SPSS has 'Syntax', 'Scripts' and is also scriptable in Python.Īnother biggie is that SPSS squeezes its data into a spreadsheety table structure. R has a single language for 'scripting', but don't think of it like that, R is really a programming language with great data manipulation, statistics, and graphics functionality built in. The initial workflow for SPSS involves justifying writing a big fat cheque. If you are going to be learning R, this post on the stats exchange website has a bunch of great resources for learning R:
If you have to collaborate with others, their comfort level with SPSS or R should play a factor as you don't want to be the only one in your group that can work on or edit a script that you wrote in the future. Others have pointed out some of the big differences in terms of cost and functionality of the programs. I haven't found a good SPSS community to ask questions of when I run into problems. R syntax seems much more logical and follows programming standards more closely AND there is a very active community to rely on should you run into trouble (SO for instance). You mention that you are going to be scripting most of your work, and personally I find SPSS's scripting syntax absolutely horrendous, to the point that I've stopped working with SPSS whenever possible.I haven't found a robust solution for R to accomplish this same task. Labeling of data -> SPSS does a pretty good job with the variable labels and value labels.The equivalent function in R involves learning LaTex or using a odfWeave or Lyx or something of that nature. These can relatively easily be transported to Word Documents or Excel sheets for further analysis / presentation. Output of tables - SPSS has basic tables, general tables, custom tables, etc that are all output to that nifty data viewer or whatever they call it.Some of the biggest differences I have run into include: I work at a company that uses SPSS for the majority of our data analysis, and for a variety of reasons - I have started trying to use R for more and more of my own analysis. SPSS does have scripting which takes it beyond being a mere bus, but the general phylosophy of SPSS steers people towards the GUI rather than the scripts. There are GUIs for R that make it a bit easier to use, but also limit the functionality that can be used that easily. Here is something that I posted to the R-help mailing list a while back, but I think that it gives a good high level overview of the general difference in R and SPSS:
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