS is one of the best statistical analysis software solutions out there. It offers a wide range of analysis methods and dynamic data visualization techniques helping businesses discover and collect enterprise-level data with ease. Trusted by organizations like Honda, Cisco, and Scotiabank, SAS offers unmatched support and scalability.

Pros

• Easy-to-navigate drag and drop display
• Great visual dashboards
• Well-established predictive and statistical models
• Responsive customer support

Cons

• It requires more comprehensive training.
• Modifying and customizing outputs is cumbersome

Features

With SAS, you get access to more than 100 prewritten statistical procedures that can be executed in only a few steps, enhancing efficiency and productivity. Thanks to this feature, you can solve even the most complex issues while driving development and revenue. As one of the greatest data analysis systems, SAS covers diverse areas including analysis of variance, multivariate analysis, categorical data analysis, cluster analysis, nonparametric and mixed-models analysis, survival analysis, and survey data analysis.

The output is clear and consistent thanks to the hundreds of built-in graphs and charts. You can immediately visualize data, determine outliers, spot trends, identify correlations, predict future outcomes, and find opportunities that will give you a competitive advantage. Plus, you can customize graphics to make the data interpretation even more powerful.

SAS can run on all major platforms and easily integrates into computer environments. In addition to cross-platform support, it is scalable and can address large and complex analytical problems. Last but not least, this data analytics software delivers regular updates, ensuring you have access to cutting-edge statistical methods and high-performance tools.

Pricing

With the options to be deployed on-premise or in the cloud, SAS offers custom-tailored pricing to meet the unique growth and ROI needs of every client. You should contact the vendor for a quote. It’s important to note that software updates and technical support are always free.

Analyse-it

At a Glance

Analyse-it seamlessly integrates into Excel to provide powerful analysis, data modeling, and data visualization at a competitive price. This popular statistics software offers a range of parametric and nonparametric procedures including ANOVA & PCA, model fitting, and quality improvement. The software’s statistical functions help users discover hidden relationships, get important answers, and make more informed business decisions.

Pros

• Fully integrated into Excel
• Fast & accurate
• Robust graphics

Cons

• Pricey
• Average customer service
• Data calculation requires rewriting a complete tab

Features

The standard edition of the Analyse-it statistical analysis software provides powerful statistical analysis and regression without using Excel’s built-in functions; instead, all functions are re-coded and everything is calculated by the software, ensuring maximum accuracy. Analyse-it allows you to save data sets and reports and re-use them in the future for similar experiments.

The software is fairly easy-to-use with a logical, task-based workflow that is perfect if you don’t have any programming knowledge. All data is kept in an Excel workbook which enhances collaboration.
Analyse-it offers robust descriptive statistics and customizable plots into understandable summaries. You can visualize or describe data or make inferences about the distribution parameters. All results come in standard Excel charts and can be easily copied and pasted into Word and Powerpoint.

This statistical analysis tool also offers a set of hypothesis tests, side-by-side univariate plots, and estimators so that you can make better decisions. Also, it provides clear statements of the hypothesis tested along with interpretations of p-value which helps you understand the results better. With Analyse-it, you can identify hidden relationships between variables through correlation and scatter plots.

Pricing

The starting price per user for a perpetual license for fixed user license is $299, and $529 for a concurrent license. If you opt for a yearly subscription, you’ll pay $99 for a fixed user license and $169 for a concurrent user license. All packages include one-year software maintenance.

MATLAB

At a Glance

Designed for engineers and scientists, MATLAB is a popular statistics software for data organization, cleaning, and analysis. It comes packed with a large number of prebuilt features, extensive documentation, customizable visualization options, and shareable reports that are generated automatically.

Pros

• User-friendly interface
• Simple and clear codes
• Great tools for visualizing data
• Helpful documentation & smooth learning curve

Cons

• Lack of plugins to import scripts written in other languages
• It can be overwhelming for new users to start

Features

You can use the MATLAB language to write programs based on algorithms from different domains, leverage data types designed for categorical, tabular, time-series, and text data, and automatically generate a code to reproduce the visualizations with new data.

The MATLAB data analytics software lets you perform iterative tasks and then generate the code needed to reproduce the work. The software also allows you to pre-build a set of features to identify and clean outliers, noise, and missing data. Thanks to the parfor loops and multiprocessor hardware, you can accelerate parallel analysis with minimal code changes. Additionally, you can take advantage of GPU acceleration for algorithms by creating GPU arrays.

As one of the best statistical software, MATLAB allows automatic packaging of analysis in shareable components such as .NET assemblies, Python packages, and C/C++ libraries. It also supports code translation to C and C++ code for deployment to embedded targets. Reports are automatically generated from your analysis and your work can be easily documented through the Live Editor and exported in HTML, PDF, Word, and Latex.

Pricing

The MATLAB pricing ranges from $29 for a student license and $61 for a student suite license, to $105 for a home license. The prices for academic use are $221 for an annual license and $443 for a perpetual license. The annual price for the standard license intended for individual use is $710 for an annual license and $1,775 for a perpetual license. You can try MATLAB for free for 30 days.

How to Choose the Statistical Analysis Software in a Few Simple Steps

If you’re reading this, you’re ready to find the best fit for your business. Follow our simple guide and you will get to the software that best addresses your needs and will help you improve your business efficiency and achieve your goals faster.

Step 1: Classify Based on Your Needs

The first step is classification. In our evaluation criteria, we explained our approach towards categorization. You should use that information to weed out any quantitative data analysis software products that don’t align with your business niche, size, or preferred model of deployment.

Step 2: Shortlist Based on the Key Features

Next, take the solutions that survive the initial selection and shortlist them based on key features. Make a list of what you need: consider the type of analytics, visualization options, collaboration capabilities, and more.

Step 3: Set a Budget

At this point, you should have up to three potential options. By setting a budget you’re willing to invest in statistical analysis software, you’ll be able to pick a winner. Don’t forget to consider the free trials and money-back/exit policies too.