Stata Editions

Which Stata is Right for Me?

Stata/MP: The fastest Edition of Stata; largest datasets

Stata/SE: Standard Edition; larger datasets

Stata/BE: Basic Edition, mid-sized datasets

Detailed feature description

Most computers purchased since mid 2006 can take advantage of the advanced multiprocessing of Stata/MP. This includes the Intel CoreTM 2 Duo, i3, i5, i7, and the AMD X2 dual-core chips. On dual-core chips, Stata/MP runs 40% faster overall and 72% faster where it matters, on the time-consuming estimation commands. With more than two cores or processors, Stata/MP is even faster. Stata/SE, and Stata/BE differ only in the dataset size that each can analyze.

Stata/SE and Stata/MP can fit models with more independent variables than Stata/BE (up to 10,998). Stata/BE allows datasets with as many as 2,047 variables. The number of observations is limited only by the amount of RAM in your computer. Stata/BE can have at most 798 right-hand-side variables in a model. All the above editions have the same complete set of commands and features and include PDF documentation.

Compare features 

All versions of Stata support 64-bit architecture and an unlimited number of observations, only limited by the RAM of the system. Technical differences can be found here.

Multicore performance

MP licenses can be used on both 32 and 64 bit computers, but they only go faster if your computer has at least the same number of processors as your license, i.e., MP2 will work more efficiently than a SE only if the computer has at least 2 processors. As you can clearly see from the graph, Stata/MP is considerably faster than Stata/SE due to allowing for your computer to fully utilize multithreaded processing.

Compatible operating systems

Stata will run on the platforms listed below. While Stata software is platform-specific, your Stata license is not; therefore, you need not specify your operating system when placing your order for a license.

Stata for Windows

Windows 11
Windows 10*
Windows Server 2019, 2016, 2012R2*
Windows Server 2022

*Stata requires 64-bit Windows for x86-64 processors made by Intel® and AMD

Stata for Mac

*Stata requires a Mac with Apple Silicon or 64-bit Intel processor.

*Stata for Mac requires MacOS 11.0 (Big Sur) or newer for Macs with Apple Silicon and MacOS 10.13 (High Sierra) or newer for Macs with 64-bit Intel processors.

Stata for Linux
Minimum requirements include the GNU C library (glibc) 2.17 or better and libcurl4.

Hardware requirements

Stata for Unix requires a video card that can display thousands of colors or more (16-bit or 24-bit color).