Data mining and proprietary software helps companies depict common patterns and correlations in large data volumes, and transform those into actionable information. For the purpose, top data mining software suites use specific algorithms, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and database statistics. Certain systems will also offer advanced functionalities such as data warehousesand customizable KDD processes, which often have the last say on which application you should choose.

But is the choice indeed simple? Our experts believe there are plenty of factors to consider before investing your money in a proprietary solution. The truth is all data mining systems process information in a different way, and use all sorts of methods to validate results, and selection becomes even more cumbersome when assigned to a person without BI experience. In order to help you narrow the list down to few quality products, we’ve listed the market’s top data mining software you should consider in 2017:

1. Sisense

Sisense won our Best Business Intelligence Software Award for 2016

Sisense allows companies of any size and industry to mash up data sets from various sources and build a repository of rich reports that are shared across departments. It was distinguished with our Best Business Intelligence Software Award for 2016 and currently holds the no. 1 spot in the business intelligence category. If you want to test the software the vendor offers a great free trial plans. You can easily sign up for Sisense free trial here.

Designed for non technical users with drag-and-drop ease and widget simplicity, this business intelligence software boasts of a proprietary in-chip technology that powers its engine. It’s built on a 64-bit computer using multi-core CPUs for optimal parallelization capabilities. Generating highly visual reports culled from myriad prepared sources is fast. Users can present reports in different ways by selecting from a plate of visualization widgets to create pie charts, bar graphs, line charts, tabular formats, whatever best suits the purpose. From bird’s eye-view, reports can be clicked to drill down to details for accuracy and a more comprehensive data outlook.

2. Oracle Data Mining

Oracle Data Mining is a representative of the company’s Advanced Analytics Database and a market leader companies use to maximize the potential of their data and make accurate predictions. The system works with a powerful data algorithm to target best customers, and identify both anomalies and cross-selling opportunities. The user can also apply a different predictive model upon need, and customize customer profiles in the desired way. What is really specific about this product is that all of its algorithms are implemented as SQL functions, which means it can mine tables, star schema and transactional data, unstructured and CLOB information, and spatial aggregations.

You can also extend Oracle’s SQL developer with a Data Miner GUI, so that your data scientists can adjust information directly in the database, using a component panel and a graphic drag-and-drop workflow. Developers can also integrate their predictive into applications in order to automate the revelation and distribution of intelligence patterns and predictions.

3. RapidMiner

RapidMiner is an integrated environment dedicated to machine learning and text mining, and one of the best rated predictive analysis systems available on the market. The tool can be used for business intelligence, research, training and education, and application development. Created on an open source model, RapidMiner is offered both on premise, and in private cloud infrastructures, and works with template-based frameworks that accelerate delivery and reduce the number of errors that are common in manual code writing.

The RapidMiner suite consists of three modules: the RapidMiner Studio dedicated to workflow and prediction design, prototyping and validation; the RapidMiner Server used to share and operationalize the predictive models created within the Studio; and the RapidMiner Radoop that simplified predictive analysis. Prior to the analysis, RapidMiner also prepares, optimizes, and cleans data to save you some time.

4. Microsoft SharePoint

Microsoft SharePoint is everyone’s first association when speaking of data management, and there is a good reason for that. The system has simply imposed itself with simplified intelligence ever since Microsoft entered the BI market, and is still considered as one of the smartest analytical options for corporate and non-commercial users. The application is web-based, and fully integrated with all Microsoft Office products. While it may not be the most powerful analyzer you can find, SharePoint certainly is the simplest information tool beginners should consider.

SharePoint offers an array of custom development capabilities used to accelerate prototyping of web and line-of-business applications. Developers can integrate it with their data sources and corporate directories using standards like oData, oAuth, and REST. The tool is also packed with information management tools and security considerations, and provides access to multiple development scenarios.

5. IBM Cognos

Cognos is IBM’s business intelligence suite used for reporting and data analytics, with several customizable components that make it applicable in all niches and industries: Cognos Connection (the web portal that gathers data and summarizes it in scoreboards and reports), the Query Studio (provides self-service queries used to format data, and create diagrams that answer core business questions), the Report Studio (used to generate accurate management reports via professional or express authoring mode); the Analysis Studio (the part that processes large data sources, understand anomalies, and identify trends); the Event Studio (a notification module that keeps users in line with enterprise events); and Workspace Advanced (the user-friendly interface where you can create all types of personalized documents).

You can also extend IBM Congnos’s functionality with several add-ons, including Go!Office that provides access to metadata and diagrams; Go!Search that conducts a full-text search for content in all documents and reports; and Go!Dashboard where you can find external data sources and use those as additional reporting objects.

6. KNIME

KNIME is an open data analysis platform you can deploy quickly, scale efficiently, and familiarize with in less than no time. In the BI world, KNIME is known as the app that made predictive intelligence accessible to inexperienced users, and one which also has a worldwide users community to share experience with. The data-driven innovation system helps uncover data potential with more than 1000 modules and ready-to-use examples, and an array of integrated tools and algorithms.

KNIME blends all of your data on the same visual platform, but that’s not all the thousands of dedicated users like about it. What is really attractive to them is the arsenal of tool integrations and native nodes that extend the system’s science capacity. Commercial extensions for performance and collaboration are also available.

7. Dundas BI

Dundas BI is another top rated data analytics platform known by its superb integrations and fast insights. The system brings together several analytic tools to allow unlimited transformation of industry data, and enriches standard reporting with appealing tables, graphs, and charts. Another thing you will appreciate about it is the gap-free protection of your documents, as well as the possibility to access data from literally any device.

Dundas does more than simply analyzing your data: it structures all pieces in a selective way to make processing easier for you, and links your charts and tables to help you understand what that data means. Thanks to its relational methods, you can perform multidimensional analyses in the blink of an eye, and focus easily on matters that are critical for your business. To make matters even better, Dundas BI helps reduce corporate costs, as it generates reliable reports, and eliminates all need to use additional software.

8. Board

Board is an intelligence management toolkit recommended by our experts to all companies looking to improve decision making. The platform combines business intelligence and performance management in a single package, collects data from literally any available source, and streamlines reporting letting you extract documents in all preferred formats. The first encounter with the system is likable, to say at least, as Board has one of the most appealing and comprehensive interfaces you will ever see in the BI software industry.

How can Board benefit your business? The system leverages HBMP in-memory technology, which means each of its components works with full steam to boost your performance. Board helps you perform multidimensional analyses with unparalleled simplicity, while it is also able to manage and track all performance planning and control workflows including budgeting, planning and forecasting to profitability analysis. Among other features, Board offers Marketing, HR, and Supply Chain Management solutions.

9. Orange

Orange is a tool that gives dull business analytics the fun vibe they need, which explains why users are fascinated by it. This open source data visualization and machine learning system certainly knows how to streamline widget programming, and help you make smarter decisions without spending hours comparing and analyzing numbers. With Orange, all incoming data is immediately prepared and put in the right format, and then moved where needed with simple widget flips.

Orange is perfect for data visualization – with it, you will understand all box and scatter plots, and statistical distributions, and examine the details of your MDS, heatmaps, hierarchies and linear projections. You can do the same even with multidimensional data, using the tool’s intelligent selections and attribute rankings. Visual Programming is also enabled, and offers fast prototyping, rapid qualitative analysis with clean visualizations, and configurable data connections.

10. SAP Business Objects

As SAP experts like to put it, Business Objects is the system that can empower your organization’s IQ with around-the-clock access to outstanding BI functionality. Having tested SAP’s quality service ourselves, we see where they’re coming from, and absolutely recommend the tool to all users in need of informed decisions. The system is available both on premise and in cloud, and fully optimized for mobile usage to put information into users’ hands anywhere and anytime.

Why choosing SAP to cater to your BI needs? This flexible and easily scalable platform leverages latest technologies and unites all meaningful data sources, and generates some of the best data visualizations available in the BI industry. You can also use it to depict troubles and opportunities, and captivate audiences with engaging data stories. Its interactive data dashboards, on the other hand, tell a story of their own, making it possible for inexperienced users to understand numbers at a glance. Meaningful reports for the company, customers, and partners are also included in the package, and so are handy integrations used to connect SAP to third-party systems.

11. Salesforce Analytics Cloud

Salesforce Analytics Cloud is a reputed intelligence product created to to help medium-sized businesses to large enterprises implement fast, iterative exploration of data, with results displayed via layers of dynamic visualization over underlying data sets. Keeping in line with recent developments, Salesforce Analytics offers full mobile functionality, an affordable pricing scheme with options suitable for small businesses, and flexible deployment options.

How is Salesforce Analytics Cloud better than similar data mining systems? The answer is simple: The system doesn’t only identify trends and anomalies, but detects immediately when and why such happened. It is highly recommended to companies working with sensitive and complex numerical data, as their information will be encrypted and regularly backed up to stop intrusions from causing permanent damage to your business.

12. DOMO

There is little chance you’ve researched the BI market and didn’t get acquainted with DOMO, as the company’s innovative policy is praised across all review platforms making competing developers sweat. DOMO is exactly what each data-driven business needs: a single system that derives actionable insights from all data sources, and which you get to use without training.

DOMO offers some of the widest data set and connector support among the tools you will discover on the market, and delivers a unique set of social collaboration features as well. The system makes it possible to combine various data sets with standard SQLs, or to develop personalized model cases combining cloud and local data. For instance, you can easily connect your page view numbers coming from Google Analytics with specific products, and measure its influence. This makes Domo ideal for specific businesses and creative teams, as large as they may be. You should also have in mind the numerous integrations that make DOMO usable in any software ecosystem.

13. SPSS Modeler

SPSS Modeler is IBM’s prominent predictive analysis and data mining solution that helps companies build predictive models and leverage statistical algorithms without any programming skills. This means that SPSS Modeler eliminates all unnecessary complications raising from data transformation, simplifying at the same time text, entity, and social network analyses. Users get to choose between the company’s Professional and Premium version, depending on whether they need to analyze text in addition to running mainframe data systems and analyzing flat files.

The system integrated spotlessly with Cognos and InfoSphere™ Warehouse to help you maximize the value of your IT investment, as the combination of this three tools help you make accurate future predictions on how the state of your business is going to develop. It also helps improve business outcomes in CRM, marketing, resource planning, risk mitigation, and other areas.

14. Qlik Sense

Qlik Sense is a cute BI system that confirms business intelligence doesn’t have to be a dull and unlikable process. Its beautiful and intuitive interface certainly deserves a second look, but so do its advanced features hiding behind it. What our experts like the most about Qlik Sense is that it is equally useful to individuals as it is to large corporations, thanks to the dynamic dashboard that turns data into actionable tool at every turn.

How will Qlik Sense help you become more productive? Qlik Sense’s responsive user experience is built for mobile from the ground up and intelligently adapts visualizations, data, and functionality for the best possible experience on any device including touch. All capabilities of Qlik Sense are available on any device. It also supports robust data integration to transform and combine multiple, disparate data sources and provide seamless analysis across them, including fast calculations, associative exploration, and search. You will also love the Interactive Data Storytelling feature that allows you to use analytics to create and present guided stories, rich with narrative and graphics.

15. Birst

Birst is a cloud-hosted business intelligence solution that handles requirements of both production oriented BI and end-user data visualization and querying. This is called the 2-Tier approach and with Birst, this is possible as it offers data management architecture of the platform. Birst’s software is intended for all business users from IT to marketing to executive management, as it offers features such as responsive and integrated HTML5 dashboards and visual discovery interfaces, automated data refinement, infinite connectivity framework, and many more.

Birst users can painlessly differentiate from their competitors, bring more value to their customers, and generate new revenue streams. However, Birst knows no one can master data exploration at a glance, which is why new and prospective users can easily rely on its experienced tech support team for advice and assistance. Experts will be there for you at any point of time, as you can contact them via phone/email, send a ticket, or make use of their training materials.