Software Like SPSS: Which Tools Keep the Menus, Syntax and .sav Files?

If you want software that works like SPSS, the closest matches are PSPP (for SPSS syntax) and TRTT (for SPSS 32 menus and dialogs, in a browser or on iPad); both open and save .sav files with labels. jamovi and JASP are excellent, but they are "like SPSS" in purpose rather than in layout, and that can be an advantage.

"Like SPSS" is vague, so this guide breaks it into four things you can check: menus, syntax, .sav metadata and output. It's written by the team behind TRTT, one of the tools graded; we've tried to grade our own tool as strictly as the others.

What "like SPSS" can mean

People looking for an SPSS equivalent usually want one of these:

• Menu familiarity: a course, a textbook or a colleague's instructions say "Analyze ▸ Descriptive Statistics ▸ Crosstabs", and you want that path to exist.
• Syntax: you have .sps files and want them to run.
• File fidelity: you get .sav files from a survey platform or a supervisor and have to keep labels, missing values and weights intact, and maybe send a .sav back.
• Output: pivot tables that look like the SPSS Viewer, so they match what the textbook shows.

A tool can be close on one and far on another. PSPP runs a lot of syntax but has fewer dialogs; jamovi has neither SPSS menus nor SPSS syntax, yet many students find it easier than SPSS.

Menus and dialogs

Take one everyday task, a crosstab with a chi-square test, and follow it in each program:

TRTT copies the SPSS 32 Analyze menu on purpose, including its newer names (for example, t tests and One-Way ANOVA sit under Compare Means and Proportions), and its dialogs have the familiar OK, Paste, Reset, Cancel and Help buttons. PSPP keeps the classic SPSS structure too, with fewer procedures in its menus. jamovi and JASP use their own ribbons, with results that update as you change options instead of an OK button. jamovi even publishes its own SPSS-to-jamovi guides, which helps if you're switching.

Syntax

If your scripts restructure data, merge files or loop over variables, PSPP is the realistic free option. If they're mostly procedures, recodes, computes and labels, TRTT runs them in a browser tab; run SPSS syntax online has the full list. TRTT's Paste also writes equivalent R and Python code, which helps if you're moving toward code.

.sav metadata: labels, missing values, weights

All five read .sav files with variable and value labels. The differences are in the details and on the way back out.

• User-defined missing values (99 = "Refused"): PSPP and TRTT keep them as missing-value definitions, as SPSS does. In R, haven turns them into NA unless you set user_na = TRUE; pyreadstat has user_missing=True.
• Weights: PSPP and TRTT have WEIGHT / Weight Cases as in SPSS. jamovi added weights in version 2.4 (2023), with non-integer weights supported in contingency tables and descriptives. JASP has no general case-weight setting; a few analyses, such as linear regression, accept a weights variable.
• Writing .sav: PSPP, TRTT, R and Python write .sav files; jamovi exports to .sav; JASP exports data only as text files.
• Other formats: PSPP and JASP open .por portable files; TRTT doesn't. TRTT's web file picker takes .sav, not .zsav.

TRTT also keeps multiple-response sets, long variable names, very long strings and custom attributes when it saves.

Output tables

SPSS output lives in the Viewer as pivot tables and is saved as .spv.

• TRTT produces SPSS-style pivot tables (Case Processing Summary, Crosstabulation, Chi-Square Tests and so on) and exports the whole output as .spv. On the web there's no PDF export; tables copy into Word or Excel, and charts save as images. The iOS app exports PDF.
• PSPP produces SPSS-style tables and writes text, PDF, HTML and OpenDocument output; .spv output is available from the command line.
• JASP formats tables in APA style, copies them into Word, and exports results as HTML or PDF.
• jamovi has its own clean table style, copies tables into Word and exports results as PDF or HTML.
• R and Python give you whatever you build; the labels are there, the layout is up to you.

If your instructor checks your tables against the SPSS textbook, SPSS-style output helps. If you're writing an APA report, JASP and jamovi may get you closer to the final table.

Scorecard

How close each program stays to SPSS, not how good it is overall:

Neither TRTT nor PSPP replaces SPSS completely, and each lacks procedures the other has. PSPP has logistic regression and CTABLES; TRTT has TwoStep and hierarchical clustering, discriminant analysis, nearest neighbour, ordinal regression and the Chart Builder. Neither has mixed models or repeated-measures GLM. The detailed head-to-head is TRTT vs PSPP, and PSPP against the original is PSPP vs SPSS.

When different is better

Being like SPSS is only useful if you're tied to SPSS: a course that teaches its menus, a supervisor who sends .sav files and expects .sav back, a lab with years of .sps scripts. Without those ties, a different design can be the better choice:

• jamovi's live results make it easy to see how a change in options changes the output, which many teachers like for learning statistics.
• JASP's Bayesian versions of standard tests are built in, where SPSS keeps them in a separate menu and many tools lack them.
• R and Python scale to anything, and every analysis is a script you can rerun.

And if you're tied to SPSS only on some days, you can mix: keep the .sav as your master file and open it in whichever tool fits the task. For the whole field, including paid tools, see SPSS alternatives compared.

Try it: Open TRTT in your browser – free · Get TRTT for iPhone & iPad

FAQ

What software is most like SPSS?

For menus and dialogs, TRTT (it mirrors the SPSS 32 Analyze menu) and PSPP. For syntax, PSPP. Both open and save .sav files. Neither matches SPSS exactly or covers every procedure.

Is there software like SPSS but free?

Yes. PSPP, jamovi and JASP are free and open source, and TRTT is free in a desktop browser. TRTT's iPhone and iPad app is free for data sets up to 100 cases.

Is PSPP the same as SPSS?

No. PSPP is a free GNU program that reads SPSS syntax and .sav files and covers many common procedures, but its own manual lists procedures that aren't implemented yet, such as hierarchical clustering, discriminant analysis and mixed models.

Can I follow SPSS tutorials in jamovi or JASP?

You can do the same analyses, but the menu paths differ, so you'll need to translate each step. jamovi publishes guides for people coming from SPSS.

Is there an SPSS equivalent for Mac?

SPSS itself runs on macOS. Free options on a Mac include jamovi, JASP and PSPP, and TRTT runs in Safari or Chrome with nothing to install.

TRTT is an independent product. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by IBM. IBM and SPSS are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation.