JASP and JAMOVI are great options which can do research for most statistics. Both are easy to use. PSPP is another option, but I know little about it.

https://jasp-stats.org/

https://www.jamovi.org/

https://www.gnu.org/software/pspp/

Hello, Ceyhun,

I have experience with each of these, except for MINITAB. Fortunately, my university (I am retired from the University of Dayton) has site licenses for the paid software packages, so cost is not an issue. Among social scientists, SPSS is used most frequently for both research and teaching. I have found SPSS and SAS to be equally effective for teaching most statistical procedures. Some of my colleague like to use EXCEL, because many students are already familiar with it. It is often a good choice as long as the data are straightforward. EXCEL is not a good tool for analyzing multivariate data. My sense is that R is becoming more and more the preferred package among sophisticated statisticians.

I hope this is helpful.

Best,

Don

Interestingly, the poster asked about free. Besides R, none of the others are free (well, all the one's I listed are free). JASP has an R dashboard, supported by the University of Amsterdam, allowing one free access to a complex statistical program without learning coding. Excel without an add-on is very limited, though XLSTAT (again, fee based) could suffice.

I think that the most important aspect is: The ability to write VERY clear code. Plus the opportunity to document this code.

I know of SAS and SPSS and Excel:

Excel does NOT have any explicit language, that you can se and document. So NO! Use Excel for nice end reports and t her last stage before printing.

SPSS is often used with a "nice web interface" so you do not have to program. This caused a VERY bad report at KI Neurology some years ago.

SPSS language - probably OK. I do not know it.

SAS "web Interface " like Enterprise Guide (EG) - can be as bad as SPSS web interface.

SAS programming - usually quite OK. It should be made more clear. Documentation facilities are wanted, since many, many years. (I started to use SAS in 1981. I was the first to document In= option in MERGE).

Why so negative: I have found MANY VERY SERIOUS ERRORS during my 50 years of programming. Really expensive (some hundred million dollars in loss, because of errors in the computer programs). /Br Anders Sköllermo