The SAS-Compatible Alternative to SAS

Jenner runs your existing SAS programs — DATA steps, PROC SQL, macros — without a SAS license, on Windows, macOS, and Linux. Same syntax, no per-seat fees, no rewrite.

Why Teams Look for a SAS Alternative

SAS prices licensing per seat and per year, tracks CPU core counts, and requires annual renewal. Jenner has no per-seat license and runs as a single self-contained binary.

No per-seat licensing

Jenner has no per-seat license and no annual renewal to re-justify. The same binary runs for one analyst or for fifty, so adding a person to the team is not a purchasing decision, and the cost of your analytics stack stops scaling with headcount.

Runs natively on the laptops your team already has

Jenner runs natively on macOS — including Apple silicon — as well as Windows and Linux, all from the same source. Analysts work on the machine their employer issued them, without a virtual machine, a second operating system, or a remote session between them and their own code. The same program moves unchanged from a laptop to a Linux server.

Running SAS programs on a Mac

Your existing data files come with you

Decades of institutional analysis sit in SAS7BDAT and XPT files, and that is usually the part of a migration people expect to be hard. Jenner reads and writes both formats directly, alongside CSV and Parquet, so nothing needs converting before you start and results can go back out in the same format a colleague expects.

How a Migration Actually Goes

Replacing SAS is usually imagined as a rewrite, which is why it gets postponed for years. Moving to Jenner is not a rewrite — the programs stay in SAS syntax and keep their DATA steps, macros, and PROC calls. What follows is the sequence teams actually use, and most of them are running real work within a day.

  1. 1. Point Jenner at the programs you already have

    Start with a program you know well and whose output you can recognize at a glance. There is nothing to port and no project to staff — install the binary, run the .sas file, and read the log. DATA step and PROC code runs as written, so the first run is the whole evaluation: you see your own output, from your own code, on the first afternoon.

  2. 2. Confirm the output against SAS

    Run the same program under SAS and under Jenner and compare the resulting datasets. PROC COMPARE exists in both and is the natural instrument: it reports observations, variables, and values down to a tolerance you choose. Writing to SAS7BDAT from both sides means the comparison is on identical ground, so what you get is a clean, reviewable result rather than an impression.

  3. 3. Put the evidence in front of your validation lead

    Accuracy is something you should be able to demonstrate, not just assert. Jenner passes all 58 datasets in the NIST Statistical Reference Datasets benchmark — the standard third-party accuracy suite for statistical software — and cross-validates its statistical procedures against the Python (statsmodels) and R implementations. That, plus your own PROC COMPARE output, is the package a reviewer needs to sign off.

  4. 4. Move the recurring jobs first

    Nothing requires a cutover. Jenner runs as one self-contained binary with no server to stand up, so the natural first production target is the scheduled work — the nightly refreshes and recurring reports that consume seats without needing a human at a terminal. That is where the per-seat saving lands soonest. Because both systems read and write the same file formats, you can move at whatever pace suits you.

Jenner vs SAS

FeatureJennerSAS
Runs most SAS programs
Yes
Yes
Per-seat license required
No
Yes
Runs on Windows, macOS, Linux
Yes
Limited
Native CSV and Parquet I/O
Yes
No
Read SAS7BDAT and XPT
Yes
Yes
Write SAS7BDAT and XPT
Yes
Yes
Runs as a single self-contained binary
Yes
No
Native Jupyter kernel
Yes
No
Passes full NIST StRD benchmark (58/58)
Yes
Strong, with caveats

Supported Procedures

Jenner implements 100 procedures using the same statement and option names as SAS, so a PROC call you already know works the way you expect it to. If your work depends on a specific procedure, the fastest way to judge the fit is to read its reference page — every procedure below links to its own documentation, covering the statements, options, and output it supports.

Coverage spans the core language, base and statistical procedures, PROC SQL, ODS Graphics, file formats, and database connectivity — 329 individual SAS behaviors documented, each procedure with its own reference page listing the statements and options it supports.

Data Import, Export, and Formatting

Design of Experiments

SQL Processing

Optimization

System Utilities

Reliability and Rare Events

Sorting and Reshaping

Matrix Programming

Spatial Statistics

Frequently Asked Questions

Jenner parses and runs standard SAS syntax — DATA steps, PROC SQL, macros, and almost every procedure — using the same statement and option names.

Most DATA step and PROC code runs without changes — the programs keep their existing DATA steps, macros, and PROC calls, and there is no porting step to complete first. The quickest way to confirm it on your own estate is to run a program you know well and read the log.

Jenner passes all 58 datasets in the NIST Statistical Reference Datasets benchmark, the standard third-party accuracy test suite for statistical software, and cross-validates its statistical procedures against the Python (statsmodels) and R implementations. You can confirm it on your own work by running a program under both systems and comparing the output datasets with PROC COMPARE.

Yes, and it writes them too, along with XPT, CSV, and Parquet. Nothing has to be converted before you start, and output can go back into SAS7BDAT so a Jenner program and a SAS program can hand work to each other. That is what makes it possible to migrate one job at a time instead of all at once.

Yes. Jenner runs natively on Apple silicon Macs, as well as on Windows and Linux, from the same source — no virtual machine, no remote session, and no second operating system to maintain. A program written on a Mac runs unchanged on a Linux server.

No. Jenner is an independent implementation of the SAS language, not a front end that calls SAS, so nothing about it requires a SAS installation or license. It also has no per-seat licensing of its own.

Both are implemented, along with 98 others spanning regression, survival analysis, multivariate methods, time series, quality control, and survey analysis. Every procedure has its own reference page in the documentation listing the statements and options it supports, which is the quickest way to confirm your particular usage.

Run them. There is no porting step to do first: install the binary, run the .sas file, and read the log. For a formal answer, run the same program under both systems and compare the output datasets with PROC COMPARE — that produces evidence a validation reviewer will accept, rather than an impression.

Ready to leave per-seat licensing behind?

Start free — no SAS license required.