The data integration feature is the most valuable feature for us.
CEO with 51-200 employees
Very capable suite of BI, reporting, and data mining tools with sophisticated functionality
Verdict:
This is a very capable suite of BI, reporting, and data mining tools with sophisticated functionality, and will address the needs of many organisations.
Pentaho BI Suite Community Edition (CE) includes ETL, OLAP, metadata, data mining, reporting and dashboards. This is a very broad capability and forms the basis for the commercial offering provided by Pentaho. A variety of open source solutions are brought together to deliver the functionality including Weka for data mining, Kettle for data integration, Mondrian for OLAP and several others to address reporting, BI, dashboards, OLAP analytics and big data.
The Pentaho BI platform provides the environment for building BI solutions and includes authentication, a rules engine and web services. It includes a solution engine that facilitates the integration of reporting, analysis, dashboards and data mining. Pentaho BI server supports web based report management, application integration and workflow.
The Pentaho Report Designer, Reporting Engine and Reporting SDK support the creation of relational and analytical reports with many output formats and data sources.
If you want a version with support, training and consulting, as well as a few more bells and whistles then Pentaho provide such services and product.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Researcher/Data Scientist at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
The data integration feature is the most valuable feature for us.
Valuable Features:
Improvements to My Organization:
We've used Pentaho since 2007 in many open source business intelligence projects.
Room for Improvement:
The dashboards and reports could use more improvement to show more data and to provide more analysis.
Use of Solution:
We've used it since 2007.
Deployment Issues:
We haven't had any issues with deployment.
Stability Issues:
We haven't had any issues with stability.
Scalability Issues:
We haven't had any issues with scalability.
Initial Setup:
It's straightforward and we haven't really encountered complexities in the initial setup that we can't handle.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Consultants
Buyer's Guide
Pentaho Business Analytics
October 2024
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Programmer Analyst at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
Pentaho BA server is supported by CDE (Common Dashboard Editor) to create a responsive Dashboard which can used in Mobile. Mobile Responsiveness of BA server should be improved.
Valuable Features:
Pentaho Business Analytics tool provides ETL. Easy creation of Analyser, interactive & attractive dashboards.
Pentaho BA server is supported by CDE (Common Dashboard Editor) to create responsive Dashboard which can used in Mobile.
Improvements to My Organization:
Organizing the data & representing data with Graphical view gives an insight on the data.
Room for Improvement:
Mobile Responsiveness of BA server should be improved.
Analyser and interactive Dashboard should be accessible via Dashboard.
Deployment Issues:
We've had no issues with deployment.
Stability Issues:
It's been stable for us.
Scalability Issues:
It scales without issues.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Senior Software Engineer - BI at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
With the help of the Data Analysis tool, decisions are very easy but Data Mining needs improvement
What is most valuable?
The ability to maintain historical data.
How has it helped my organization?
For decision purposes, it serves the information to managers to so they can make proper decisions using the data. With the help of the Data Analysis tool, decisions are very easy.
What needs improvement?
- Populating Cube
- Data Mining
For how long have I used the solution?
Four months.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
Yes we did.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
No issues encountered.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
No issues encountered.
How are customer service and technical support?
Customer Service:
9 out of 10.
Technical Support:7 out of 10.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
No previous solution used.
How was the initial setup?
It was complex to set-up.
What about the implementation team?
We implemented it through a vendor and I would rate them 9/10.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We also looked at Talend.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
CIO at a wellness & fitness company with 51-200 employees
The initial setup of the tool is very simple and the product is fairly simple.
What is most valuable?
- OLAP analysis (in CE edition JPivot)
- Dashboards (CDF + CDE)
How has it helped my organization?
With the launch of Pentaho the organization has aggregated information about the various functional areas and the ability to generate real-time analysis (OLAP) without the need of IT.
For how long have I used the solution?
It's in production since 2010
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
None encountered.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's fairly stable.
How are customer service and technical support?
Customer Service:
I use the CE without support.
Technical Support:I use the CE without support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Yes. I changed because of costs.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of the tool is very simple. In the last version we have a marketplace for installing new features in the product.
What about the implementation team?
In-House.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The cost of initial setup was only for the hours and technical expertise (internal development).
What other advice do I have?
A very important aspect of performance is the choice of the database to house the data warehouse. I recommend investing time in deciding the engine and architecture. We recommend using oriented columns engines.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Database Analyst at a government with 51-200 employees
Working on poverty alleviation in Indonesia, this tool has improved the ability of policy makers to make good decisions.
How has it helped my organization?
I'm working on poverty alleviation in Indonesia; this tool has improved the ability to make good decisions for policy makers.
For how long have I used the solution?
3 years.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
Sometimes I had problems, but the problems could be settled within a brief amount of time.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
No issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
No issues with scalability.
How are customer service and technical support?
This is an open source application and gets the full support of the community.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
No, when i joined the office I immediately began using Pentaho.
How was the initial setup?
Yes, for the initial setup we had to understand database and some script xml.
What about the implementation team?
We implemented with internal office team.
What was our ROI?
Government Project, so did not do ROI for this, just KPI.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Yes, we compared with other apps with almost the same features as this application, but I was wholeheartedly with Pentaho because its free and fulfills our needs.
What other advice do I have?
Use this product and feel how the application can change your company's decision-making policy.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Data Warehouse Specialist at a educational organization with 501-1,000 employees
More built-in features could improve the solution, but everything related to ETL is valuable.
What is most valuable?
Everything related to ETL.
How has it helped my organization?
It has provided the ability to successfully integrate many different systems into one big data warehouse.
What needs improvement?
More built-in features, better version control integration, online tutorials.
For how long have I used the solution?
4 years.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
No problems.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Yes, sometimes the subprocesses keep running even though the main process is stopped.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
No.
How are customer service and technical support?
Customer Service:
Good.
Technical Support:Less than average.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
No.
How was the initial setup?
Straightforward.
What about the implementation team?
In-house.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Initial cost was $16K for licensing, not sure after that.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Yes, Informatica.
What other advice do I have?
Go for it.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
IT Consultant at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Creating your own plugin is very easy with Pentaho
Valuable Features
I really like Pentaho Data Integration, an ETL tool that makes your Extract, Transform and Load process easy, with rich functionality and nice design tools. And, for some reason creating your own plugin is very easy.
Use of Solution
I have been use this product for about 3 years.
Deployment Issues
No, I did not encounter any issues with deployment so far, deployment process very straight forward.
Stability Issues
No, I didn't. For each release Pentaho has good stability
Scalability Issues
I haven't explored much on scalability, but they have scalabity capability.
Customer Service and Technical Support
For most of the time, I usually use Pentaho forums and the response from the Pentaho community is very good.
Initial Setup
The set-up is very easy. For full installation, Pentaho provides a binary package with an installation wizard. Or alternatively, you can just download and extract file, then just work through it.
Other Solutions Considered
If you are looking for complete tools and easy to customize for your business intelligence solution, I would reccommend this product.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Updated: October 2024
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I also built warehouses on Windows and on Ubuntu, but from my point of view the warehouse built on Windows worked better. I will always advise developers to use Pentaho on Windows, but I respect your opinion.