Select the Best Excel Solver Product for Your Needs

Select the Best Excel Solver Product

Since you plan to define your model in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, your very best choice is our "super-product" Risk Solver Platform:

• It's an integrated superset of all the other products below, with unique powers for stochastic programming and robust optimization.  But if your budget is limited, you can start with a subset product (still more powerful than competitive products!), and upgrade at any time with full compatibility to Risk Solver Platform.

If you need both simulation and optimization, next best is Risk Solver Premium:

• Compared to Crystal Ball Professional and @RISK Industrial at about the same price, Risk Solver Premium offers far more powerful optimization -- with all the features of Premium Solver -- and the fastest and easiest to use simulation -- with all the features of Risk Solver.  Upgrade at any time to Risk Solver Platform.

If you have a resource allocation problem that can be solved with optimization, and you don't need simulation right now, your best choice is Premium Solver Platform, our most powerful tool for conventional optimization.

• A great runner-up is our best-selling Premium Solver product, which can be upgraded with full compatibility to Premium Solver Platform -- or to Risk Solver Premium or full Risk Solver Platform, depending on your needs.

If you have a risk analysis problem that can be solved with Monte Carlo simulation, and you don't need optimization right now, our Risk Solver product is a great choice:

•  It costs the same or less and gives you more than competitors like Crystal Ball and @RISK Standard -- see how it compares to these products in a recent independent review.

If your problem involves an optimization model of some size, let's consider the last two questions we posed earlier:

• What type of problem (linear programming, nonlinear optimization, etc.) do you want to solve?
• What size of problem (number of decision variables and constraints) do you want to solve?

Problem Types

The type of optimization problem you have depends on:

• The types of mathematical relationships (e.g. linear, nonlinear or nonsmooth) between your objective and constraints and your decision variables.
• The types of decision variables (real-valued or integer) you have in your model.
• The type of solution you want -- globally optimal or locally optimal -- for nonlinear optimization problems.

If you're not sure what type of problem you have, click on Optimization Problem Types for an in-depth discussion.  But you may want to start with Frontline Systems' Premium Solver Platform, because it bundles together several Solvers that together will handle all types of optimization problems up to certain size limits.  What's more, Premium Solver Platform uses our PSI Technology to automatically determine your problem type, and select the best Solver.  (With Premium Solver, you must determine this yourself.)  Click on Solvers for Excel Users for further information.

Problem Sizes

The size of your problem is measured by the number of decision variables and the number of constraints.  If you have not yet defined your model in these terms, you may not know its size -- see below for ideas on estimating problem size.  You can start with our Premium Solver Platform, and if your problem ultimately exceeds its size limits, you can add a "plug-in" Solver Engine that handles larger-scale problems of the appropriate type.  If your problem is relatively small, you can save money with our Premium Solver -- but Premium Solver is not "expandable" with plug-in Solver Engines.  Click on Solvers for Excel Users for further information.

Often -- though not always -- the number of decision variables will be greater than the number of constraints and will determine the "size limit;" also, it may easier to estimate the number of decision variables up-front.  The number of integer decision variables is often a critical factor, because such decisions make the problem much harder to solve.  To understand what kind of decision variables you may have, take our Solver Tutorial, paying special attention to the page Defining a Model.

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Tools for Optimization:

Risk Solver Platform is an integrated superset of Premium Solver Platform and Risk Solver with best-of-breed simulation, best-of-breed optimization, and new stochastic programming and robust optimization capabilities you can't get anywhere else.

Premium Solver Platform, our premier tool for conventional optimization, uses new PSI Technology to automatically analyze and transform your Excel model. It solves every type and size of problem, using built-in and plug-in Solver Engines.

Premium Solver, our basic upgrade for the Excel Solver, solves up to 10X larger problems at much higher speed, and solves new kinds of problems with our Evolutionary Solver.

Tools for Simulation:

Risk Solver Platform is an integrated superset of Premium Solver Platform and Risk Solver with best-of-breed simulation, best-of-breed optimization, and new stochastic programming and robust optimization capabilities you can't get anywhere else.

Risk Solver Premium integrates all the features of Premium Solver and Risk Solver, with far superior optimization and higher performance, easier to use simulation, for about the same price as competitive products for Monte Carlo simulation.

Risk Solver is the easiest and fastest tool available for risk analysis of your Excel models, using Monte Carlo simulation. Evaluate thousands of scenarios in seconds, and see instantly updated charts and statistics, each time you ask "what if".

Software Developer Tools:

Solver Platform SDK makes it easy to solve any type or size of optimization problem in your Visual Basic, VB.NET, C/C++, C#, Java, or MATLAB program. And it's easy to deploy your application with our flexible licensing for software vendors and corporate developers.