Compare the SAS documentation for your favorite statistical procedure with the documentation for the procedure in another language (e.g., R). SAS University Edition users can use the superb SAS documentation, which is available for free here. But it has all the power of SAS Studio, Base SAS, SAS/STAT, SAS/IML (Interactive Matrix Language), SAS/ACCESS, and several time series forecasting procedures from SAS/ETS.
Running on a local machine is a little clunky to start and stop because it runs in a virtual machine. This is completely free and is arguably slightly more efficient because you don't need to fiddle with AWS. You can also install the University Edition free of charge for academic noncommercial use on your own computer (Windows, OS X, or Linux).
After one year, running on AWS will cost a small amount if you keep the instance running, but will accumulate no charges if you stop your AWS instance. The University Edition is FREE for academic noncommercial use.Īmazon Web Services (AWS) will allow you to run the University Edition FREE for one year if you don't already have an AWS account (and if you use a t2.micro AWS instance). There seems to be some confusion about the cost of SAS University Edition.
