I know that we cant say which one is more or less powerful, but rather I want to see different opinions and evaluate the discussion and see the experts opinion. If there are other programs please inform me. Best regards.
Like you said I think both of them are useful but it depends on what you are using it for as well as you technical/programming capabilities.
SPSS is a more user-friendly platform if the user doesn't know how to write code since it allows the user to do "point and click" analysis. SAS require the user to write code to do analysis so a user have to know how to program. But on the plus side SAS allows the user to have more flexibility than SPSS most of the time. SAS is able to handle huge datasets better than SPSS. In addition, SAS can run on different platforms such as Linux/Unix, Windows but SPSS runs on only Windows (unless things have change).
If you are talking about statistical analysis, then there are other programs such as Stata, SUDAAN, R (which is free), Python, JMP (which is also point and click like SPSS). Hope this helps........
SAS is better when you need of a larger conjoint of analytical tools and not only simple statistics with few data. SAS requires more learning efforts. SAS is a big truck, others are cars, some with automatic gear (SPSS,JMP) and others with manual gear (R). If you need to go to the beach with your family, all these are ok.
But if you need to transport an elephant only truck works. The question is: will you need to be prepared to transport a elephant? Each one has your own response, as people and/or as institution. I am a SAS user, so it is my biased vision.
If you search online you can find a lot of discussion of this issue. There was even a discussion here just a couple days ago: https://www.researchgate.net/post/Statistical_Program_R_vs_SAS_vs_SPSS
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