FME vs Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics comparison

Safe Software and Hitachi Vantara are both solutions in the Data Integration category. Safe Software is ranked #23 with an average rating of 8.5, while Hitachi Vantara is ranked #19 with an average rating of 7.7. Safe Software holds a 1.9% mindshare in DI, compared to Hitachi Vantara’s 1.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Safe Software users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Hitachi Vantara users who would recommend it.

FME

Read 6 FME reviews

2,342 Views
1,618 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Pentaho Data Integration an...

Read 53 Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics reviews

1,983 Views
1,021 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

FME

Pentaho Data Integration an...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Pentaho Data Integration and FME compete in data integration and transformation categories. Pentaho generally has an advantage with its pricing and customer support, while FME's feature set aligns with its premium pricing.

Features: Pentaho provides capabilities like data blending, reporting, and OLAP services, making it suitable for comprehensive data analytics. FME excels in spatial data processing, providing robust integration with geographic formats.

Room for Improvement: Pentaho could benefit from enhancing its spatial data handling capabilities, expanding its free version features, and improving its UI for more intuitive use. FME might improve by offering more flexible pricing options, simplifying its learning curve for non-technical users, and expanding its customer service options beyond self-support.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Pentaho features a flexible deployment that integrates easily with existing systems and offers supportive customer service for troubleshooting. FME's deployment is streamlined, particularly for geographic systems, but leans on self-service support.

Pricing and ROI: Pentaho is more affordable, offering strong ROI for extensive data integration on a budget, appealing to small to medium enterprises with cost-effective licensing. FME, despite its higher cost, delivers substantial ROI for industries with complex spatial data needs, justifying its premium through advanced features and integration options.

To learn more, read our detailed FME vs. Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics Report (Updated: May 2025).

Buyer's Guide

FME vs. Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics

May 2025

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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

FME

Ranking in Data Integration

23rd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Pentaho Data Integration an...

Ranking in Data Integration

19th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of FME is 1.9%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics is 1.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Integration

Featured Reviews

Alan Bloor

Geographic Information System Developer at Public Sector

Great for handling large volumes of data, but it is priced a bit high

When I do coding, I think about every single function. Some of these functions can be very elementary, like doing a substring or some capitalization. But FME removes all that coding because it's a transformer, so the time to develop an application to get to a point where you're producing results is decreased massively. It used to take weeks and months to develop software, and now I can use something like FME, and within one day, we get results. We can look at and validate data. We make minor subtle changes to the workbenches to improve it. We can share the workbenches. We don't have to use GitHub or anything else.

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Aqeel UR Rehman

BI Analyst at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

Transform data efficiently with rich features but there's challenges with large datasets

Currently, I am using Pentaho Data Integration for transforming data and then loading it into different platforms. Sometimes, I use it in conjunction with AWS, particularly S3 and Redshift, to execute the copy command for data processing Pentaho Data Integration is easy to use, especially when…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has a very friendly user interface. You don't need to use a lot of code. For us that's the most important aspect about it. Also, it has a lot of connectors and few forms. It has a strong facial aspect. It can do a lot of facial analysis."

"All spatial features are unrivaled, and the possibility to execute them based on a scheduled trigger, manual, e-mail, Websocket, tweet, file/directory change or virtually any trigger is most valuable."

"FME is spatially aware and understands how to deal with the conversion of spatial objects and their attributes."

"We make minor subtle changes to the workbenches to improve it. We can share the workbenches. We don't have to use GitHub or anything else."

"It has standard plug-ins available for different data sources."

"The most valuable feature of FME is the graphical user interface. There is nothing better. It is very easy to debug because you can see all steps where there are failures. Overall the software is easy to optimize a process."

"I find the drag and drop feature in Pentaho Data Integration very useful for integration."

"I absolutely love Hitachi. I'm one of the forefront supporters of Hitachi for my firm. It's so easy to integrate within our environments. In terms of being able to quickly build ETL jobs, transform, and then automate them, it's really easy to integrate throughout for data analytics."

"It's my understanding that the product can scale."

"Data transformation within Pentaho is a nice feature that they have and that I value."

"The amount of data that it loads and processes is good."

"The product is user-friendly and intuitive"

"The fact that it's a low-code solution is valuable. It's good for more junior people who may not be as experienced with programming."

"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."

More Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics pros

Cons

"Improvements could be made to mapping presentations."

"FME can improve the geographical transformation. I've had some problems with the geographical transformations, but it's probably mostly because I'm not the most skilled geographer in-house. The solution requires some in-depth knowledge to perform some functions."

"The one thing that always appears in the community is the ability to make really easy loops to loop through data efficiently. That needs to be added at some point."

"We are looking at the possibility of using Glue instead of FME, using the native AWS product."

"To get a higher rating, it would have to improve the price and the associated scalability. These are the main issues."

"FME's price needs improvement for the African market."

"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."

"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."

"I'm still in the very recent stage concerning Pentaho Data Integration, but it can't really handle what I describe as "extreme data processing" i.e. when there is a huge amount of data to process. That is one area where Pentaho is still lacking."

"Should provide additional control for the data warehouse"

"Parallel execution could be better in Pentaho. It's very simple but I don't think it works well."

"Since Hitachi took over, I don't feel that the documentation is as good within the solution. It used to have very good help built right in."

"If you develop it on MacBook, it'll be quite a hassle."

"The product needs more plugins."

More Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"FME Server used to cost £10,000; now it can cost over £100,000."

"We used the standard licensing for our use of FME. The cost was approximately €15,000 annually. We always welcome less expensive solutions, if the solution could be less expensive it would be helpful."

"The product's price is reasonable."

"I think Lumada's price is fair compared to some of the others, like BusinessObjects, which is was the other thing that I used at my previous job. BusinessObject's price was more reasonable before SAP acquired it. They jacked the price up significantly. Oracle's OBIEE tool was also prohibitively expensive."

"The cost of these types of solutions are expensive. So, we really appreciate what we get for our money. Though, we don't think of the solution as a top-of-the-line solution or anything like that."

"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."

"The price of the regular version is not reasonable and it should be lower."

"There was a cost analysis done and Pentaho did favorably in terms of cost."

"It does seem a bit expensive compared to the serverless product offering. Tools, such as Server Integration Services, are "almost" free with a database engine. It is comparable to products like Alteryx, which is also very expensive."

"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."

"When we first started with it, it was much cheaper. It has gone up drastically, especially since Hitachi bought out Pentaho."

More Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Government

30%

Energy/Utilities Company

13%

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about FME?

We make minor subtle changes to the workbenches to improve it. We can share the workbenches. We don't have to use GitHub or anything else.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FME?

The pricing is really bad. Last year, they rebranded the whole pricing structure. It used to be moderately priced at about £400 per user per year. Now they've changed the whole thing, and it's expe...

See all answers

What needs improvement with FME?

The one thing that always appears in the community is the ability to make really easy loops to loop through data efficiently. That needs to be added at some point. There must be a technical or comm...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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, ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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Compared 11% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

FME

June 2025

Download FME product report

Buyer's Guide

Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics

June 2025

Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics report

Download Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics product report

Also Known As

No data available

Hitachi Lumada Data Integration, Kettle, Pentaho Data Integration

Overview

FME is the data integration platform with the best support for spatial data. Run workflows on the desktop or deploy them in a server or cloud environment.

Safe Software

Pentaho Data Integration stands as a versatile platform designed to cater to the data integration and analytics needs of organizations, regardless of their size. This powerful solution is the go-to choice for businesses seeking to seamlessly integrate data from diverse sources, including databases, files, and applications. Pentaho Data Integration facilitates the essential tasks of cleaning and transforming data, ensuring it's primed for meaningful analysis. With a wide array of tools for data mining, machine learning, and statistical analysis, Pentaho Data Integration empowers organizations to glean valuable insights from their data. What sets Pentaho Data Integration apart is its maturity and a vibrant community of users and developers, making it a reliable and cost-effective option. Pentaho Data Integration offers a range of features, including a comprehensive ETL toolkit, data cleaning and transformation capabilities, robust data analysis tools, and seamless deployment options for data integration and analytics solutions, making it a go-to solution for organizations seeking to harness the power of their data.

Hitachi Vantara

Sample Customers

Shell, US Department of Commerce, PG&E, BC Hydro, City of Vancouver, Enel, Iowa DoT, San Antonio Water System

66Controls, Providential Revenue Agency of Ro Negro, NOAA Information Systems, Swiss Real Estate Institute

Buyer's Guide

FME vs. Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics

May 2025

Free Report: FME vs. Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics

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