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ETL Solutions Transformation Manager vs Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

ETL Solutions Transformatio...
Ranking in Data Integration
33rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Pentaho Data Integration an...
Ranking in Data Integration
22nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of ETL Solutions Transformation Manager is 0.2%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics is 1.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Integration
 

Featured Reviews

Ravi Kuppusamy - PeerSpot reviewer
It lets us create models so we can generate real-time predictions and insights for a our clients
Transformation Manager reporting could be better. There are better options for reporting tools these days. We use Microsoft BI sometimes, but Tableau is becoming too expensive. Microsoft BI's visualization features are maturing. I would like it if we could set the solution up to process and respond to real-time events. For example, say I want to configure an app to run based on the mileage a car has driven, and I configure the metering system, so the event occurs every 15 days. Let's say we want to automatically send an alert to EMS, police, etc. if a car gets into an accident. Transformation Manager is more of a conventional tool for reporting, extracting volume, bulk loading, etc. but there should be more provisions for dealing with real-time events, creating some insights, and dealing with perishable data. Ten minutes after the accident, the data doesn't have value. It has value before you saved the person.
Ryan Ferdon - PeerSpot reviewer
Low-code makes development faster than with Python, but there were caching issues
If you're working with a larger data set, I'm not so sure it would be the best solution. The larger things got the slower it was. It was kind of buggy sometimes. And when we ran the flow, it didn't go from a perceived start to end, node by node. Everything kicked off at once. That meant there were times when it would get ahead of itself and a job would fail. That was not because the job was wrong, but because Pentaho decided to go at everything at once, and something would process before it was supposed to. There were nodes you could add to make sure that, before this node kicks off, all these others have processed, but it was a bit tedious. There were also caching issues, and we had to write code to clear the cache every time we opened the program, because the cache would fill up and it wouldn't run. I don't know how hard that would be for them to fix, or if it was fixed in version 10. Also, the UI is a bit outdated, but I'm more of a fan of function over how something looks. One other thing that would have helped with Pentaho was documentation and support on the internet: how to do things, how to set up. I think there are some sites on how to install it, and Pentaho does have a help repository, but it wasn't always the most useful.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It is among the best, even if not widely known."
"Back in the day, we could only get reports and analyze what happened after the fact, but today now we can generate real-time insights. Transformation Manager feeds your data science projects. We generate models and then give them to the clients, so they can come up with real-time predictions and recommendations in addition to reporting."
"It is a reliable solution."
"The solution has a free to use community version."
"Its drag-and-drop interface lets me and my team implement all the solutions that we need in our company very quickly. It's a very good tool for that."
"I find the drag and drop feature in Pentaho Data Integration very useful for integration."
"One of the most valuable features is the ability to create many API integrations. I'm always working with advertising agents and using Facebook and Instagram to do campaigns. We use Pentaho to get the results from these campaigns and to create dashboards to analyze the results."
"The solution offers features for data integration and migration. Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics allows the integration of multiple data sources into one. The product is user-friendly and intuitive to use for almost any business."
"It has a really friendly user interface, which is its main feature. The process of automating or combining SQL code with some databases and doing the automation is great and really convenient."
"We're using the PDI and the repository function, and they give us the ability to easily generate reporting and output, and to access data. We also like the ability to schedule."
"Provides a good open source option."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in the solution's visualization tool."
"Transformation Manager reporting could be better. There are better options for reporting tools these days. We use Microsoft BI sometimes, but Tableau is becoming too expensive. Microsoft BI's visualization features are maturing."
"They should build a functional architecture based on queuing."
"If you develop it on MacBook, it'll be quite a hassle."
"It could be better integrated with programming languages, like Python and R. Right now, if I want to run a Python code on one of my ETLs, it is a bit difficult to do. It would be great if we have some modules where we could code directly in a Python language. We don't really have a way to run Python code natively."
"​I could not connect to our Hadoop environment in an easy and flexible way, and it was important to scale our data warehouse​."
"Larger data jobs take more time to execute."
"I would like to see more improvements with AS400 DB2."
"The web interface is rusty, and the biggest problem with Pentaho is debugging and troubleshooting. It isn't easy to build the pipeline incrementally. At least in our case, it's hard to find a way to execute step by step in the debugging mode."
"Its basic functionality doesn't need a whole lot of change. There could be some improvement in the consistency of the behavior of different transformation steps. The software did start as open-source and a lot of the fundamental, everyday transformation steps that you use when building ETL jobs were developed by different people. It is not a seamless paradigm. A table input step has a different way of thinking than a data merge step."
"A big problem after deploying something that we do in Lumada is with Git. You get a binary file to do a code review. So, if you need to do a review, you have to take pictures of the screen to show each step. That is the biggest bug if you are using Git."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an expensive solution."
"We are using the Community Edition. We have been trying to use and sell the Enterprise version, but that hasn't been possible due to the budget required for it."
"Sometimes we provide the licenses or the customer can procure their own licenses. Previously, we had an enterprise license. Currently, we are on a community license as this is adequate for our needs."
"The solution reduced our ETL development time by a lot because a whole project used to take about a month to get done previously. After having Lumada, it took just a week. For a big company in Brazil, it saves a team at least $10,000 a month."
"We did a two or three-year deal the last time we did it. As compared to other solutions, at least so far in our experience, it has been very affordable. The licensing is by component. So, you need to make sure you only license the components that you really intend to use. I am not sure if we have relicensed after the Hitachi acquisition, but previously, multi-year renewals resulted in a good discount. I'm not sure if this is still the case. We've had the full suite for a lot of years, and there is just the initial cost. I am not aware of any additional costs."
"You don't need the Enterprise Edition, you can go with the Community Edition. That way you can use it for free and, for free, it's a pretty good tool to use."
"I primarily work on the Community Version, which is available to use free of charge."
"For most development tasks, the Enterprise edition should be sufficient. It depends on the type of support that you require for your production environment."
"If a company is looking for an ETL solution and wants to integrate it with their tech stack but doesn't want to spend a bunch of money, Pentaho is a good solution"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
28%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Healthcare Company
8%
Educational Organization
6%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ETL Solutions Transformation Manager?
ETL Solutions Transformation Manager is much more affordable than other solutions like AWS, Blue, or Informatica. Even though some competitors may offer seemingly economical pricing, the resource c...
What needs improvement with ETL Solutions Transformation Manager?
There is room for improvement in the solution's visualization tool. Currently, it provides basic reports and the ability to create graphs and dashboards, but I'm looking forward to more robust anal...
Which ETL tool would you recommend to populate data from OLTP to OLAP?
Hi Rajneesh, yes here is the feature comparison between the community and enterprise edition : https://www.hitachivantara.com/en-us/pdf/brochure/leverage-open-source-benefits-with-assurance-of-hita...
What do you think can be improved with Hitachi Lumada Data Integrations?
In my opinion, the reporting side of this tool needs serious improvements. In my previous company, we worked with Hitachi Lumada Data Integration and while it does a good job for what it’s worth, ...
What do you use Hitachi Lumada Data Integrations for most frequently?
My company has used this product to transform data from databases, CSV files, and flat files. It really does a good job. We were most satisfied with the results in terms of how many people could us...
 

Also Known As

Transformation Manager
Hitachi Lumada Data Integration, Kettle, Pentaho Data Integration
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Honda, BNP Paribas, RBS, JPMorgan, Volkswagen, Thorn Lighting, OpenSpirit, Rolls-Royce, Ulster Bank
66Controls, Providential Revenue Agency of Ro Negro, NOAA Information Systems, Swiss Real Estate Institute
Find out what your peers are saying about ETL Solutions Transformation Manager vs. Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
847,862 professionals have used our research since 2012.