R because it's free, highly developed and can be used for practically all tasks during research (read and shape data, analysis, graphical and text output). In addition, RStudio provides a

modern and easy to use one-for-alll IDE.

R because it is free, powerful, has more state of the art methods available or can be gotten from other researchers, by in large if you speak linear models you are in good shape(not like SPSS that has it's own terms for many common things), many procedures not in packages , have code in the literature, e.g.see Packt books as well as my all time favorite: https://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Advanced-Analytics-Graphics-Addison-Wesley/dp/013454692X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=lander+jared+R+for+Everyone&qid=1563828327&s=books&sr=1-1 , GREAT graphics, many sources of help and on and on. David Booth

R because it's free, highly developed and can be used for practically all tasks during research (read and shape data, analysis, graphical and text output). In addition, RStudio provides a

modern and easy to use one-for-alll IDE.

Sultan -

While a US Govt employee, starting in 1977, I only had what was available at work. I used Fortran for a number of years, and say what you will, it was labor intensive but flexible and you might be more certain of what it was doing. Also I had SPSS long ago, then BMDP, then SAS. Perhaps they are more flexible now, but I did not care much for SPSS or BMDP because it felt too much like one size-fits-all to be used for a lot of the research I did. SAS has its PROCs, which can be useful, but it is also a programming language, and though you have to be careful that it is doing what you meant it to do, it is very flexible. The guy who implemented a lot of my work at a statistical agency used SAS to set up production of Official Statistics with a great many files and tables produced. I recall him saying that he looked into R, and I think he thought it was similar, but not able to take on the huge files and complexity needed, had we been able to use it. Then I recall a large meeting at the Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) one year where I think it was the president of SAS Inc spoke, and afterward an audience member identifying himself as a student said he "... would NEVER use SAS, because I have R."

One year at the JSM I visited different vendor booths such as Stata, etc., to see what software might also implement my methodology, and I think I recall thinking that they all would.

At any rate, there are a lot of choices, and I expect their capabilities change sometimes rapidly and sometimes slowly, but I haven't heard a lot of bad things about R. The weakness would obviously be that there is no for profit company running it so it might be a little disjoint. But the strength is that there is no for profit company running it, so the users really can drive it's development. They develop it! And I have seen that there are manuals and some structure that helps keep it less disjoint. Perhaps someone would care to comment on the availability of manuals???

Hearing about experience some people have had with other systems would be interesting to me too.

Cheers - Jim

Like most of people I usually use fingers for a common statistical analysis - the results are precise and clear

SPSS AMOS AND R

Spss

SPSS AMOS

I would recommend Statistica.

Not many use this. This platform can do entire machine learning for you other than regular Statistical calculations.

My fovorite software is R and its IDE Rstudio.

Free and powerful.

For anyking of reserch field :

Modelling in Ecology, Text minimg for Behavior Studie, graphics, Economy...

Great points have been made so far, thank you all for joining the discussion! For those who haven't indicated "why?", please share with us why you prefer a certain software.

James R Knaub it's interesting to read about your transition from one software to another since the 1970's, your experience gives a good glimpse of how they've developed through the years. Thank you!

Sultan -

Regarding history (and the future), the following is from 1991.  You might find it interesting:

 "The Future of Statistical Software: Proceedings of a Forum."

Here is a URL to get to the National Academies Press website for the proceedings on this primarily (US) National Research Council sponsored forum:

 https://www.nap.edu/catalog/1910/the-future-of-statistical-software-proceedings-of-a-forum

Note that the free online link they take you to is

 https://www.nap.edu/read/1910/chapter/1

Cheers - Jim

PS  -  I have something there on page 82.  Under the table of contents you have to click on Appendix B, "Position Statements."

These resources are quite interesting James R Knaub , thank you for sharing them with us!

RATS program

SPSS and Genstat