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 #22 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

2,884 Views
2,250 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Pentaho Data Integration an...

Read 53 Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics reviews

2,542 Views
1,932 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: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

FME vs. Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics

July 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

22nd

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 July 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 0.8% 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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

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

"Pentaho Data Integration is easy to use, especially when transforming data."

"Flexible deployment, in any environment, is very important to us. That is the key reason why we ended up with these tools. Because we have a very highly secure environment, we must be able to install it in multiple environments on multiple different servers. The fact that we could use the same tool in all our environments, on-prem and in the cloud, was very important to us."

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

"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."

"The abstraction is quite good."

"One of the valuable features is the ability to use PL/SQL statements inside the data transformations and jobs."

"We can schedule job execution in the BA Server, which is the front-end product we're using right now. That scheduling interface is nice."

More Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics pros

Cons

"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."

"Improvements could be made to mapping presentations."

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

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

"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."

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

"It could be better integrated with programming languages, like Python and R. Right now, if I want to run a Python code on one of my ETLs, it is a bit difficult to do. It would be great if we have some modules where we could code directly in a Python language. We don't really have a way to run Python code natively."

"I would like to see improvement when it comes to integrating structured data with text data or anything that is unstructured. Sometimes we get all kinds of different files that we need to integrate into the warehouse."

"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."

"In terms of the flexibility to deploy in any environment, such as on-premise or in the cloud, we can do the cloud deployment only through virtual machines. We might also be able to work on different environments through Docker or Kubernetes, but we don't have an Azure app or an AWS app for easy deployment to the cloud. We can only do it through virtual machines, which is a problem, but we can manage it. We also work with Databricks because it works with Spark. We can work with clustered servers, and we can easily do the deployment in the cloud. With a right-click, we can deploy Databricks through the app on AWS or Azure cloud."

"I experience difficulties when handling millions of rows, as the data movement from one source to another becomes challenging."

"The testing and quality could really improve. Every time that there is a major release, we are very nervous about what is going to get broken. We have had a lot of experience with that, as even the latest one was broken. Some basic things get broken. That doesn't look good for Hitachi at all. If there is one place I would advise them to spend some money and do some effort, it is with the quality. It is not that hard to start putting in some unit tests so basic things don't get broken when they do a new release. That just looks horrible, especially for an organization like Hitachi."

"I was not happy with the Pentaho Report Designer because of the way it was set up. There was a zone and, under it, another zone, and under that another one, and under that another one. There were a lot of levels and places inside the report, and it was a little bit complicated. You have to search all these different places using a mouse, clicking everywhere... each report is coded in a binary file... You cannot search with a text search tool..."

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

More Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's price is reasonable."

"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."

"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."

"If a company is looking for an ETL solution and wants to integrate it with their tech stack but doesn't want to spend a bunch of money, Pentaho is a good solution"

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

"The solution reduced our ETL development time by a lot because a whole project used to take about a month to get done previously. After having Lumada, it took just a week. For a big company in Brazil, it saves a team at least $10,000 a month."

"I primarily work on the Community Version, which is available to use free of charge."

"There is a good open source option (Community Edition)."

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

"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."

More Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Government

31%

Energy/Utilities Company

13%

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

12%

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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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

FME

July 2025

Download FME product report

Buyer's Guide

Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics

July 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

July 2025

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