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MicroStrategy vs Pentaho Business Analytics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.7
MicroStrategy boosts business efficiency with robust features, reducing development time and costs, enhancing reporting and accelerating market readiness.
Sentiment score
5.9
Pentaho Business Analytics enhanced efficiency and output but faced ROI calculation challenges compared to alternatives like QlikView and Tableau.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.1
MicroStrategy's customer service is generally well-regarded, but satisfaction varies due to mixed technical support and regional differences.
Sentiment score
6.8
Pentaho receives mixed feedback on support, with strong community engagement but varying customer service and documentation quality.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
MicroStrategy is scalable and handles large data, but performance may depend on architecture and associated costs.
Sentiment score
7.2
Pentaho scales well and fits organizational needs but may require admin expertise for complex environments and large data.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
MicroStrategy is generally stable and reliable, with recent updates improving issues; infrastructure setup can affect stability.
Sentiment score
6.6
Pentaho Business Analytics is generally stable but has occasional Java caching, RAM, and subprocess issues with large databases.
 

Room For Improvement

MicroStrategy needs better dashboards, simpler tools, improved support, flexible layouts, easier customization, and cost-effective options.
Pentaho needs user interface, reporting, and visualization enhancements, along with better debugging, metadata management, and cost-effective licensing.
MicroStrategy could learn from Power BI's user-friendly interface.
Pentaho Business Analytics is hard to learn and not suited for initial users as it requires knowledge of operating systems, Java, and other technical skills.
 

Setup Cost

MicroStrategy's high upfront costs offer licensing flexibility; evaluate needs, negotiate discounts, and explore cost-saving for better scalability.
Pentaho's Community Edition is cost-free, while the Enterprise Edition, offering enhanced features, can cost up to $250,000 annually.
Pentaho Business Analytics is priced similarly to other competitors such as QlikView and Tableau.
 

Valuable Features

MicroStrategy provides scalable BI solutions with advanced features including mobile BI, data visualization, robust security, and performance.
Pentaho Business Analytics offers powerful ETL, user-friendly interface, customizable dashboards, and cost-saving, open-source analytics and reporting features.
The MicroStrategy interface is not as good as Power BI, especially concerning the user-friendly aspects.
It is a stable product, and it can handle large datasets.
 

Categories and Ranking

MicroStrategy
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
160
Ranking in other categories
Embedded BI (4th)
Pentaho Business Analytics
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
20th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Operations Analytics (4th), Reporting (16th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of MicroStrategy is 3.2%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pentaho Business Analytics is 0.5%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

AJIN S L - PeerSpot reviewer
Experience has shown effective features for analysis, but needs interface improvements
The most effective features of MicroStrategy for data analysis are those that cater to user needs. However, I find Power BI to be more useful when comparing some features, but my company does not choose Power BI due to certain code restrictions. The MicroStrategy interface is not as good as Power BI, especially concerning the user-friendly aspects.
Sayan König - PeerSpot reviewer
Flexible, easy to understand, and simple to set up
The repository should be improved. There should be the possibility to have versioning, to make it combinable with some Git repositories or something like that, to check out the processes and make sure it has a traceable history. The solution could really be improved. There are too many bugs in our version.
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Comparison Review

it_user6978 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 10, 2013
Jaspersoft vs. Pentaho – Which one to use & is there any need to purchase the commercial edition
Any company (be it technology, manfucaturing, human resource, ecommerce, SME etc) always has the need for Business Intelligence to some or the other extent. If cost is one of the consideration factor, then the 2 BI tools which are at the forefront are Pentaho and Jaspersoft. But, often the same…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
11%
Retailer
8%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
13%
Educational Organization
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about MicroStrategy?
The stability of the product is good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MicroStrategy?
For larger businesses, I think the pricing is logical, but for smaller companies, it can be a bit costly.
What needs improvement with MicroStrategy?
MicroStrategy could learn from Power BI's user-friendly interface. I find the user interface lacking when compared to Power BI. Additionally, their hyperintelligence could be improved in certain as...
Seeking lightweight open source BI software
There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I would recommend as follows: 1) If you have legacies of SAP, Oracle - look for SAP...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pentaho Business Analytics?
For those starting to use this tool, there is a free version available which is beneficial. The company also finds the pricing to be good.
What needs improvement with Pentaho Business Analytics?
The tool is very good, and yet it has some problems as it relies heavily on Java. The platform works with Java, and it has brought some issues to the company.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Pentaho, Kettle, Hitachi Pentaho Business Analytics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Allstate Insurance, Barneys New York, Boston Children's Hospital, Buenos Aires Department of the Treasury, Campbell Soup Company, DHL, eBay, eHarmony, Facebook, Four Seasons Hotels Inc., Godiva, Hard Rock International, LinkedIn, Netflix, Pfizer, SECO (Swiss Government Unemployment Agency), Starbucks, Texas A&M University, Thomson Reuters Markets, US House of Representatives, and the US Postal Service.
Cargo 2000 Lufthansa, Marketo, ModCloth, Cardiac Science, Telefonica, ExactTarget, Active Broadband Networks, and Brussels Airport.
Find out what your peers are saying about MicroStrategy vs. Pentaho Business Analytics and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.