Tag: Data Analysis Tools

18 Free Exploratory Data Analysis Tools

Some of these tools are even better than programming (R, Python, SAS) tools.

All of us are born with special talents. It’s just a matter of time until we discover it and start believing in ourselves. We all have limitations, but should we stop there? No.

When I started coding in R, I struggled. Sometimes a lot more than one can ever think! Because I had never ever coded even  in my entire life.  My situation was similar to a guy who didn’t know swimming but was manhandled into deep ocean, who somehow saved himself from drowning but ended up gulping lot of salty water.

Now when I look back, I laugh at myself. Do you know why? Because, I could have chosen one of several non-coding tools available for data analysis, and could’ve avoided the suffering.

Data exploration is an inevitable part of predictive modeling. You can’t make predictions unless you know what happened in the past. The most important skill to master data exploration is ‘curiosity’, which is free of cost yet isn’t owned by everyone.

I have written this article to help you acknowledge various free tools available for exploratory data analysis. Now a days, ample of tools are available in the market which are free & quite interesting to work with. These tools doesn’t require you to code explicitly but simple drag – drop clicks do the job.

List of  Non Programming Tools

1. Excel / SpreadsheetExcel, data analytics

If you are transitioning into data science or have already survived for years, you would know, even after countless years, excel remains an indispensable part of analytics industry. Even today, most of the problems faced in analytics projects are solved using this software. With larger than ever community support, tutorials, free resources, learning this tool has become quite easier.

It supports all the important features like summarizing data, visualizing data, data wrangling etc. which are powerful enough to inspect data from all possible angles. No matter how many tools you know, excel must feature in your armory. Though, Microsoft excel is paid but you can still try various other spreadsheet tools like open office, google docs, which are certainly worth a try!

Free Download: Click Here

 

2. Trifactatrifacta, data cleaning

Trifacta’s Wrangler tool is challenging the traditional methods of data cleaning and manipulation. Since Excel possess limitations on data size, this tool has no such boundaries and you can securely work on big data sets. This tool has incredible features such as chart recommendations, inbuilt algorithms, analysis insights using which you can generate reports in no time. It’s an intelligent tool focused on solving business problems faster, thereby allowing us to be more productive at data related exercises.

Availability of such open source tools make us feel more confident and supportive, also that there are good people around the world who are working extremely hard to make our lives better.

Free Download: Click Here

 

3. Rapid Minerrapid miner, machine learning

This tool emerged as a leader in 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Advanced Analytics. Yes, it’s more than a data cleaning tool. It extends its expertise in building machine learning models. Yes, it comprises all the ML algorithms which we use frequently. Not just a GUI, it also extends support to people using Python & R for model building.

It continues to fascinate people around the world with its remarkable capabilities. Above all, it claims to provide analytics experience at lightning fast level. Their product line has several products built for big data, visualizations, model deployment, some of which (enterprise) include a subscription fee. In short, we can say it’s a complete tool for any business which requires performing all tasks from data loading to model deployment.

Free Download: Click Here

 

4. Rattle GUI rattle, R

If you tried using R, but couldn’t get a knack of what’s going in, Rattle should be your first choice. This GUI is built on R and gets launched by typing install.packages("rattle") followed by library(rattle) then rattle() in R. Therefore, to use Rattle you must install R. It’s also more than just data mining tool. Rattle supports various ML algorithms such as Tree, SVM, Boosting, Neural Net, Survival, Linear models etc.

It’s being widely used these days. According to CRAN, Rattle is being installed 10000 times every month. It provides enough options to explore, transform and model data in just a few clicks. However, it has fewer options than SPSS for statistical analysis. Although, SPSS is a paid tool while Rattle is free of cost.

Free Download: Click Here

 

5. Qlikviewqlikview, business intelligence

Qlikview is one of the most popular tools in the business intelligence industry around the world. Deriving business insights and presenting it in an awesome manner, is what this tool does. With it’s state of the art visualization capabilities, you’d be amazed by the amount of control you get while working on data. It has an inbuilt recommendation engine to update you from time to time about the best visualization methods while working on data sets.

However, it is not a statistical software. Qlikview is incredible at exploring data, trends, insights but it can’t prove anything statistically. In that case, you might want to look at other softwares.

Free Download: Click Here

 

6. Weka weka, machine learning

An advantage of using Weka is that it is easy to learn. Being a machine learning tool, its interface is intuitive enough for you to get the job done quickly. It provides options for data preprocessing, classification, regression, clustering, association rules and visualization. Most of the steps you think of while model building can be achieved using Weka. It is built on Java.

Initially, it was designed for research purposes at University of Wakaito, but later it got accepted by more and more people around the world. However, over time I haven’t seen an enthusiastic Weka community like that of R and Python. The tutorial listed below should help you more.

Free Tutorial: Click Here

 

7. KNIME knime, machine learning, data visualization

Similar to RapidMiner, KNIME offers an open source analytics platform for analyzing data, which can later be deployed, scaled using other supportive KNIME products. This tool has an abundance of features on data blending and visualization, and advanced machine learning algorithms. Yes, using this tool you can build models as well. Although, there hasn’t been enough talk about this tool, but considering its state of the art design, I think it will soon come under much needed limelight.

Moreover, quick training lessons are available on their website to get you started with this tool right now.

Free Download: Click Here

 

8. Orange orange, machine learning, data cleaning

As cool as its sounds, this tool is designed to produce interactive data visualizations and data mining tasks. There are enough youtube tutorials to learn this tool. It has an extensive library of data mining tasks which includes all classification, regression, clustering methods. Along with this, the versatile visualizations which get formed during data analysis allow us to understand the data more closely.

To build any model, you’ll be required  to create a flowchart. This is interesting as it would help us further understand the exact procedure of data mining tasks.

Free Download: Click Here

 

9. Tableau Publictableau, data visualization

Tableau is a data visualization software. We can say, tableau and qlikview are the most powerful sharks in the business intelligence ocean. The comparison of superiority is never ending. It’s a fast visualization software which let’s you explore data, every observation using various possible charts. It’s intelligent algorithms figure out by self about the type of data, best method available etc.

If you want to understand data in real time, tableau can get the job done. In a way, tableau imparts a colorful life to data and let’s us share our work with others.

Free Download: Click Here

 

10. Data Wrapper datawrapper, business intelligence, data visualization

It’s a lightning fast visualization software. Next time, when someone in your team gets assigned BI work, and he/she has no clue what to do, this software is a considerable option. It’s visualization bucket comprises of line chart, bar chart, column chart, pie chart, stacked bar chart and maps. So, it’s a basic software and can’t be compared with giants like tableau and qlikview. This tool is browser enabled and doesn’t require any software installation.

 

11. Data Science Studio (DSS)

ikuIt is a powerful tool designed to connect technology, business and data. It is available in two segments: Coding & Non-Coding. It’s a complete package for any organization which aims to develop, build, deploy and scale models on network. DSS is also powerful enough to create smart data applications to solve real world problems. It comprises of features which facilitates team integration on projects. Among all features, the most interesting part is, you can reproduce your work in DSS as every action in the system is versioned through an integrated GIT repository.

Free Download: Click Here

 

12. OpenRefinerefine

It started as Google Refine but looks like google plummeted this project due to reasons unclear. However, this tool is still available renamed as Open Refine. Among the generous list of open source tools, openrefine specializes in messy data; cleaning, transforming and shaping it for predictive modeling purposes. As an interesting fact, during model building, 80% time of an analyst is spent in data cleaning. Sounds unpleasant, but it’s a fact. Using openrefine, analysts can not only save their time, but put it to use for productive work.

Free Download: Click Here

 

13. Talendtalend

Decision making these days is largely driven by data. Managers & professionals no longer take gut-based decisions. They require a tool which can help them quickly. Talend can help them to explore data and support their decision making. Precisely, it’s a data collaboration tool capable of clean, transform and visualize data.

Moreover, it also offers an interesting automation feature where you can save and redo your previous task on a new data set. This feature is unique and haven’t been found in many tools. Also, it makes auto discovery, provides smart suggestion to the user for enhanced data analysis.

Free Download: Click Here

 

14. Data Preparator data preparator, data cleaning

This tool is built on Java to assist us in data exploration, cleaning and analysis. It includes various inbuilt packages for discretization, numeration, scaling, attribute selection, missing values, outliers, statistics, visualization, balancing, sampling, row selection, and several other tasks. It’s GUI is intuitive and simple to understand. Once you start working on it, I’m sure you wouldn’t take lot of time to figure out how to work.

A unique advantage of this tool is, the data set used for analysis doesn’t get stored in computer memory. This means you can work on large data sets without having any speed or memory troubles.

Free Download: Click Here

 

15. DataCracker  datacracker, messy data, survey data

It’s a data analysis software which specializes on survey data. Many companies do survey but they struggle to analyze it statistically. Survey data are never clean. It comprises of multiple missing & inappropriate values. This tool reduces our agony and enhances our experience of working on messy data. This tool is designed such that it can load data from all major internet survey programs like surveymonkey, survey gizmo etc. There are several interactive features which helps to understand data better.

Free Download: Click Here

 

16. Data Applied data_applied, data visualization, data mining

This powerful interactive tool is designed to build, share, design data analysis reports. Creating visualization on large data sets can sometimes be troublesome. But this tool is robust in visualizing large amounts of data using tree maps. Like all other tools above, it has feature for data transformation, statistical analysis, detecting anomalies etc. All in all, it’s a multi usage data mining tool capable of of automatically extracting valuable knowledge (signal) from the raw data. You’d be amazed to see that such non-programming tools are no less than R or Python for data analysis.

Free Download: Click Here

 

17.  Tanagra Project tanagra

You might not like it because of its old fashioned UI, but this free data mining software is designed to build machine learning models. Tanagra project started as a free software for academic and research purposes. Being an open source project, it provides you enough space to devise your own algorithm and contribute.

Along with supervised learning algorithms, it is enabled with paradigms such as clustering, factorial analysis, parametric and nonparametric statistics, association rule, feature selection and construction algorithms etc. Some of its limitations include  unavailability of wide set of data sources, direct access to datawarehouses and databases, data cleansing, interactive utilization etc.

Free Download: Click Here

 

18. H2oh2o, machine learning

H2o is one of the most popular software in analytics industry today. In few years, this organization has succeeded in evangelizing the analytics community around the world. With this open source software, they bring lighting fast analytics experience, which is further extended using API for programming languages. Not just data analysis, but you can build advanced machine learning models in no time. The community support is great, hence learning this tool isn’t a worry. If you live in US, chances are they would be organizing a meetup nearby you. Do drop by!

Free Download: Click Here

 

Bonus Additions:

In addition to the awesome tools above, I also found some more tools which I thought you might be interested to look at. However, these tools aren’t free but you can still avail them for trial:

  1. Data Kleenr
  2. Data Ladder
  3. Data Cleaner
  4. WinPure

10 Data Analysis Tools and When to Use Them


Data analysis is an important process for businesses and professionals to find key insights from their data so they can make informed decisions and predictions. In today’s data-driven world, professionals increasingly rely on data analysis to make competitive decisions, engage effectively with their target audience, and successfully lead projects. One way to meet these targets is through the use of data analysis tools. 

By understanding which tool is right for your purpose, you can meet the needs of your project while boosting your overall productivity and efficiency. In this article, we will explore 10 data analysis tools, how they differ, and how you can showcase related skills to potential employers. 

What are data analysis tools?

Data analysis tools are software programs, applications, and other aids that professionals use to analyze data sets in ways that characterize the big picture of the information and provide usable information for meaningful insights, predictions, and decision-making purposes.

You can describe them as a collection of maps, diagrams, and charts designed to gather, interpret, and visualize data across diverse applications. Choosing the right data analysis tool is essential to maximize your efforts and make it easier to meet your professional goals.


10 powerful data analysis tools

With large amounts of data, it can become difficult to understand what the data is showing and produce useful insights. With the right data analysis tools, you can decipher the big picture of your data and then represent it in an appropriate format for stakeholders and people within your professional network with broad backgrounds.

Analysts commonly use tools during the following stages of the data analysis process:

  • Data mining: Data mining helps users find the key characteristics of their data so they can apply this knowledge to real-world problems, and data mining software helps automate this process by looking for patterns and trends within the data. Three common data mining software you may benefit from include the following.

  • Data visualization: Data visualization is a powerful way to transform raw data into meaningful and comprehensive visual representations. It provides us with a way to understand complex data patterns, trends, and insights that people might miss in text-based data. Data visualization tools help professionals streamline the data visualization process. You can use these tools to visually manipulate data and create basic to advanced graphical representations.

  • Business intelligence: Data analysis is a powerful tool for understanding the story data tells and using it to make informed decisions. Businesses can use these insights to enhance their performance, improve customer satisfaction, gain a competitive advantage, and benefit the overall health of their company. Whether you are part of a small or large organization, learning how to effectively utilize data analytics can help you take advantage of the wide range of data-driven benefits., Tableau Software, Presentation, Data Integrity, Sample Size Determination, Decision-Making, Problem Solving, Questioning

1. RapidMiner

Primary use: Data mining

RapidMiner is a comprehensive package for data mining and model development. This platform allows professionals to work with data at many stages, including preparation, visualization, and review. This can be beneficial for professionals who have data that isn’t in raw format or that they have mined in the past.  

RapidMiner also offers an array of classification, regression, clustering, and association rule mining algorithms. While it has some limitations in feature engineering and selection, it compensates for its limitations with a powerful graphical programming language.  

This software is suited for people with all types of backgrounds, and you can utilize it across industries for various applications such as manufacturing, life sciences, energy, and health care. Because of its ability to work with previously mined data, this software can be particularly useful if you are a researcher or data scientist working with historical data.

2. Orange

Primary use: Data mining

Orange is a package renowned for data visualization and analysis, especially appreciated for its user-friendly, color-coordinated interface. You can find a comprehensive selection of color-coded widgets for functions like data input, cleaning, visualization, regression, and clustering, which make it a good choice for beginners or smaller projects. 

Despite offering fewer tools compared to other platforms, Orange is still an effective data analysis tool, hosting an array of mainstream algorithms like k-nearest neighbors, random forests, naive Bayes classification, and support vector machines. 

The platform holds particular value for certain types of professionals with its add-ons. For example, if you work in bioinformatics and molecular biology, you can find tools for gene ranking and enrichment analysis. You can also find tools for natural language processing, text mining, and network analysis that may benefit you depending on your profession.

3. KNIME

Primary use: Data mining

KNIME, short for KoNstanz Information MinEr, is a free and open-source data cleaning and analysis tool that makes data mining accessible even if you are a beginner. Along with data cleaning and analysis software, KNIME has specialized algorithms for areas like sentiment analysis and social network analysis. With KNIME, you can integrate data from various sources into a single analysis and use extensions to work with popular programming languages like R, Python, Java, and SQL. 

If you are new to data mining, KNIME might be a great choice for you. Resources on the KNIME platform can help new data professionals learn about data mining by guiding them through building, deploying, and maintaining large-scale data mining strategies. Because of this, many companies use KNIME to help their employees gain data processing and extraction experience. 

4. Tableau

Primary use: Data visualization and business intelligence

Tableau stands out as a leading data visualization software, widely utilized in business analytics and intelligence.

Tableau is a popular data visualization tool for its easy-to-use interface and powerful capabilities. Its software can connect with hundreds of different data sources and manipulate the information in many different visualization types. It holds a special appeal for both business users, who appreciate its simplicity and centralized platform, and data analysts, who can use more advanced big data tools for tasks such as clustering and regression.

If you are aiming for a career in business analytics or intelligence, Tableau may be a useful skill to help you to ask questions and create a deeper understanding of your organization’s data. 

5. Google Charts

Primary use: Data visualization

Google Charts is a free online tool that excels in producing a wide array of interactive and engaging data visualizations. Its design caters to user-friendliness, offering a comprehensive selection of pre-set chart types that can embed into web pages or applications. The versatile nature of Google Charts allows its integration with a multitude of web platforms, including iPhone, iPad, and Android, extending its accessibility. 

This tool, with its high customization and user-friendly nature, makes it ideal if you are looking to create compelling data visuals for web and mobile platforms. It’s also a great option if you need to publish your charts, as the integration makes it straightforward for you to publish on most web platforms by sharing a link or embedding the link into a website’s HTML code.

6. Datawrapper

Primary use: Data visualization

Datawrapper is a tool primarily designed for creating online visuals, such as charts and maps. Initially conceived for journalists reporting news stories, its versatility makes it suitable for any professional in charge of website management. The tool supports a wide range of outputs, including scatterplots, line charts, stacked bar charts, pie charts, range plots, and various types of maps and tables. Depending on the intended use, Datawrapper offers both free and paid options, allowing flexibility according to your needs and budget.

While straightforward to use, Datawrapper does exhibit some limitations, especially when compared with other tools in its category. The primary constraint is its inability to integrate directly with data sources. This means users must manually input data into the tool, a process that can be tedious and susceptible to mistakes if not performed with precision.

If you’re interested in crafting web graphics and don’t mind the manual data input, learning to use Datawrapper could be a worthwhile addition to your skill set.

7. Microsoft Excel and Power BI

Primary use: Business intelligence

Microsoft Excel, fundamentally a spreadsheet software, also has noteworthy data analytics capabilities. Because of the wide enterprise-level adoption of Microsoft products, many businesses find they already have access to it.

You can use Excel to construct at least 20 distinct chart types using spreadsheet data. These range from standard options such as bar charts and scatter plots to more complex options like radar charts and treemaps. Excel also has many streamlined options for businesses to find insights into their data and use modern business analytics formulas.

However, Excel does have its boundaries. If your business needs more robust data visualization tools within the Microsoft ecosystem, Power BI is a great option. Designed specifically for data analytics and visualization, Power BI can import data from an array of sources and produce visualizations in various formats.n, Effective Communication, Presenting Data Insights, Data transformation, Data Management, Database Optimization, Google Dataflow/Google BigQuery, Business Processes and Requirements, Sharing Insights With Stakeholders, Stakeholder Management, Cross-Functional Team Dynamics, Asking Effective Questions

8. Qlik

Primary use: Business intelligence

Qlik is a global company designed to help businesses utilize data for decision-making and problem-solving. It provides comprehensive, real-time data integration and analytics solutions to turn data into valuable insights. Qlik’s tools help businesses understand customer behavior, revamp business processes, uncover new revenue opportunities, and manage risk and reward effectively. 

9. Google Analytics

Primary use: Business intelligence

Google Analytics is a tool that helps businesses understand how people interact with their websites and apps. To use it, you add a special Javascript code to your web pages. This code collects information when someone visits your website, like which pages they see, what device they’re using, and how they found your site. It then sends this data to Google Analytics, where it is organized into reports. These reports help you see patterns, like which products are most popular or which ads are bringing people to your site. 

10. Spotfire

Primary use: Business intelligence

TIBCO Spotfire is a user-friendly platform that transforms data into actionable insights. It allows you to analyze historical and real-time data, predict trends, and visualize results in a single, scalable platform. Features include custom analytics apps, interactive AI and data science tools, real-time streaming analytics, and powerful analytics for location-based data. 

If you are a decision-maker in your organization, such as a marketing manager or data scientist, you might benefit from Spotfire’s scalable analytics platform when visually exploring your data.

Who uses data analysis tools?

Professionals across several sectors use data analysis tools to help them convert raw data into valuable insights that drive decision-making and innovation. Here’s a quick snapshot of who uses these tools and why:

  • Data analysts: Data analysts use data analysis tools to uncover trends and insights from complex data, which companies can use to guide better decision-making and increase profits.

  • Business analysts: Business analysts leverage these tools to help businesses optimize operations and profitability based on data-driven decisions and strategies.

  • Project managers: Project managers use data analysis tools for diverse tasks, from budget management to problem-solving and enhancing team productivity.

  • Digital marketers: Digital marketers use data analysis tools to craft effective marketing strategies and campaigns, ensuring promotional activities hit the right target.

  • Data scientists: Data scientists employ these tools to build new models and processes, enabling data analysts to perform their jobs effectively and helping businesses interpret complex data and resolve intricate problems.

Promote your experience with data analysis tools

Working with data analysis software is a highly valued skill for people who conduct data analysis. Advocating for your data analysis skills can be a strategic move to highlight your capabilities, enrich your professional image, and open up new opportunities. A few ways you can promote your knowledge and expertise in data analysis tools are:

  • Add your skills to your resume: Your resume is the perfect place to highlight your proficiency in specific data analysis tools. Under the skills section, list the tools you are familiar with and provide a brief description of the tasks you’ve accomplished using these tools.

  • Create a professional portfolio: Showcasing your work on a professional portfolio can be an effective way of demonstrating your skills. This could include successful projects you’ve completed or problems you’ve solved using data analysis tools.

  • Utilize LinkedIn and other social profiles: Use platforms like LinkedIn to highlight your skills and knowledge in data analysis so recruiters and employers can find you. Endorsements and recommendations from colleagues or superiors can also add credibility to your skill set.