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Manufacturing · head to head

Seeq vs Shima Seiki

Seeq logo

Seeq

Manufacturing

Self-service analytics for process manufacturing time-series data sitting on top of existing historians

From
On request
Rated
-
Shima Seiki logo

Shima Seiki

Fashion

Knit design and visualization software

From
$250/month
Rated
-

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Seeq named-user pricing suits a small core team but scales badly: a site wanting a hundred engineers with occasional access pays for a hundred licences that mostly sit idle, which is why deployments often stay artificially narrow.; Shima Seiki the Internet Archive's capture of Shima Seiki's homepage on 29 December 2020 named five distinct product categories, Knitting Machines, Design System/Software, CAD/CAM Systems, Inkjet Printing Machine, and PLM Solutions, all sold via an Inquiry form with no price figure published.
  • They diverge on capability: Seeq covers Query in place, Shima Seiki covers Knit design.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Seeq and Shima Seiki actually diverge.

Attributes where Seeq and Shima Seiki differ
AttributeSeeqShima Seiki
Starting priceOn request$250/month
Pricing modelquotesubscription
PlatformsWeb, Cloud, On-premise, Windows, LinuxWindows
CategoryManufacturingFashion
FoundedUnknown1962

Identical on both: free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated).

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 Seeq

  • Query in place
  • Capsules
  • Asset trees
  • Seeq Data Lab
  • Organizer
  • Multi-source joins

Only in Shima Seiki

  • Knit design
  • Stitch pattern creation
  • Color selection
  • Machine control
  • Production planning
  • Visualization
  • Shima Seiki machines
  • CAM systems

What people use each for

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

Seeq

  • A pharmaceutical plant comparing hundreds of batches against a golden batch profile without exporting historian data into spreadsheetsnot Shima Seiki
  • A reliability engineer investigating why a compressor trips, needing to overlay vibration, process and maintenance data across two years of historynot Shima Seiki
  • Refinery process engineers building a recurring shift report that pulls live values rather than being rebuilt by hand each weeknot Shima Seiki
  • A site whose data lake project has stalled and that needs engineers analysing plant history now, without waiting for an ingestion pipelinenot Shima Seiki

Shima Seiki

  • Knit designnot Seeq
  • Machine programmingnot Seeq

Where each one falls short

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

Seeq

  • Named-user pricing suits a small core team but scales badly: a site wanting a hundred engineers with occasional access pays for a hundred licences that mostly sit idle, which is why deployments often stay artificially narrow.
  • Seeq inherits whatever quality exists in the historian, so plants with unstructured tag names and no asset model spend real effort building asset trees in Seeq that should have been fixed upstream.
  • Certain historian connectors are charged separately, so the licence quote and the actual cost of connecting your specific data sources are two different numbers.
  • It is analysis, not control or action; findings still have to be carried into a CMMS or a control change by hand, so value depends on a workflow Seeq does not provide.
  • The product assumes competent process engineers. Organisations without that skill in-house get little from it, because Seeq deliberately does not ship prebuilt failure models the way condition monitoring vendors do.

Shima Seiki

  • The Internet Archive's capture of Shima Seiki's homepage on 29 December 2020 named five distinct product categories, Knitting Machines, Design System/Software, CAD/CAM Systems, Inkjet Printing Machine, and PLM Solutions, all sold via an Inquiry form with no price figure published.

Pricing, plan by plan

Seeq

On request
  • Seeq$undefined/year
    • Licensed per named user, not per tag
    • Separate charges for certain historian connectors
    • Cloud-hosted and self-hosted deployments quoted differently

Shima Seiki

$250/month
  • Essential$250/month
    • Basic design
    • Standard features
  • Professional$500/month
    • Advanced design
    • Integration
  • Enterprise$undefined/month
    • Full solution

Which should you pick?

Choose Seeq if

  • You need query in place.
  • You work on Web, Cloud, On-premise, Windows, Linux.
  • You also want capsules.

Choose Shima Seiki if

  • You need knit design.
  • You work on Windows.
  • You also want stitch pattern creation.

Questions people ask

Is Seeq or Shima Seiki better?
Neither clearly leads. Seeq starts at On request and Shima Seiki at $250/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Seeq or Shima Seiki?
Seeq starts at On request and Shima Seiki at $250/month.
Does Seeq or Shima Seiki run on more platforms?
Seeq runs on Web, Cloud, On-premise, Windows, Linux. Shima Seiki runs on Windows.
What is Seeq best used for?
Seeq is most often used for a pharmaceutical plant comparing hundreds of batches against a golden batch profile without exporting historian data into spreadsheets, a reliability engineer investigating why a compressor trips, needing to overlay vibration, process and maintenance data across two years of history, refinery process engineers building a recurring shift report that pulls live values rather than being rebuilt by hand each week, a site whose data lake project has stalled and that needs engineers analysing plant history now, without waiting for an ingestion pipeline. Of those, a pharmaceutical plant comparing hundreds of batches against a golden batch profile without exporting historian data into spreadsheets and a reliability engineer investigating why a compressor trips, needing to overlay vibration, process and maintenance data across two years of history are not what Shima Seiki is typically brought in for.
What can Seeq do that Shima Seiki cannot?
Seeq covers Query in place, Capsules, Asset trees, Seeq Data Lab. Shima Seiki covers Knit design, Stitch pattern creation, Color selection, Machine control.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Seeq: Does Seeq store my data?

No. It queries connected historians and databases in place. Removing Seeq leaves your data exactly where it was.

Seeq: Who owns Seeq?

It is an independent private company in Seattle, most recently funded by a 2024 growth round led by Sixth Street. It has not been taken over by a private equity buyer.

Seeq: How is it licensed?

Per named user, with some historian connectors charged separately. Nothing is published; every number comes from a quote.

Seeq: Do I need a data scientist?

No, and that is the point. Workbench is aimed at process engineers. Data Lab exists for the minority who want Python.

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