Gephi vs. ibi WebFOCUS

If anyone ever asked me "what mathematical graphing tool should I use", Gephi would be my first answer. At the very least, it's an excellent prototyping tool. I would be wary, however, if someone needed to use the product for large scale production output. It's finicky at times and does require a little "jiggling of the handle" to get things to work, but I'm sure the kinks will be worked out as the product matures

WebFOCUS is a good comprehensive tool for BI for companies. I feel that scenarios where you want the user to interact and be able to ingest data in different formats would be a good use of the tool. Performing data discovery is easier with InfoAssist, especially the most recent versions, and allows users to customize their views and provide comments.

Incentivized

• As far as my experience gephi provides good mathematical results in calculating Metrics
• Its helpful as we can directly import our data which is in a .csv file
• Saving the analyzed data to a .csv is a plus. Its easy to run all the metrics by single click
• We can filter the columns of metrics and we can export only those we need.

• Webfocus reports all have the option to export to Excel. The excel spreadsheet is always very organized and clean, and the information is very easy to read.
• Webfocus is able to maintain data from years prior. We can look up what we featured in catalogs and all the sales history attached with it.
• Webfocus is able to provide support to a variety of departments. For example, our buying team uses it for planning in advance and our marketing team uses the tool to see how categories and products as the selling

Incentivized

• A friend helped me to import that data -this process was outside my expertise.
• The UI took some time getting used to. I spent a while formatting my graph before I could really obtain a good view of the network.
• I would like an easier way to organize the different views of the data, I had a lot of tabs open that quickly cluttered my workspace.

• The Developer Studio has some bugs. I've faced errors where swapping between our DEV and PROD servers causes that the software stops responding.
• Easy to find documentation and examples. WebFOCUS has some help with this but it'd be better to provide more real life examples.
• Sometimes it's harder to code the graphical interface of the report because of the HTML styling.

Incentivized

While Gephi isn't perfect, it's a powerful tool for mathematical graph modelling that's hard to find in other products, particularly by way of its interface. It grants non-software developers access to a point-and-click way of creating accurate, beautiful visualizations that would normally take hours in other applications. The fact that it allows for live streaming data is also something that's hard to come by, at least for visualization software

This software is deeply engrained with my organization and has become a tool that would not easily be replaced without spending more money and resources to get the same results. License cost is comparable to other report writing tools and the capabilities are greater than the competition without having to buy multiple apps to do the same thing.

Incentivized

Gephi is very intuitive and the fact that it shows its process helps the user understand what's going on. However, the animation features can really slow it down and there isn't a way to shut them off. Furthermore, the failures on saving mean you frequently have to start over. These problems disrupt the workflow and can be frustrating.

Best BI tool/product I have used. The others don't compare overall. Some can look fancier, but when you actually use them with large data and data from numerous systems/sources that is where most of the competition falls away. I also don't like downtime. I have basically none for a large user base with WebFocus. Even SAP Crystal Reports went down for 4 days once - 4 days because the admin password got locked out due to a glitch and we had zero reports for 4 days. WebFocus has never had more than a few minutes of downtime. It's like a tank that just keeps rolling. There is no other choice for reliable BI.

Incentivized

Tracking availability formally for almost two years and we are at 99.8%

Incentivized

They have extremely knowledgeable techs that I have worked with over the years. Some have actually become really good friends of mine. I see them often at local user groups and when we show them how we are using their tools to save millions of dollars throughout the company

Incentivized

It's hit and miss, the last class was overcrowded and people were having trouble connecting which took up much of the time. Instructors vary

Incentivized

Plan ahead on what data will be accessible and the type of security required on the database and if you will want to use security that is built into the software. It is worth consulting with the vendor on what your plan is and how they recommend you proceed in order to get results you are happy with.

Incentivized

Compared to vis.js and d3, Gephi has a much better UI and is easier to use for anyone without a strong code background. vis.js and d3 are more flexible in terms of output and are used by Quaero for more of the ongoing reporting where Gephi is used for exploratory analysis and ad hoc requests. We use all three, just for different purposes.

Incentivized

Above average. Feature wise [Information Builders WebFOCUS] stands out. User friendliness is OK. It can handle the most complex tasks and its extensions with for example R make it extremely versatile. Support is lagging in western Europe, although i am more than happy with current level. With takeover by tipco it remains to be seen how European strategy will evolve

Incentivized

• I have only used the product for education purposes. I will not be the best person to provide details about ROI and business efficiency and customer service. I was personally very excited about the tool and am continuing my work on the tool.

• We are not yet a success story. Though we've been implementing WebFOCUS for over a year, we have very few products in our Production portal. Of course, this is not all the responsibility of Information Builders, but we were ill-advised by our 'training coordinator' in our training of staff and coming up to speed with the tools has been very slow.
• Once skilled analysts and professional IT staff achieve a grasp of the products, they are able to very quickly create polished and well-received products.
• The DW/BI project has helped us to establish standards and protocols of communication that will allow us to more quickly meet knowledge transfer requirements