When we are working with Statistical data we use software programs for data processing, analysis and tabulation. Which software to choose is depending on different factors like financial matters, management decisions, staff requests and so on. Five of the most commonly used software packages are the commercial Sas, Spss and Stata and the non-commercial R and Python.
This document gives a brief comparison between these software packages on how to do basic data processing for statistical surveys. It is meant to help employees who know one of the packages to learn some basics of the other ones. This is needed if the company changes from one software to another. It will also be useful for staff who co-operates with other companies who use other software than he or she usually works with. We can also use it as an introduction to one or more of the different softwares.
The versions used of the different software for this document are:
- Sas 9.4 M6
- Spss 27.0.1.0
- Stata 16.0
- R 4.0.0
- Python 3.10.5
As software always develop some of the program examples may be outdated when new versions arrive.