Free statistical software

Free statistical software is a practical alternative to commercial packages. In general, free statistical software gives results that are the same as the results from commercial programs, and many of the packages are fairly easy to learn, using menu systems, although a few are command-driven. These packages come from a variety of sources, including governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) like UNESCO, and universities, and are also developed by individuals.

Some packages are developed for specific purposes (e.g., time series analysis, factor analysis, calculators for probability distributions, etc.), while others are general packages, with a variety of statistical procedures. Others are meta-packages or statistical computing environments, which allow the user to code completely new statistical procedures. This article is a review of the general statistical packages.

A large proportion of free statistical software packages, however, are from individuals. Some of these software packages from individuals include Easyreg, MicrOsiris, OpenStat,PSPP,SOFA, Zelig. and DataMelt

At least one package, WinIDAMS, was developed for the purposes of making key technologies available to those who could not otherwise afford them, to empower development. OpenStat and Instat were developed as teaching aids. Other packages were developed for specific purposes but can be more generally used. Examples are Irristat, developed for agricultural analysis, and Epi Info, developed for public health. Several of the packages, PSPP, R and Osiris don't appear to give any statements about why they were developed, other than just general use for statistical analysis.

These free software packages have been used in a number of scholarly publications. For example, OpenStat was used in a research letter to JAMA and in several published studies. Irristat is used in an agricultural report, EasyReg is listed or used in several papers, EpiInfo was also used in several papers, R was used in a number of papers and WinIdams was used in other papers.

While Microsiris doesn't appear to be used in academic research, the author of the program was one of the original authors of OSIRIS, which was the starting program from which WinIdams was developed. The author of Microsiris also has contributed or co-contributed several components to WinIdams.

There are a few reviews of free statistical software. There were two reviews in journals (but not peer reviewed), one by Zhu and Kuljaca and another article by Grant that included mainly a brief review of R. Zhu and Kuljaca outlined some useful characteristics of software, such as ease of use, having a number of statistical procedures and ability to develop new procedures. They reviewed several programs and identified which ones, at that time, had the most functionality. At that time, several of the programs may not have had all of the desired ability for advanced statistics. Grant reviewed some of the programing features of R, and briefly mentioned the availability of other programs. One other paper reviewed statistical packages, mainly commercial, but includes R. One article reviewed EasyReg and included a discussion of its accuracy.

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