Yes, R is the statistical professional's choice (I would use it at work but we're forced to use SAS, uggggggghhhhhhhhhhh).

I don't think I even know what SPSS looks like but I've always used R or Matlab (which has good statistical functionality and, imho, better graphics outputs than R).

I once played with R, but it just isn't very user friendly unless you have someone to help you.
SPSS is the package of choice for most, but I prefer Graphpad because its really easy to use and its outputs are great....limited insofar as it won't do stepwise regression though!