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Although I was trained as an engineer, I find that I'm becoming more interested in data mining. Right now I'm trying to investigate the field further. In particular, I would like to understand the different categories of software tools that exist and which tools are notable in each category and why. (Note that I didn't say the "best" tools, just the notable ones lest we start a flame war.) Especially make note of the tools that are open-source and freely available - although don't take this to mean that I'm only interested in open-source and free.

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I advise this to be a community wiki. – Tal Galili Aug 22 '10 at 4:13
sounds like a homework question – Neil McGuigan Aug 22 '10 at 6:15
@Tal Certainly, now converted. – mbq♦ Aug 22 '10 at 9:48
@el chief - It's a very broad and general question... but I'm afraid it's not a homework question. – John Berryman Aug 22 '10 at 13:16

9 Answers

up vote 5 down vote accepted

This is probably the most comprehensive list you'll find: mloss.org

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It is focused on Machine-Learning though, which can be seen as a related field of data-mining, just like AI. Although commonly it is use synonymous, as "prediction" is one of the key challenges in data mining. But there is more than "learning" to data mining. – Anony-Mousse Feb 9 '12 at 13:29
up vote 6 down vote

Have a look at

  • Weka (java, strong in classification)
  • Orange (python scripting, mostly classification)
  • GNU R (R language, somewhat vector table oriented, see the Machine Learning taskview, and Rattle UI)
  • ELKI (java, strong on clustering and outlier detection, index structure support for speedups, algorithm list)
  • Mahout (Java, belongs to Hadoop, if you have a cluster and huge data sets)

and the UCI Machine Learning Repository for data sets.

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you could add Red-R to the list (kind of a clone of Orange in R): red-r.org – Amro Aug 22 '10 at 19:10
I've downloaded R and I am playing with it now. – John Berryman Aug 23 '10 at 11:52
@Amro Thanks! However, it is not available on Mac platform, unless I'm mistaking? – chl♦ Aug 23 '10 at 18:37
I'm not a Mac user, but I think the Linux build could work for you (you need to manually install all python dependencies): red-r.org/forum/topic.php?id=22#post-76 – Amro Aug 24 '10 at 13:03
@Amro I'll give it a try; in the past I've been testing RAnalyticFlow (j.mp/bYF8xs) but did not get convinced: I am basically a CLI user :-) – chl♦ Aug 25 '10 at 19:52
up vote 3 down vote

Rattle is a data mining GUI that provides a front end to a wide range of R packages.

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up vote 3 down vote

Have a look at KNIME.

Very easy to learn. With lots of scope for further progress. Integrates nicely with Weka and R.

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up vote 2 down vote

From the popularity perspective, this paper (2008) surveys top 10 algorithms in data mining.

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An excellent paper for the beginner in data mining – OutputLogic Nov 15 '12 at 20:38
up vote 2 down vote

RapidMiner (Java) [open source]

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up vote 1 down vote

There is ELKI, an open-source university project somewhat comparable to WEKA, but much stronger when it comes to clustering and outlier detection. WEKA actually isn't really data-mining, but machine learning software.

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up vote 0 down vote

There is this Red-R which has a nice GUI and visual programming interface. It make use of R to process the various data analysis.

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up vote 0 down vote

Rexer Anlaytics does a toolkit survey every year. KDnuggets has software descriptions by industry as well as intent.

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