What are the differences and similarities between SAS and Stata?

[8AnneAnn6]

What are the differences and similarities between SAS and Stata?  As for big data,which one is better? 

[xingsiqin]

Similarities: They are both driven by codes and can do plenty kinds of statistic analysis.
Differences: As for now, I think the ways they save and manage data are different: SAS data must be saved in libraries but Stata does not have this restriction.

[8AnneAnn6]

Thanks a lot !

[Reeza · Accepted solution]

Stata is used primarily by economists whereas SAS is more used in Healthcare and Financial industry. Which one can handle more data, depends on installation/license type. If you're using a SAS server installation versus desktop STATA, then SAS is definitely better. 

SAS doesn't load data into RAM for data wrangling but it does for many regression/analytic procedures.  I think Stata does all in memory so you  need more RAM. 

Both can do many of the same things though I think Stata has few more of the time series procedures that SAS does not. Cost wise, for an individual license Stata is usually cheaper unless you're a University researcher or affiliated at which point both are usually very cheap or free. Been a few years since I've had to do the cost analysis though. 

[8AnneAnn6]

Thank you so much and it helps a lot!