For technology evolution, data is generated for every little thing and a record is kept which can be useful in the future for organizations. Data analysis is a great part of any organization. It is a process of collecting, cleaning, transforming, and modeling of data. Now the question arises what is statistical data analysis? So, basically, it is a tool that analyses a huge amount of data and then converts them in meaningful information. Both SPSS and SAS are tools for statistical data analysis, but they are different in various concepts. Let us learn about that in the further article.
What is SPSS?
SPSS stands for "Statistical Package for Social Science", which was developed by IBM in 1968 and is termed as one of the oldest software. It can handle a large amount of datasets in an efficient manner. It is quite a flexible tool to use. It offers the best user interface. Also, it offers tables and charts for reporting.
Advantages
- SPSS is quite easy to use due to its GUI features.
- It is quite popular in the market for its faster and data accurate results, all because of its in-depth analysis of data.
- It keeps track if the location of objects and variables.
- It is quick and easy to learn about this software.
Disadvantages
- It is basically made for large-scale industries as it is quite expensive to use.
- It has a limited storage facility.
What is SAS?
SAS stands for "Statistical Analysis System", is a computer programming language that is used for statistical analysis. It was created by SAS Inc at North Carolina University from 1966 to 1976. It is compatible with almost all operating systems and is generally used as a programming language and a graphical interface.
Advantages
- It offers high security to users because of its information encryption algorithm.
- It supports various types of data formats.
- When any form of error occurs, it has its own support center to help the user.
- Customization can be done for graphs like box plots, scatter plots, and bar charts.
Disadvantages
- It is quite expensive, as one has to buy a license to use this platform.
- It does not support open source as it is closed environment software.
- It has less number of graphical capabilities available.
Difference between SPSS and SAS
| | SPSS | SAS |
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| Full Form | SPSS stands for "Statistical Package for Social Science". | SAS stands for "Statistical Analysis System". |
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| Developed | It was developed by IBM in 1968. | It was developed by SAS Inc in North Carolina University from 1966 to 1976. |
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| Ease-of-learning | It offers the best user interface and is quite easy to learn even for the beginner. | One can learn SAS easily if they have experience with SQL. When compared with SPSS, SAS is difficult to learn. |
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| Documentation | It has good documentation. | It does not have the kind of documentation which SPSS provides. |
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| Processing of Data | If data is less than 100 MB, then SPSS can be used. | Large datasets can be handled efficiently in SAS. Data processing is faster when compared with SPSS. |
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| Expenses | It is less expensive than SAS. | SAS is almost double the SPSS. |
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| Decision Trees | One can implement decision trees in SPSS. | Implementation of decision trees is not possible in SAS tools. |
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Conclusion
SPSS is termed as the best choice rather than SAS as the statistical software for both beginners and experienced ones. As SPSS is the oldest termed software, it also has very good documentation which further helps the organizations to work easily and efficiently. Both tools have their own advantages and disadvantages. It is all up to the organization or user to select which platform for their usage according to their own requirements.