# Statistics programs for Mac OSX? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 22, 2010, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-programs-for-mac-osx/525942 "2010-01-22T01:56:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-programs-for-mac-osx/525942/1 "2010-01-22T01:56:27Z")
Mrs. R is taking a statistics class as part of her Master’s degree effort, and she’s having a bit of trouble. It seems that one of the programs she’s supposed to use is something called Megastat. Which is apparently only available for Windows. She has a nice new 15" MacBook Pro. Is there any equivalent statistics program available for Macs, friendly to the amateur? She’s getting really upset–she says she’s spending more time trying to get software than studying for the class. ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-programs-for-mac-osx/525942/2 "2010-01-22T02:07:20Z")
I should mention that apparently the ones present in Excel 2008 aren’t sufficient. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-programs-for-mac-osx/525942/3 "2010-01-22T02:40:22Z")
From Apple’s website: > [@](#): > > Mathematics/Statistics > Featured Applications: > DataTank by Visual Data Tools > Gauss Mathematical and Statistical System by Aptech Systems > JMP Statistical Discovery Software by SAS Institute, Inc. > InStat Mac by GraphPad > Maple for the Macintosh by Waterloo Maple, Inc. > Mathematica by Wolfram Research, Inc. > MATLAB by The MathWorks, Inc. > NI LabVIEW by National Instruments > R, The R Project for Statistical Computing > SPSS 11 for Mac OS X\> by SPSS, Inc. > Stata by Stata Corporation There are also several open-source [statistics](http://blog.moertel.com/articles/2004/08/27/open-source-statistics-r-and-ess) apps. ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-programs-for-mac-osx/525942/4 "2010-01-22T02:52:46Z")
Thanks–do you have any experience with any of those? ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-programs-for-mac-osx/525942/5 "2010-01-22T03:01:14Z")
SAS Jmp is very good, it’s based around top notch graphics. It’s not the same as SAS for Windows or Linux, it’s much more user friendly. R is free and popular but it’s not as easy to use as Jmp. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-programs-for-mac-osx/525942/6 "2010-01-22T03:01:42Z")
> [@Rocketeer](#): > > Thanks–do you have any experience with any of those? No - I’ve downloaded R, but I’ve never needed anything that powerful, so I’ve never used it. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-programs-for-mac-osx/525942/7 "2010-01-22T04:46:16Z")
Does she have access to the recommended software in a campus computer lab? She may run into an issue trying to find help if no one else is familiar with the software. For what it’s worth, I’ve never heard of Megastat. ---
**Author:** ![cerberus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@cerberus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cerberus)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-programs-for-mac-osx/525942/8 "2010-01-22T04:51:25Z")
Minitab is also a student-centric package, but I’m not sure whether there’s an Apple version. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-programs-for-mac-osx/525942/9 "2010-01-22T05:15:39Z")
> [@Rocketeer](#): > > Mrs. R is taking a statistics class as part of her Master’s degree effort, and she’s having a bit of trouble. It seems that one of the programs she’s supposed to use is something called Megastat. > > Which is apparently only available for Windows. She has a nice new 15" MacBook Pro. > > Is there any equivalent statistics program available for Macs, friendly to the amateur? She’s getting really upset–she says she’s spending more time trying to get software than studying for the class. I’ve never heard of MegaStat, but looking it up, it seems to be an Excel plug-in/add-on. If [this is indeed the program](http://cs.berry.edu/~pkapitza/Fall06/stat/instructions.html), you just download it, unzip it, and double click on MegaStat.xla. Excel (which is required to run this) will start up, ask you if you want to accept the macros, click yes, and you will have an extra menu item called “MegaStat.” I have a MacBook Pro and it opened up just fine over here. edit: I should add, I don’t know if that’s the latest version. The download appears to be for a fall 2006 class. ---
**Author:** ![thirdname](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@thirdname](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdname)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-programs-for-mac-osx/525942/10 "2010-01-22T06:48:19Z")
Versiontracker is a good site for finding Mac software. Here’s a search for statistics: [http://www.versiontracker.com/php/qs.php?mode=basic&action=search&str=statistics&srchArea=macosx&submit=Go](http://www.versiontracker.com/php/qs.php?mode=basic&action=search&str=statistics&srchArea=macosx&submit=Go) ---
**Author:** ![footballisplayedwithyourfeet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9f8e36/32.png) [@footballisplayedwithyourfeet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/footballisplayedwithyourfeet)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistics-programs-for-mac-osx/525942/11 "2010-01-22T10:13:46Z")
Given that you refer to him as Mr R, he should check out R 🙂 It has a bit of a steep learning curve, but it is open source. Otherwise spss and stata work fine for me as well (if he is working with regressions, use stata).