SAS Vs SPSS Vs R

Any serious researcher will fight you to the death to convince you that their favourite stats program is THE best stats program. But, there are good and bad things about each of them.

SPSS: Great for people who rarely use statistics, who don’t remember code, who are scared by code, have no time to learn code, who just need to use some of the basic processes with no special adjustment, who work with normal data that never changes. It’s quick and easy to learn and use, and you don’t 4 feet of manuals to find what you’re looking for. You can just click through the menu to find all the basics you’ll ever need. Compared to SAS, SPSS is major el cheapo.

SAS: Great for people who love coding. SAS does have a menu version but if you like menus, then you should be using SPSS. SAS is great for data manipulation as in creating brand new variables,  flipping cases into variables and vice versa, and re-running the same bit of code repeatedly with only a tiny change every time. The macros you can write are unlimited and awesome. And, if it doesn’t do the variation of a statistic you want, you can actually program that statistic into SAS. If you like collecting books, SAS can quickly contribute to that addiction. Buy them. You will need them.

R: What? A third choice? Oh yes. R is great for people who want to flaunt how anti-establishment they are. It’s open source and requires a lot of commitment to become competent. But it can do any statistic you’ve ever dreamed of and a billion more. And you can brag that you know hard core statistics programming. Do not attempt to learn it if Excel intimidates you. Otherwise, go and download it right now and get ready for a rip-roaring awesome 6 week holiday. It is free so prepare to salivate. Mmmmmm…. rrrrrrr. There are even a couple of self-help books now so you might want to find one of them. So, if you’re fresh out of school and no longer have the student version of SAS, R will be perfect for you.

What’s my preference? Well, I wish I was competent in R

List of Free Statistical Software and tool

Description:

A list of links to free statistics programs, including bioinformatics, psycho metrics, econometrics, simulations, database, data mining and spreadsheets software; and some mathematical software (if it is useful in statistics).

The list shouldn’t include demo/student versions (unless highly functional) or temporary trial versions. Scripts to be run within a program shouldn’t be included in this list.  

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Search Icons	Image
1		|STAT		General stats package.
2		ADaMsoft		Data mining, data management and reporting. Has web based features.
3		ADePT		Developed to automate and standardize the production of analytical reports.
4		ADMB		Non-linear statistical modeling
5		AFGen		Fragment-based descriptors for chemical compounds (chemometrics).
6		AM		General stats package
7		AnSWR		A software system for coordinating and conducting large-scale, team-based analysis projects that integrate qualitative and quantitative techniques.
8		Antaeus		Data visualisation software.
9		Apophenia		General stats package but with more flexibility to be creative in model building.
10		Arc		Applied Regression Including Computing and Graphics
11		ARMiner		Data mining application specialising in finding association rules.
12		Assistat		General stats package
13		AutoClass		Data mining (clustering) program from NASA’s Ames Research Center.
14		BAMarray		Java software for microarray data. Implements Bayesian Analysis of Variance for Microarrays (BAM)
15		Bayesian Filtering Library		Bayesian software for use in advanced machine and robot control.
16		BiNGO		Bioinformatics software. Biological Network Gene Ontology.
17		BioEstat		Ecological statistics program (only available in Portuguese).
18		Biogeme		Stands for: Bierlaire's Optimization Toolbox for GEV (Generalized Extreme Value) Model Estimation.
19		Biomapper		A GIS-toolkit to model ecological niche and habitat suitability.
20		BKD		Bayesian Knowledge Discoverer
21		BlockTreat		A general frequentist Monte Carlo program for block and treatment tests, tests with matching, k-sample tests, and tests for independence of a random variable from another random variable.
22		BrightStat		General stats package
23		BV4.1		A procedure for the decomposition and seasonal adjustment of monthly and quarterly economic series. Used by the German Federal Statistical Office.
24		Calcugator		Calculator, plotting engine, and programming environment.
25		Caleydo		Bioinformatics data visualisation software.
26		Carrot-squared		Text mining program. An open source search results clustering engine.
27		CCOUNT		Designed for market research purposes, including: data cleaning, manipulation, cross tabulation and data analysis. Similar to SPSS.
28		CDC EZ-Text		Developed to assist researchers create, manage, and analyze semi-structured qualitative databases.
29		Chronux		Developed for the analysis of neural data.
30		Citation Statistics Scraper		An Excel macro to scrap citation statistics from certain websites.
31		CLUTO		Data mining software for clustering high-dimensional datasets.
32		CodeTwo Outlook Export		Tool for exporting data from Microsoft Outlook to CSV text files.
33		COIN-OR		COmputational INfrastructure for Operations Research
34		Conc		Text concordance program.
35		Concorder		Text concordance program. Allows you to take given texts and find out the frequency of words.
36		ConvertData		Converts structured data from one form to another.
37		CropStat		General stats package. Designed for analysis of agricultural field trials data. Formerly known as IRRIStat.
38		CSPro		Census and Survey Processing System (CSPro) is a questionnaire-oriented statistical package for Windows.
39		Cytoscape		Bioinformatics software platform for visualizing molecular interaction networks and integrating these interactions with gene expression profiles and other state data.
40		DAP		Alternative to SAS.
41		DASS-GUI		Calculates all significant closed sets of a given dataset containing the host sets. Also allows additional analyses of the identified closed sets.
42		Database Browser Portable		Connect to databases, browse or modify data, run SQL scripts, export and print data. Works directly with Oracle, MS Sql Server, ODBC, MySql, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Ole DB, Interbase and Firebird.
43		Dataplot		General stats package. Designed for science and engineering.
44		DAVID		Bioinformatics software. Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery.
45		dChip		Bioinformatics software. dChip Software: Analysis and visualization of gene expression and SNP microarrays
46		Deducer		Graphical user interface (GUI) for R
47		Demetra		Time series package.
48		Dia		Diagram drawing program. Allows the drawing of entity relationship diagrams, UML diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, and many others.
49		Draco		Econometrics package with spreadsheets.
50		EASE		Bioinformatics software. Expression Analysis Systematic Explorer.
51		EasyReg Int.		Econometrics package.
52		EasySample		Simple sampling program
53		EDGAR		Experimental design programs.
54		ELKI		Environment for developing KDD-applications supported by index-structures. Compares data mining algorithms.
55		EMMIX		Fortran software to fit mixture models.
56		Epi Info		Designed for epidemiologists and other public health and medical professionals.
57		Epidata		Epidemiology package.
58		EqPlot		Equation graph plotter.
59		Erlang Calculator		Erlang B and C calculator. Used in call centers to predict service quality.
60		ErmineJ		Bioinformatics software. Performs analyses of gene sets in expression microarray data or other genome-wide data that results in rankings of genes. A typical goal is to determine whether particular biological pathways are "doing something interesting" in
61		ESA		Event Structure Analysis (ESA) is an on-line Java program that helps you analyze sequential events.
62		ESS		Emacs Speaks Statistics. Add-on package for emacs text editors.
63		EST		Chemometrics program. Excel add-in (xla) for the simulation of chemical equilibria in solution.
64		Esta+		General (and simple) stats package
65		Euler		Similar to Matlab.
66		EVE		Embedded Vector Editor. Vector graphics program.
67		Excellent Analytics		Excel plug-in that lets you import web analytics data from Google Analytics into a spreadsheet.
68		EzANOVA		Simple ANOVA program
69		Factor		Simple factor analysis program
70		Firebird		Relational database management system (RDBMS).
71		First Bayes		A teaching package for elementary Bayesian Statistics.
72		Fityk		Nonlinear least squares curve fitting.
73		FlexArray		Bioinformatics program. Statistical analysis and visualization of microarray expression data. Free to academic and government researchers.
74		FLOPC++		Formulation of Linear Optimization Problems in C++
75		Freemat		Similar to Matlab and IDL.
76		G*Power		Power and sample size calculator.
77		G7		Econometrics package. Allows the building and usage of data banks.
78		GAP		Groups, Algorithms, Programming - A System for Computational Discrete Algebra.
79		GATE		Text mining program. Stands for: General Architecture for Text Engineering.
80		gCLUTO		Data mining program. Graphical clustering toolkit.
81		gdcalc		Gdcalc is a financial, statistics, scientific and programmers calculator.
82		Gemma		Bioinformatics software. Database and software system for the meta-analysis of gene expression data.
83		GEMS		Bioinformatics software (online forms). Gene Expression Module Sampler.
84		GenePattern		Bioinformatics software. Genomic analysis platform that provides access to more than 125 tools for gene expression analysis, proteomics, SNP analysis and common data processing tasks.
85		GeNIe		Graphical Network Interface. The graphical interface to SMILE.
86		GenMAPP		Bioinformatics software. Designed to visualize gene expression and other genomic data on maps representing biological pathways and groupings of genes.
87		GeoDa		Geospatial analysis and computation.
88		GeoGebra		Geometry software
89		Gephi		Interactive visualization and exploration platform for all kinds of networks and complex systems, dynamic and hierarchical graphs.
90		GGobi		Data visualisation.
91		Gist		Bioinformatics software. Contains software tools for support vector machine classification and for kernel principal components analysis.
92		Gitools		Bioinformatics Program. A framework for analysis and visualization of genomic data. Data and results are represented as browsable heatmaps.
93		GLPK		GNU Linear Programming Kit
94		GMM-GMR		GMM-GMR - Gaussian Mixture Model and Regression
95		Gnumeric		Spreadsheet program.
96		Gnuplot		Command driven graphing program.
97		GOBLIN		Graph optimization software.
98		Goldvarb		Designed to facilitate the statistical analysis of linguistic variables and social variables. Formerly known as Varbrul.
99		GoMiner		Bioinformatics software. A tool for biological interpretation of 'omic' data – including data from gene expression microarrays.
100		Google Plotter		A tool for adding statistical information to Google maps.
101		Gostat		Bioinformatics software (online forms). Find statistically overrepresented Gene-Ontology (GO) terms within a group of genes.
102		gretl		Stands for Gnu regression, econometrics and time-series library. Alternative to Eviews.
103		Grocer		An econometric toolbox for Scilab.
104		GSL		GNU Scientific Library. A numerical library for C and C++ programmers, providing a wide range of mathematical routines (over 1000 functions) such as random number generators, special functions and least-squares fitting.
105		GUIDE		Multi-purpose machine learning algorithm for constructing classification and regression trees.
106		HLM		Hierarchical linear and nonlinear modelling.
107		hMETIS		A set of programs for partitioning hypergraphs such as those corresponding to VLSI circuits.
108		Instats		General stats package.
109		Inverse Symbolic Calculator		An online form, where you enter a number (the answer), and the output is a list of possible sources (such as simple equations or well known constants) for that number.
110		IVEware		Imputation and Variance Estimation.
111		JAGS		Stands for just another Gibbs sampler. Bayesian hierarchical models using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC).
112		Java Treeview		Extensible Viewer for Microarray Data in the PCL or CDT format.
113		jHepWork		Mathematics and statistics package.
114		JMulTi		Time series and econometrics package.
115		KNIME		Data integration, processing, analysis, and exploration platform.
116		Kyplot		Graphs program.
117		LazStats		Menu driven general statistics program.
118		LimeSurvey		Survey application.
119		Lisp-stat		General stats package with emphasis on graphics.
120		LISREL (student version)		Originally limited to structural equation modelling (SEM) but now has other functions.
121		LiveGraph		A framework for real-time data visualisation, analysis and logging.
122		LiveInternet Site Statistics		A Google Chrome extension that lets you find at a glance the number of visitors and other data about the current webpage.
123		logQL		Flexible data analysis tool that employs a simple query language to generate the reports. Also known as Log Parser QL.
124		MacAnova		General stats package.
125		MacSHAPA		Macintosh-based software environment that supports observational data analysis, including the analysis of video.
126		MailWatcher Statistics		Program for Domino servers, which collects email data (and stores it into an SQL database), and can graph the data.
127		Matrix2png		Bioinformatics software. A simple but powerful program for making visualizations of microarray data and many other data types.
128		Matrixer		Econometrics package.
129		Matvec		Current capabilities range from matrix and vector manipulation to the analysis of linear and generalized linear mixed models.
130		Maxima		A computer algebra system. Mathematics program.
131		METIS		A set of serial programs for partitioning graphs, partitioning finite element meshes, and producing fill reducing orderings for sparse matrices.
132		MGridGen		Multilevel serial & parallel coarse grid construction library.
133		MicroConcord		Text concordance program.
134		MicrOsiris		Statistical and data management package.
135		Microsoft Excel Viewer		Open, view, and print Excel workbooks, even if you don't have Excel installed.
136		Ministep		Constructs Rasch measures from simple rectangular data sets.
137		MINUIT		Physics analysis tool for function minimization.
138		Mondrian		Data visualisation.
139		MONSTER		Minnesota prOteiN Sequence annotaTion sErveR (bioinformatics).
140		MorePower		Statistical power calculator for hypothesis tests.
141		Mx		Matrix algebra interpreter and numerical optimizer for structural equation modeling and other types of statistical modelling of data.
142		MYSTAT		Free SYSTAT version for students.
143		NLTK		Text mining program. Stands for: Natural Language Toolkit.
144		NORM		Multiple imputation of multivariate continuous data under a normal model.
145		Octave		Similar to Matlab.
146		Onto-Tools		Bioinformatics programs. Onto-Express, Onto-Compare, Onto-Design, Onto-Translate, Onto-Miner, Pathway-Express, Promoter-Express, nsSNPCounter, OE2GO, KUTE-BASE.
147		Open Code		A tool for coding qualitative data generated from text information such as interviews, observations or field notes.
148		OpenBUGS		Bayesian inference using Gibbs sampling.
149		OpenEpi		Epidemiology package.
150		OpenOffice		Open source alternative to Microsoft Office. Includes Calc, an alternative to Excel.
151		OpenSHAPA		Data visualisation program, suitable for video, sound, and electronic data logs.
152		Openstat		General stats package.
153		Orange		Data mining through visual programming or Python scripting. Extensions for bioinformatics and text mining.
154		PAFI		A set of programs (LPMiner, SLPMiner and FSG) that can be used to find frequent patterns in large and diverse databases.
155		PAMCOMP		Person-years And Mortality COMputation Program.
156		PARI/GP		Computer algebra system designed for fast computations in number theory (factorizations, algebraic number theory, elliptic curves), and contains functions for mathematical entities such as matrices, polynomials, power series, algebraic numbers etc.
157		ParMETIS		Extends the functionality provided by METIS and includes routines that are especially suited for parallel AMR computations and large scale numerical simulations.
158		PAST		Statistics program for palaeontology.
159		PAW		Physics Analysis Workstation. Designed for physics data analysis. Developed by CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research).
160		PCP		Pattern Classification Program
161		PINT		Power analysis IN Two-level designs (for determination of standard errors and optimal sample sizes in multilevel designs with 2 levels).
162		Ploticus		Graphs program.
163		PlotLab VCL		Delphi/C++ Builder VCL components library for very fast Data Visualization
164		PopTools		Population modelling program.
165		POSDEM		A program to choose between sampling plans based on the population frame.
166		PostgreSQL		Relational database management system (RDBMS).
167		PQRS		Stands for probabilities, quantiles and random samples.
168		Program Mark		Ecological statistics program. Advanced mark-recapture modelling.
169		PS		Power and sample size calculator.
170		PSPASES		Parallel SPArse Symmetric dirEct Solver (intended for solving linear systems of equations).
171		PSPP		Alternative to SPSS.
172		QCA		Qualitative Comparative Analysis is a special-purpose program designed to analyze quantified data from multiple cases.
173		QPL		Questionnaire Programming Language.
174		QtOctave		A front-end for Octave.
175		Quail		Quantitative analysis in Lisp.
176		R		Widely used alternative to SPlus.
177		R AnalyticFlow		R front-end which allows data analysis by drawing flowcharts.
178		R Commander		GUI interface for R.
179		RapidMiner		Data mining.
180		Red R		Visual programming interface for R.
181		Regress+		Mathematical modeling for the Macintosh.
182		REG-X		Econometrics package which has functions for cointegration analysis, spectral analysis, dynamic modelling, Kalman Filtering and GARCH-M estimation.
183		RKWard		A transparent frontend to R.
184		RMAexpress		Bioinformatics software. A standalone GUI program for Windows (and Linux) to compute gene expression summary values for Affymetrix Genechip® data using the Robust Multichip Average expression summary and to carry out quality assessment using probe-level
185		ROOT		A system providing a set of OO C++ frameworks with the functions needed to handle and analyze large amounts of data. Developed by CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research).
186		Rosetta		A rough set toolkit for data analysis / data mining.
187		RStudio		An integrated development environment (IDE) for R.
188		Ruby Stats		Port of the statistics libraries from PHPMath.
189		Rule Discovery System		Data mining program.
190		Rundom Pro		General stats package with emphasis on resampling procedures.
191		Rweb		An online form that processes R commands.
192		Sage		Mathematics software.
193		SalStat		General stats package designed for the analysis of science and psychology data.
194		SAM		Bioinformatics software. Sequence Alignment and Modeling System, a collection of flexible software tools for creating, refining, and using linear hidden Markov models for biological sequence analysis
195		SaTScan		Analyzes spatial, temporal and space-time data using the spatial, temporal, or space-time scan statistics.
196		SciDAVis		Scientific Data Analysis and Visualization.
197		SciGraphica		Data visualisation and analysis
198		Scilab		Numerical computation.
199		Shogun		A large scale machine learning toolbox.
200		SignalLab VCL		Delphi/C++ Builder VCL components library, for fast Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and for data visualization.
201		Simfit		Simulation, curve fitting, statistics, and plotting.
202		Simple Solver		Design and analysis of Boolean equations and state machines.
203		Simplex Method Tool		An online form that solves linear programming problems.
204		SimulME		A Java ME (J2ME) application with queuing calculator, stopwatch, Monte Carlo simulation, random number generator, probability distributions, Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Chi-square tests. Compatible with Sony-Ericsson, Samsung, Motorola and most Java ME (J2ME)
205		SIPINA		Statistical classification program.
206		SL Gallery		Statistical distribution graphs and calculations.
207		Smereka		Extensible personal freeform database and personal information manager.
208		SMILE		Structural Modeling, Inference, and Learning Engine. A fully portable library of C++ classes implementing graphical decision-theoretic methods, such as Bayesian net-works and influence diagrams, directly amenable to inclusion in intelligent systems.
209		SNNS		Stuttgart Neural Network Simulator
210		SOCR		Statistics Online Computational Resource
211		SOFA Statistics		Statistics, analysis and reporting program.
212		Software for Permutation Methods: A Distance Function Approach
213		SolverStat		Excel add-in which complements Excel's built-in Solver package by providing additional statistical analysis of nonlinear regressions.
214		Sonar		Survey administration and data collection system.
215		Sonson		Solution for digitizing vector data from images.
216		SpeQ Mathematics		Calculations and graphs.
217		SpreadCE		Spreadsheet program.
218		SQL Dumper		Allows dumping a SQL Server Database to a text file.
219		SSP (Smith's Statistical Package)		General stats package.
220		StatCalc		A Calculator that computes table values of 34 statistical distributions. It also computes moments, and many other statistics.
221		StatEasy		General stats package.
222		Statext		Statistics expressed in text (even the graphs).
223		Statibot		An interactive www-based expert system for basic statistical analysis.
224		Statist		General stats package.
225		Statistical Lab		R based general stats package.
226		Statistics 101		Simulations / resampling methods.
227		STATPerl		General stats package based on Perl.
228		Stattucino		Web spreadsheets with data analysis functions.
229		SUGGEST		Recommendation engine.
230		Swamy TVC Estimation		Econometrics package which performs the time varying coefficient estimation to decompose a set of parameters into their biased and bias free components.
231		TAMS		Text mining program. Text Analysis Mark-up System. Identifies themes in texts.
232		Tanagra		Data mining.
233		TerraView		GIS application that allows database queries and data analysis.
234		Tetrad		Search algorithms and statistical modelling.
235		TextStat		Text concordance program. A program for the analysis of texts.
236		TimesLab		Time series analysis program.
237		Tinn-R		R code text editor
238		TMeV		Bioinformatics software. Normalized and filtered expression files can be analyzed using TIGR Multiexperiment Viewer (MeV). MeV is a versatile microarray data analysis tool, incorporating sophisticated algorithms for clustering, visualization, classificat
239		TMS FlexAnalytics		An app to get statistics from google analytics and chart it automatically.
240		TSW		Time series and econometrics package.
241		TWOMOK		Non-parametric scale analysis for two-level data (ecometrics).
242		UIMA		Text mining program. Stands for: Unstructured Information Management Architecture.
243		VisiCube		Data visualisation tool.
244		ViSta		Visual statistics system with work maps, guide maps and interactive graphics.
245		VStar		Data visualisation and analysis tool for astronomy.
246		VSUstat		VSUstat - An online statistics program with functions for experimental design and has a layout similar to SPSS. Requires a Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox browser, and an account log-in.
247		wCLUTO		Web-enabled data clustering application that is designed for the clustering and data-analysis requirements of gene-expression analysis (bioinformatics).
248		Weft QDA		A tool to assist in the analysis of textual data such as interview transcripts, written texts and fieldnotes.
249		Weka		Machine learning software written at the University of Waikato.
250		WinBUGS		Bayesian analysis using Markov chain Monte Carlo methods.
251		WinIDAMS		General stats package.
252		Winpepi		Epidemiology package.
253		WinSAAM		Windows version of CONSAAM. Simulation, analysis and modeling software for biology.
254		WordNet		A large lexical database of English.
255		X-12-ARIMA		Seasonal adjustment software produced, distributed, and maintained by the US Census Bureau.
256		XDAT		Visualization and analysis of multidimensional data.
257		XL Statistics		A set of Microsoft Excel (ver 97+) workbooks for statistical analysis of data.
258		XL Toolbox		Data analysis add-on for Excel.
259		Statistician Lite		Add-in for Microsoft Excel 2007 and Excel 2010. Formerly xlStatistician Lite.
260		Xnumbers		Multi precision floating point computing and numerical methods for Excel.
261		XploRe		Interactive statistical methods and data exploration.
262		Xpro		Exact parametric inference.
263		YACAS		Computer algebra system for symbolic manipulation of mathematical expressions.
264		YASSPP		A web-based server for predicting the secondary structure elements of a protein sequence (bioinformatics).
265		Yorick		Interpreted programming language for scientific simulations or calculations, postprocessing or steering large simulation codes, interactive scientific graphics, and reading, writing, or translating large files of numbers.
266		Zaitun Time Series		Time series software. Has the capability to deal with stock market data.
267		Zelig		Based on R. Automates various processes.
268		Zeptoscope		Java program for drawing plots.
269		Sigma Magic Software		Powerful and easy to use template based statistical analysis package built on top of Microsoft Excel
270		Salstat2		Derived from Salstat. It can be scripted by using python, it can make interactive charts, manipulate Microsoft Excel and also you can import and export data
271		Spatial calculator		An online calculator for spatial statistical functions
272		ILNumerics		Numerical Math Library for .NET / C#, with Statistical Toolboxes and rich Visualization Features.