• Statistics For Machine Learning
• Statistical Mac
• Statistic Course For Machine Learning
• Statistics For Machine Learning Coursera
• Statistics For Machine Learning Book

R Project (Free) R Project is an amazingly powerful but free tool for statisticians and researchers.

Call Out

1. Last known software update: August 2020 (Mac version) Note: Catalina version stable; unsigned software. PSPP is a free SPSS clone with a Mac port you can download from this site (it’s unsigned). This is also in MacPorts, but that's another level of effort. The Mac port is under 60 MB, while some other free software can take half a gigabyte.
2. SPSS Statistics is available for Windows and Mac operating systems. → Read the data sheet (PDF, 448 KB) → SPSS Statistics for students and faculty. SPSS Statistics 27 is now available. SPSS Statistics 27 is now available Read the blog post A powerful statistical analysis software platform. Perform powerful analysis and easily.

Why IBM SPSS Statistics?

IBM® SPSS® Statistics is a powerful statistical software platform. It delivers a robust set of features that lets your organization extract actionable insights from its data.

With SPSS Statistics you can:

• Analyze and better understand your data, and solve complex business and research problems through a user friendly interface.
• More quickly understand large and complex data sets with advanced statistical procedures that help ensure high accuracy and quality decision making.
• Use extensions, Python and R programming language code to integrate with open source software.
• More easily select and manage your software with flexible deployment options.

SPSS Statistics is available for Windows and Mac operating systems.

SPSS Statistics 27 is now available

SPSS Statistics 27 is now available Read the blog post

A powerful statistical analysis software platform

Easy to use

Perform powerful analysis and easily build visualizations and reports through a point-and-click interface, and without any coding experience.

Efficient data conditioning

Reduce data preparation time by identifying invalid values, viewing patterns of missing data, and summarizing variable distributions.

Quick and reliable

Analyze large data sets and prepare data in a single step with Automated Data Preparation.

Comprehensive

Run advanced and descriptive statistics, regression and more with an integrated interface. Plus, you can automate common tasks through syntax.

Open source integration

Enhance SPSS syntax with R and Python using a library of extensions or by building your own.

Data security

Store files and data on your computer rather than in the cloud with SPSS that’s installed locally.

Take a closer look at IBM SPSS Statistics

SPSS Statistics 27: New release

Learn about new statistical algorithms, productivity and feature enhancements included in the new release to boost your analysis.

IBM SPSS Statistics tutorial

Get hands-on experience with SPSS Statistics by analyzing a simple set of employee data and running a variety of statistical tests.

A leader in statistical analysis software

G2 Crowd named SPSS Statistics a Leader in Statistical Analysis Software for Winter 2020. Bubble screensaver for mac.

Explore advanced statistical procedures with SPSS Statistics

Advanced statistics

Use univariate and multivariate modeling for more accurate conclusions in analyzing complex relationships.

Regression

Predict categorical outcomes and apply nonlinear regression procedures.

Decision trees

Use classification and decision trees to help identify groups and relationships and predict outcomes.

Direct marketing

Easily identify the right customers and improve campaign results.

Forecasting

Build time-series forecasts regardless of your skill level.

Neural networks

Discover complex relationships and improve predictive models.

Categories

Predict outcomes and reveal relationships using categorical data.

Statistics For Machine Learning

Complex samples

Analyze statistical data and interpret survey results from complex samples.

Conjoint

Better understand and measure purchasing decisions.

Exact tests

Reach more accurate conclusions with small samples or rare occurrences.

Missing values

Uncover missing data patterns, estimate summary statistics and impute missing values.

Which option is right for you?

SPSS Statistics Subscription

SPSS Statistics 27

SPSS Statistics Campus Editions, GradPack and Faculty Packs

Next Steps

Updated Sept. 1, 2019. These packages all provide descriptive statistics; some have an astonishing array of statistical tools. Also see free and open-source Mac statistics software and the big list of does this work on Mojave? Is it signed and 64-bit?

General purpose / easy to use / inexpensive

Wizard / Wizard Pro

Sold through Apple Store: $80 (Wizard) and $200 (Wizard Pro)
Current Version: 1.9.x
Mojave safe? Yes.
64-bit? Yes.
Listing updated: August 2019 (software still under constant development)

Wizard and Wizard Pro are surprising packages from Evan Miller (creator of Magic Maps) which is meant for quick analysis and visualization, without a tortured interface. Wizard imports data with stunning speed, and comes up with summaries (including appropriate graphs) instantly. We tested it with large databases, including the General Social Survey, and results were practically instantaneous. Wizard Pro supports Stata dictionary (.dct) and some SPSS command files (.sps), surprising features indeed! It also imports from Numbers, SAS, Excel, and even Microsoft Access — something that’s otherwise hard to do on a Mac.

Wizard is set up to instantly provide summary statistics and charts on large numbers of variables, and also does instant correlations and multiple regressions. It's a discoverable program that delivers a level of “pleasant uniqueness” we haven’t seen in a long time.

There is a Pivot interface for producing numeric summaries and saving them as their own tables, á la Minitab. Pivot functions include count, sum, mean, standard deviation, variance, min/max, and percentiles; tables appear or change instantly, and are far easier to modify than, say, in Excel. There is support for frequency weights, optional display of odds ratios, and various other improvements.

Wizard has full date support, Excel exports, numerous tests (Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis, 2-sample and N-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Negative Binomial, Cox Proportional Hazards), double-precision storage for numeric data, and custom delimiters in imported text files. Following versions continue to increase the scope and quality of the program, on a regular and rapid basis. (Wizard Pro site) Wizard Pro Preview.

StatPlus

Configurations: Can be used with Excel 2004, 2008, 2011, 2016, or Apple Numbers; also has its own built in spreadsheet
Pricing: $195 commercial, $89 student, $119 academic; bulk rates exist
Current version: 6.8
Mojave / signed; 64-bit (yes)
Listing updated: August 2019
Software last updated: May 2019

StatPlus is a fast-loading program that has a small number of menus — one that launches Excel; one that provides statistical analyses; and one that manipulates data. The analyses menu provides simple, easily understood categories, and underneath those are submenus with the actual operations. It’s easy to learn, yet contains numerous statistical methods that are not normally provided by easy-to-learn software, including one, two, and three way ANOVAs, GLM models, and many other analyses. The Help system is fully developed, in a standard Mac format, and is moderately easy to read. Cleverly, StatPlus launches Excel automatically when you start it up, saving a step and making it seem more seamless.

The team moved to the US in 2013, causing some support issues, but has completely revamped their web site and issued new versions of the StatPlus, now supporting Apple Numbers as well as Excel. Excel 2016 support is coming along with a standalone version that has its own spreadsheet.

Acastat and Clarity

Configurations: Mac (10.7+), Windows
Acastat version: 10 (updated 7/15/2019)
Clarity version: 1022.0.6 (updated 5/14/2018)
Listing updated: 07/2019
Compatibility: Acastat has a 64-bit version with Mojave compatibility — good for OS X 10.5 through 10.14 — make sure you buy the right one.
Price: $20

Acastat handles up to 100,000 cases and 100 variables, depending on system memory. It runs on PPC machines with OS X 10.2 and up, or on Windows XP. It does frequencies (with chi-square goodness of fit), lists, descriptives (by subgroups), diagnostic accuracy measures, crosstabs with various related statistics, t-tests, one-way ANOVA, correlations, simple and multiple regression, logistic regression, and appraisal analysis. There’s a real estate module for tax assessments, and a setup to try to generate charts from inferred data in summary statistics.

If you have not received the confirmation message, please check your spam or junk mail folder. Otherwise, fill out the form again with your correct e-mail address. Trust software for mac.

The software appears to be easy to figure out and learn, providing most of the statistics that most people use day to day, and some that one has to pay extra for from SPSS. We did not test Acastat's accuracy but overall it appears to be a very promising entry. Clarity is similar, but has somewhat less functionality and costs $10.

GraphPad Prism - Prism Review

Configurations: Universal Binary (Cocoa)
Current Version: 8 (released 2018)
64-bit: yes, starting with Prism 7
Mojave? Not sure; High Sierra compatible
Price: $725 (there are substantial academic discounts, and monthly and annual subscriptions — including a $20/month package for people who don’t need it for very long)
Listing updated: 10/2018

GraphPad Software [(800) 388-4723, +1-858-457-3909] sells Prism, a multi-platform package that emphasizes biostatistics for laboratory work. GraphPad’s CEO and founder, Harvey Motulsky, wrote: “We release new versions of GraphPad Prism every 3-4 years, and Mac and Windows development are done nearly simultaneously.”

GraphPad’s Prism is a strong platform for exploratory statistics and graphing, providing the usability of graphing software with many advanced statistical capabilities. Numerous graph types are available along with flexible regression curving. For more details, read our GraphPad Prism review.

Works from Excel

MegaStat

Current Version: 11.2
Requires Excel; works on Intel, PPC, Windows
Listing updated: 5/2017
Software last updated: 2017

MegaStat is maintained by J. B. Orris, Butler University, and distributed by McGraw-Hill. The software uses Excel only for “data entry, data transformation, printing, and file management,” but avoids using Excel’s disreputable math tools. The software has evolved from J.B. Orris’ Microstat; the current version is written in VisualBasic as an Excel plugin, though a standalone version is planned for the distant future.

MegaStat can deal with stepwise regressions, large factorials, time series/forecasting, descriptives, frequencies, nonparametrics, QPC sharts, and numerous hypothesis tests. In short, MegaStat packs all the power most people will ever need into a relatively inexpensive, easy to use package. The down side is that it’s moderately slow, has no scripting language, and requires Excel; and you may need to buy a textbook to get it, though J.B. Orris is considering a shareware or commercial version. On the Mac, some of the buttons and dialogues are hidden by formatting problems; but we tested MegaStat’s output to find that it was identical, to six decimal points, with that of Stata.

XLSTAT

Configurations: Mac OS X 10.6-10.11, Windows for Office 2011 and Office 2016
Pricing: Numerous versions and options. Base product/commercial license: $275.
Current Version: data not available
Listing updated: Jan 2017

XLSTAT runs inside Excel, and supports Mac OS X with Excel 2004 and X, with support promised for Excel 2011 after its release. Their calculations do not depend on Excel; the code is robust C++ code and the product has been on the market for ten years, with over 25,000 customers. There are numerous modules, all but three of which are available for the Mac; and there is academic and standard pricing, with perpetual and annual licenses. Modules can cost considerably more than the base program.

Big and comprehensive and priced accordingly

Stata

Pricing: Versions start at $445 (educational discount). There are government and educational discounts.
Current Version: 16
Mojave? Not on web site, which lists “10.11 or newer” only
64-bit only
Listing and software last updated: June 2019
Software is updated roughly once per year

Stata has frequent, automatic updates between releases, and simultaneous releases across platforms. Their price is much lower than SPSS, and there are no “gotcha” costs for extra modules. Stata's Mac support has been excellent for many years, unlike IBM/SPSS. (See our Stata 11 statistical software review.)

Stata is incredibly capable, with a macro language, a syntax language, a matrix language, a massive collection of user-contributed modules, Python integration, a spreadsheet for data manipulation, an advanced variable editor, copy and paste to word processors (without formatting), and extreme depth and breadth in statistical functions. Stata graphing is advanced and more “print-ready” than SPSS, surprisingly.

Stata now generates web pages with mixed text, graphs, and such, and supports Markdown and dynamic documents; it can generate Word, Excel, or PDF files, and has built in versioning. Version 15 brought an enormous number of new features including extensions to SEM, ERM, nonparametric regression, and spatial autoregressive models.

JMP

Statistical Mac

Configurations: Universal Binary; past versions were 68000, PPC, etc.
Current Version: 14
Price: $1,785 per year (sold by subscription)
Mojave? Yes, if the splash screen is disabled (see JMP for details); certified for High Sierra
64-bit? Available
Listing updated: 10/2018
Software updated: 2018

SAS Institute’s JMP started out as a Mac data visualization program. It now competes with Stata and SPSS, boasting syntax, journaling, and comprehensive statistics and design tools. There are full demos, and a student version (JMP IN).

JMP is responsive and launches speedily and feels like a real Mac program. Importing a large data file from Excel was almost instant and accurate, with correct variable types and names. Opening a spreadsheet of four variables and 30,000 entries was instant and, in the time it took for SPSS to do nothing, JMP had already run descriptives. Numeric output of JMP in our tests (which used 30,000 randomly generated 15-digit numbers) was identical to SPSS, Stata, JMP, and Megastat; JMP was the fastest of the group in 2009.

Regressions were instantaneous, including multiple multiple, high-resolution plots we could copy directly into Photoshop, summary of fit, analysis of variance, parameter estimates, residual plots, actual by predicted, etc ‚— using 30,000 cases. From the output window, we could copy tables and plots, and even change parameters or run additional tests from convenient submenus.

With JMP 10, SPSS import was greatly improved, and a large SPSS formatted file (the 2010 General Social Survey) was imported in just a few seconds; manipulations were still fast. We will be using that data set soon to re-compare SPSS, JMP, and Stata Intercooled.

Note: due to the crazy-high price, we don’t plan to review newer versions of JMP.

JMP Review • JMP 10 changes

We didn’t realize just how fast Stata was until we analyzed the General Social Survey with it. JMP is absurdly fast; graphing a 3D scatterplot of three variables, with 2,400 cases of each, was instant, and we could then rotate the plots in real time.

As a side note, SAS had purchased the popular Mac program StatView from Abacusl which had bought it from BrainPower; but SAS quickly killed it, preferring its own JMP. StatView worked in the Classic to OS X 10.4; it still runs under Basilisk or SheepShaver.

JMP Pro for Academic Research

3-year license for JMP Pro for Academic Research normally $2,995; discounted to $1,995 10/16/2017-12/7/2017

We have not gathered much information, but JMP claims JMP Pro for Academic Research includes software to easily gather, process, and clean data; to analyze and model; and to interactively visualize and share insights. It can pull data from competing software including R and SPSS, and supports mixed models and multi-level modeling; semantic analysis and topics analysis for text data; data mining and neural networks; cross-validation; automatic model comparison; penalized regression; and other capabilities.

Gauss

Current version: 18
64-bit: yes, at least back to Gauss 16
Mojave? No idea.
Listing updated: 10/2018

Gauss is a widely used, “big-time” package..but let’s let Aptech Systems, the developers, say it:

The GAUSS Mathematical and Statistical System is a fast matrix programming language widely used by scientists, engineers, statisticians, biometricians, econometricians, and financial analysts. Designed for computationally intensive tasks, the GAUSS system is ideally suited for the researcher who does not have the time required to develop programs in C or FORTRAN but finds that most statistical or mathematical 'packages' are not flexible or powerful enough to perform complicated analysis or to work on large problems.

Joel West, the creator of this site, wrote: “Gauss was never available on Macs before, and is considered the high-end statistics package for economic research. Here's a good third party resource for Gauss.”

The last time we checked the web site, we were unable to discover pricing or compatibility information, though it had previously shown 10.9 compatibility.

mathStatica

Current Version: 2.7
Requires Mathematica 9, Intel Mac; previous versions PPC compatible
Listing updated: 1-2017

mathStatica is an add-on package for Mathematica which provides algebraic and symbolic solution to statistical problems. Thus, it is supported in the same configurations as Mathematica for the Macintosh. It is published by MathStatica Pty. Ltd. It now provides an arbitrary-precision numeric engine for accuracy, especially in highly iterative processes.

The software is sold as mathStatica Basic (bundled with the associated book, Mathematical Statistics with Mathematica) and as mathStatica Gold ($69 upgrade from mathStatica Basic).

SPSS (IBM)

Current version: 26. Final PowerPC version was 16; final Classic version was 12.
Pricing: by subscription ($99/per month and up), add-on modules are $79 each
Mojave? Yes
64-bit? Yes
Academic cost: Grad and Student Packs start at around $70 for one year. We recommend against getting “hooked.”
Listing updated: August 2019

Also see JASP (free SPSS replacement), PSPP (free SPSS clone), Stata, and JMP.

SPSS was the industry standard statistics package until constant price hikes culminated in purchase by IBM, which does not appear to publish the cost; it now appears to be on a subscription model. Many features require expensive add-ons which must be updated separately. The user interface is Java-based and slow.

SPSS Mac does easily exchange data and syntax files (not output files) with the Windows version, and with most older versions (even those which can’t deal with long variable names).

The last copy provided to us for review was SPSS 18 for the Mac (See our review). Since the IBM buyout, costs appear to have risen and the subscription model became less attractive. There is no shortage of fine statistics software at prices far below those of SPSS. Based on our brief usage of release 21 for Windows, the changes are incremental, not revolutionary.

SPSS 10.08a can run in Classic mode under OS X on PowerPC machines if you:

1. Right-click (or control-click) on the SPSS 10 program package (not the alias)and select 'Show Package Contents'
2. Drag out the SPSS 10 for Macintosh alias from the package
3. Close the folder and use the alias you just dragged out of the SPSS package to start the program.

Stat-Ease Design-Expert

Current version: 11.1
Price: $1,325/year (academic discounts available)
Software last updated Nov. 2018, listing created Nov. 8, 2018
Size: 315 MB

With Design-Expert software, “you can not only screen for vital factors, but also locate ideal process settings for top performance and discover optimal product formulations. Easily view response surfaces from all angles with rotatable 3D plots. Set flags and explore contours on interactive 2D graphs; and use the numerical optimization function to find maximum desirability for dozens of responses simultaneously. For a list of features and more, scroll to the bottom of the page.” (We will review this soon; we did a quick run-through to get the feel of it.)

This is not software for those who only vaguely remember some high school or college statistics; it’s for a relatively sophisticated audience. That said, it can make some difficult decisions easier, as the blurb above promises. You can adjust many aspects of the software through the preferences, including just about type of type size, other than the little explanations in the boxes (e.g., in the illustration above, where it says “Design for 2 to 21 factors..”) which is quite small.

Once installed, Design-Expert reloads quickly, bringing the user to a choice of using a wizard, which is fairly thorough in its descriptions; creating a new design in a more traditional way; or opening a saved design (using the native Mac dialogue box). The program uses the Mac menus and feels native in every way, including responsiveness; preferences are in the right place.

“Special purpose general software”

Easy Chi-Square Calculator

Statistic Course For Machine Learning

Current version: 1.1
Price: 99¢ from the Mac App Store
Software last updated August 2018, listing created August 28, 2018 and updated October 17, 2018.

Mark Brown’s 99¢ app on the Mac App Store is designed for one and only one purpose: conducting a chi-square test of independence from a contingency table of any size. You can hover over cells to see the expected value, too. Mark said he’d work on importing from Excel and such for a future version; in the meantime, it’s hard to argue with an easy-to-use program that does one thing (well, two, including viewing expected values) but does it very well. (We have tested it and it looks just about the same on our screen; the typeface is a little more readable now.)

Not seen in the screen shot: when you hover over a cell, it shows the expected value. You can easily add columns or rows by clicking in the plus signs, so it's not just for 2x2s. You can change the number of decimal places for the Chi square or p, and use a Yates correction factor. Data entry is easy — click in the first cell, type in a value, then just press tab to get to the next cell and the next, until you're done (you don't have to click on each cell). This is, in short, a fast, easy, one-trick pony that does what it says it will, and won't break your budget (or at least it won't break your budget by more than 99¢).

GraphPad StatMate

Current version: 2.0
Compatibility: OS 8.6-9.2; OSX 10.1 to 10.6; Windows
Price:$95
Software last updated: Prior to 10/2012
Listing updated: 9/2016

GraphPad Software, Inc. [(800) 388-4723, +1-858-457-3909; fax: +1-858-457-8141] sells several packages. StatMate (2.0, OS8/X, PPC, $95) provides estimates of needed sample sizes: “quickly calculate the power of an experiment to detect various hypothetical differences. Its wizard-based format leads you through the necessary steps to determine the tradeoffs in terms of risks and costs.”

GraphPad InStat

Current version: 3.1
Compatibility: Up to OS X 10.6
Price: $150 (commercial price)
Software updated: Prior to 8/2012
Listing updated: 9/2016

GraphPad Software, Inc. [(800) 388-4723, +1-858-457-3909; fax: +1-858-457-8141] sells several packages.

Statistics For Machine Learning Coursera

InStat 3 (OS8/X, PPC, $150) is an low-cost, easy-to use biostatistics software package. GraphPad wrote that the program was designed to guide users who are not necessarily full-time, dedicated statisticians through the process of gathering and analyzing data, at a reasonable cost. InStat also provides a unique analysis checklist to ensure that “your data have not violated any assumptions of the test, and that you have picked a test that matches your experimental design and really answers the question you had in mind.”

A quick look through a demonstration copy showed us that InStat is helpful for beginners, providing a guide that goes step by step as you use actual data. The program itself seems fairly easy to use, and is designed in wizard fashion, better thought out than most. It is fast and responsive, and provides easy access to common needs — providing comparisons of means (through numerous methods), regression and correlation (linear and nonparametric, but not stepwise as far as I can tell so far), and analyzing contingency tables through Chi-square, Fisher's, and other tests. Data can be entered as ra data, averaged, x and y, two rows and two columns, or larger contingency tables. As you specify your goal (compare means/medians, regression/correlation, analyze contingency table), the program provides an example or two of the possible purpose of the analysis. This is a surprisingly good program for both inexperienced people and those who know a lot of statistics but don't use their knowledge often enough to jump into a more complex and costly program.

With version 3.1, InStat can handle 10,000 cases and 52 variables; the Help system has been better integrated into Windows and the Mac; long calculations get a progress window, and you can cancel them.

The program does not appear to have been updated since 2008 and runs in Rosetta, which has been problematic for other software.

Statistics For Machine Learning Book

Kaleidagraph

This graphing program computes ANOVAs, including repeated measures ANOVAs. See its listing on the Graphing page. An add-on for Mathematica is available.

Online

Pricing: $22/year
Current version: 5
Last update: March 2010
Listing updated: Jan 2017

StatCrunch has been purchased by Pearson and is now available to instructors using their resources for free, or at $22 per year (double the old price), and can be run from your own server, though pricing for this is unpublished and likely to be high. It is a statistics program on the web. It has the usual range of basic statistics, from t-tests to regression to ANOVA and nonparametric tests, with a wide range of graphs also available, and works from Excel or text files. StatCrunch will also store your data within reason; it seems to work fine with Safari. For those with low budgets or infrequent needs, StatCrunch's price is attractive, and you can use other members’ data.

Didn’t find what you wanted? Try graphing / visualization (sometimes with statistics built in) and data mining, econometric software, general math, and specialty statistics

Books by MacStats maintainer David Zatz • MacStats created in 1996 by Dr. Joel West; edited since 2005 by Dr. David Zatz of Toolpack Consulting. Copyright © 2005-2020 Zatz LLC. All rights reserved. Contact us.