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PeerSpot user
Founder and Business Intelligence Consultant at Know Solutions
Consultant
It helps me to create new BI environments for my customers.

What is most valuable?

  • Business analytics
  • CDE
  • Flexible dashboard development
  • Cube

How has it helped my organization?

I use Pentaho everyday in my company, creating new BI environments for my customers.

What needs improvement?

The ad-hoc reporting needs to be improved.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

There were no deployment issues.

Buyer's Guide
Pentaho Business Analytics
January 2025
Learn what your peers think about Pentaho Business Analytics. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

There have been no issues with the stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There have been no issues with the scalability.

How are customer service and support?

I've never had to use technical support.

How was the initial setup?

It was easy, and only took a few minutes.

What other advice do I have?

You should always check the community version first as it may be better for you.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user6855 - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO with 51-200 employees
Vendor
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.
PeerSpot user
it_user4401 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user4401Developer at a transportation company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor

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.

See all 3 comments
Buyer's Guide
Pentaho Business Analytics
January 2025
Learn what your peers think about Pentaho Business Analytics. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.
PeerSpot user
Researcher/Data Scientist at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
The data integration feature is the most valuable feature for us.

Valuable Features:

The data integration feature is the most valuable feature for us.

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
PeerSpot user
it_user326337 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user326337Customer Success Manager at PeerSpot
Real User

What do Pentaho's data integration features involve that other solutions lack?

See all 2 comments
PeerSpot user
Engineer at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Vendor
It’s user-friendly when using it for a small dataset.

Valuable Features

My company embeds the following features into our product -

  • BI server
  • Analyzer report
  • Interactive report
  • Dashboard

Improvements to My Organization

We can demonstrate a better report UI and vivid experience for our customers.

Room for Improvement

The OEM license pricing is quite expensive. Enhance the authentication and authorization part.

Use of Solution

We've been using the BA Server Enterprise Edition for three years.

Deployment Issues

Most of our customers have a complex authentication environment. Our customers found it difficult to configure flexibly.

Stability Issues

There were no issues with the stability.

Scalability Issues

We have had no issues scaling it.

Customer Service and Technical Support

Customer Service:

7/10

Technical Support:

7/10

Initial Setup

It's kind of complex if user wants to implement LDAP authentication, such as defining the scope and filters.

Implementation Team

We implement it ourselves and then embedded it into our product. It’s not easy to separate the different components one needs.

Pricing, Setup Cost and Licensing

I don't know much, but I have heard that the price is too high.

Other Solutions Considered

We are looking for a different solution but have not determined one yet.

Other Advice

It’s a comprehensive BA tool including ETL and reporting. It’s easy to use with a small dataset, but you will need to dig deep to optimize the performance when the data set is huge.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We're an OEM partner
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Senior Software Engineer at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
CDE dashboards are valuable. It's not flexible for an enterprise database.

Valuable Features

  • Spoon
  • Schema work bench
  • CDE dashboards
  • Client budget

Improvements to My Organization

  • License cost has come down
  • Easy maintenance

Room for Improvement

It's not flexible for an enterprise database.

Use of Solution

I've used it for four and a half years.

Deployment Issues

Deployment is easy but upgrading is an issue.

Stability Issues

There are no issues with the stability.

Scalability Issues

There have been no issues with scaling it.

Customer Service and Technical Support

Customer Service:

7/10

Technical Support:

7/10

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Programmer Analyst at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Big Data plugins and connectors are available by default.

Valuable Features:

We use both DataStage and Pentaho, but I don't see any special features in Pentaho that is not available in DataStage, except Big Data plugins and connectors. These are default in Pentaho, and for those who have expertise in Java and Java script can write their custom code or enhance and call from Pentaho's code.

Improvements to My Organization:

When we wanted pursue this tool, the major factor was the amount of money we could save. Other than that, there is no special use cases for using this product as it was not that matured when we started using it in 2012 when compared to other ETL tools. 

Room for Improvement:

It's still not user friendly or robust enough for our needs.

Deployment Issues:

There were issues with the deployment.

Stability Issues:

There have been stability issues.

Scalability Issues:

We've had issues scaling it for what we need.

Other Advice:

Since there are very few skilled people available on the market, we had to risk the project. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Programmer Analyst at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
Vendor
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.
PeerSpot user
it_user175566 - PeerSpot reviewer
CIO at a wellness & fitness company with 51-200 employees
Vendor
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.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Pentaho Business Analytics Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: January 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Pentaho Business Analytics Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.