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Pentaho Business Analytics vs Sigma 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

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)
Sigma
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
17th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.5
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Pentaho Business Analytics is 0.5%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sigma is 1.2%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Russell Rothstein - PeerSpot reviewer
Modern dashboards and reports enhance decision-making and presentations
I would love to be able to create my own reports in Sigma, as I can do in Salesforce. Either we are not using it properly, or the software is too complicated. It would be great if there was a way for me to create reports without relying on a data analyst. I'm interested in the upcoming AI co-pilot to enable natural language generation of visualizations and reports. Also, the marketing materials did not match what I feel we've received. Regarding pricing, Sigma's pricing doesn't allow more people to have the ability to create their own reports. We have very few admin or report creator licenses, while everyone else is on a view-only mode.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The interface of Pentaho Business Analytics is easy to use and does not require high-level skills to operate the tool."
"We were able to install it without any assistance from tech support."
"Easy to use components to create the job."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"Pentaho is an analytics platform that can be used when an organization has a lot of big data storage systems already installed and needs to manage and analyze that data. It has a specific use case for unstructured data, such as documents, and needs to be able to search and analyze it."
"Pentaho Business Analytics' best features include the ease of developing data flows and the wide range of options to connect to databases, including those on the cloud."
"It is robust, offers market intelligence, and utilizes modules effectively."
"The most valuable feature of Pentaho is the Tableau report."
"Sigma is a great software for non-technical business users. If someone's familiar with pivot tables or Excel or Google Sheets, they should be able to pick up Sigma pretty quickly. There is a very low bar for onboarding."
"I find the collaborative features, such as commenting, to be very valuable."
"The most valuable feature of Sigma is the detailed reports."
"Sigma serves as the visualization and reporting front end."
"The tool's interface is easy to use. The functions listed as a part of the menu items are easy to use."
"The most valuable feature of Sigma is the detailed reports."
"The most valuable aspect for me is having real-time data."
 

Cons

"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."
"Another concern is that Pentaho is not customizable or interactive."
"Pentaho, at the general level, should greatly improve the easy construction of its dashboards and easy integration of information from different sources without technical user intervention."
"The repository should be improved."
"Version control would be a good addition."
"Deployment is not simple. It is not simple because we are dealing with a lot of data; we are dealing with a lot of storage. So, it's not a simple process."
"Logging capability is needed."
"The tool is very good, and yet it has some problems as it relies heavily on Java."
"I would like to see better visualization options. That would allow me to build out more visually pleasing dashboarding in Sigma."
"Either we are not using it properly, or the software is too complicated. It would be great if there was a way for me to create reports without relying on a data analyst."
"Sigma lacks a versioning feature to track changes. There is a need for better structuring, like a folder system, to organize diagrams efficiently."
"The only minor area for improvement lies in handling highly complex visualizations."
"The product's roadmap regarding introducing new features in the solution or new versions of the tool can be made better in the future."
"Sigma could have better reports."
"Sigma could have better reports."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We were lucky enough to find a Pentaho OEM partner who offered a data warehouse model and the ETL software for about 60K SGD per year."
"Free and commercial versions are available."
"Pentaho is expensive ."
"The retail price is set at one thousand dollars per creator per year."
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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
24%
Computer Software Company
13%
Educational Organization
7%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Healthcare Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What do you like most about Sigma?
The tool's interface is easy to use. The functions listed as a part of the menu items are easy to use.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sigma?
The pricing of Sigma is a concern, as it restricts our ability to provide more users with report-creating capabilities due to the high cost of admin or report creator licenses. Most users have view...
What needs improvement with Sigma?
I would love to be able to create my own reports in Sigma, as I can do in Salesforce. Either we are not using it properly, or the software is too complicated. It would be great if there was a way f...
 

Also Known As

Pentaho, Kettle, Hitachi Pentaho Business Analytics
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cargo 2000 Lufthansa, Marketo, ModCloth, Cardiac Science, Telefonica, ExactTarget, Active Broadband Networks, and Brussels Airport.
Snowflake, Fivetran ,Autodesk, Flowspace, Super League Gaming, Zumper, Clover, Volta, Olivela
Find out what your peers are saying about Pentaho Business Analytics vs. Sigma and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
846,617 professionals have used our research since 2012.