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Manufacturing · head to head

LabVIEW vs TrendMiner

LabVIEW logo

LabVIEW

Manufacturing

Graphical dataflow programming for automated test, measurement and instrument control

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
TrendMiner logo

TrendMiner

Manufacturing

Search-driven time series analytics for process engineers, now owned by Proemion rather than Software AG

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: LabVIEW nI is now part of Emerson, completing in 2023, so LabVIEW sits inside an industrial automation conglomerate rather than being the flagship of a dedicated test company; roadmap priorities and support pricing follow the parent, not the user base.; TrendMiner ownership moved from Software AG to Proemion in a 47 million euro sale during the Silver Lake break-up, so the integration roadmap tied to webMethods and Cumulocity is gone and the new owner is far smaller.
  • They diverge on capability: LabVIEW covers Graphical dataflow programming, TrendMiner covers Pattern search.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which LabVIEW and TrendMiner actually diverge.

Attributes where LabVIEW and TrendMiner differ
AttributeLabVIEWTrendMiner
PlatformsWindows, Linux, macOSWeb, Windows, Linux

Identical on both: starting price (On request), pricing model (quote), free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Manufacturing).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in LabVIEW

  • Graphical dataflow programming
  • Front panels
  • Instrument driver library
  • Hardware integration
  • Real-time and FPGA targets
  • Analysis and signal processing
  • Application builder
  • Nigel AI assistant

Only in TrendMiner

  • Pattern search
  • Value-based search
  • Monitors
  • Soft sensors
  • Context items
  • Dashboards
  • Machine learning models
  • ContextHub

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

LabVIEW

  • An automotive supplier building an end-of-line test rig that must drive a power supply, read a scope and log pass/fail against a serial numbernot TrendMiner
  • A semiconductor lab characterising devices across a PXI chassis where deterministic timing between instruments mattersnot TrendMiner
  • A medical device manufacturer needing a validated, documented test system with an operator front panel a technician can run unsupervisednot TrendMiner
  • A research group prototyping a control loop on CompactRIO where part of the logic must compile down to an FPGAnot TrendMiner

TrendMiner

  • Finding every prior occurrence of a heat exchanger fouling signature to estimate cleaning frequency from history rather than from a rule of thumbnot LabVIEW
  • Comparing golden batches against off-spec ones in a pharmaceutical process without exporting to a data science teamnot LabVIEW
  • Building a monitor that flags the early temperature signature that preceded the last three compressor tripsnot LabVIEW
  • Giving a process engineer a way to answer a question in an afternoon that previously required a historian export and a spreadsheet weeknot LabVIEW

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

LabVIEW

  • NI is now part of Emerson, completing in 2023, so LabVIEW sits inside an industrial automation conglomerate rather than being the flagship of a dedicated test company; roadmap priorities and support pricing follow the parent, not the user base.
  • No prices appear anywhere on the NI site for commercial editions; Base, Full, Professional and the LabVIEW+ suite are all quoted through NI or a reseller, so a buyer cannot compare cost against a Python-plus-PyVISA alternative without opening a sales conversation.
  • Graphical source code diffs badly. Merging two engineers’ changes to the same virtual instrument in git is impractical without NI’s own comparison tools, so team development on LabVIEW is slower and more serialised than on text-based languages.
  • The pool of engineers who write LabVIEW is small and ageing relative to the pool who write Python, so hiring a replacement for the person who built your test rig is materially harder and more expensive than replacing a general software engineer.
  • The environment pulls you toward NI hardware and NI add-on toolkits, and licences for real-time, FPGA and vision modules are sold separately on top of the base edition, so the quoted LabVIEW price is rarely the delivered cost of a working test system.

TrendMiner

  • Ownership moved from Software AG to Proemion in a 47 million euro sale during the Silver Lake break-up, so the integration roadmap tied to webMethods and Cumulocity is gone and the new owner is far smaller.
  • It is built for continuous time series and handles discrete manufacturing, relational quality data and event-driven production poorly, so plants that are not continuous process get limited value.
  • Value depends entirely on historian data quality and tag naming; sites with inconsistent tag descriptions and missing asset context spend months on data preparation before the search features are usable.
  • Licensing is by named analyst user, and the population who genuinely use pattern search is small, so organisations that buy broadly pay for seats that log in occasionally.
  • It reads history but does not fix it: there is no data collection layer, so an existing historian is mandatory and TrendMiner is always an additional cost on top of it.

Pricing, plan by plan

LabVIEW

On request
  • LabVIEW Community EditionFree
    • Free for personal, non-commercial use only
    • Full LabVIEW feature set for hobbyists
    • No commercial deployment rights
  • LabVIEW Base$undefined/year
    • Core acquisition, control and user interface capability
    • Suited to simple test and measurement applications
    • Available as subscription or perpetual licence
  • LabVIEW Full$undefined/year
    • Adds advanced analysis and signal processing
    • Recommended where mathematics and filtering are required
    • Available as subscription or perpetual licence
  • LabVIEW Professional$undefined/year
    • Adds application builder, source control and deployment tooling
    • Includes the Nigel AI assistant
    • Available as subscription or perpetual licence

TrendMiner

On request
  • TrendMiner$undefined/year
    • Annual subscription sized by named users and connected historian tag volume
    • Separate licence tiers for full analyst users and view-only dashboard consumers
    • Historian connectors quoted per source system

Which should you pick?

Choose LabVIEW if

  • You need graphical dataflow programming.
  • You work on Windows, Linux, macOS.
  • You also want front panels.
LabVIEW review

Choose TrendMiner if

  • You need pattern search.
  • You work on Web, Windows, Linux.
  • You also want value-based search.
TrendMiner review

Questions people ask

Is LabVIEW or TrendMiner better?
Neither clearly leads. LabVIEW starts at On request and TrendMiner at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, LabVIEW or TrendMiner?
LabVIEW starts at On request and TrendMiner at On request.
Does LabVIEW or TrendMiner run on more platforms?
LabVIEW runs on Windows, Linux, macOS. TrendMiner runs on Web, Windows, Linux.
What is LabVIEW best used for?
LabVIEW is most often used for an automotive supplier building an end-of-line test rig that must drive a power supply, read a scope and log pass/fail against a serial number, a semiconductor lab characterising devices across a pxi chassis where deterministic timing between instruments matters, a medical device manufacturer needing a validated, documented test system with an operator front panel a technician can run unsupervised, a research group prototyping a control loop on compactrio where part of the logic must compile down to an fpga. Of those, an automotive supplier building an end-of-line test rig that must drive a power supply, read a scope and log pass/fail against a serial number and a semiconductor lab characterising devices across a pxi chassis where deterministic timing between instruments matters are not what TrendMiner is typically brought in for.
What can LabVIEW do that TrendMiner cannot?
LabVIEW covers Graphical dataflow programming, Front panels, Instrument driver library, Hardware integration. TrendMiner covers Pattern search, Value-based search, Monitors, Soft sensors.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

LabVIEW: Who owns LabVIEW now?

NI, formerly National Instruments, was acquired by Emerson in an acquisition that completed in 2023. LabVIEW is now an Emerson product.

TrendMiner: Who owns TrendMiner now?

Proemion, a German industrial analytics company backed by Battery Ventures, which bought it from Software AG for 47 million euros in 2024.

LabVIEW: Can I still buy a perpetual licence?

Yes. NI offers both subscription and perpetual licences and states there are no functional or feature-level differences between them.

TrendMiner: Does it replace my historian?

No. It connects to PI, IP.21, PHD, Exaquantum and others and reads from them. The historian remains the system of record.

LabVIEW: Is there a free version?

LabVIEW Community Edition is free for personal, non-commercial use. It carries no commercial deployment rights.

TrendMiner: Do I need a data scientist to use it?

No, and that is the point. The pattern search and soft sensor tooling are aimed at process engineers with no coding background.

LabVIEW: How much does it cost?

NI does not publish commercial edition prices. Base, Full, Professional and LabVIEW+ are all quoted through NI or a reseller.

TrendMiner: Is pricing per user?

Yes, largely, with tiers for analyst and view-only access plus charges for historian connectors and data volume.

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