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Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics vs SAS Data Integration Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

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 Data Integration an...
Ranking in Data Integration
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAS Data Integration Server
Ranking in Data Integration
39th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics is 1.5%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAS Data Integration Server is 0.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Integration Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics1.5%
SAS Data Integration Server0.8%
Other97.7%
Data Integration
 

Featured Reviews

Michelle Lawson - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Streamlines complex data workflows and has supported automated customer payment notifications
I haven't used Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics in a couple of years, so I don't know how it can be improved. I was pretty pleased with it and was self-taught on it, working a lot with their team at various times, but they were surprised that I was able to learn it all by myself. The documentation is not bad, and documentation is the main thing that any product can do to make themselves better because the easier it is to find examples of what you're trying to do improves the learning curve. I think it took me the longest to learn how to do the asynchronous processing and have things wait for other things to finish processing before continuing on in the workflow. I choose 8 out of 10 because the one reason that it's been rejected at T-Mobile is that everything has to go through a provisioning process and has to get approved, meaning the actual code base has to be investigated by T-Mobile before they'll allow us to use tools of that nature. For whatever reason, we just haven't been able to get that approval; I don't know if it's on Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics' side or if it's on our side. The more you can make it easier for companies to feel comfortable that your product is secure, robustly tested and bug-free, and free of any other kind of negative hacks, the more quickly it will get accepted.
NN
Works at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Offloads processes on the server side but needs better installation syntax
One area for improvement is the installation process. Another point could be the syntax, as it sometimes involves using syntax names that are not intuitive. For example, to calculate the difference between two dates, the general syntax in SAS is called the data difference or data net function. However, another name is used, such as NF and INK. Without knowledge of SAS programming, it becomes unclear what these functions mean. It is not good to define function names this way.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution has a free to use community version."
"Its drag-and-drop interface lets me and my team implement all the solutions that we need in our company very quickly. It's a very good tool for that."
"The graphical nature of the development interface is most useful because we've got people with quite mixed skills in the team. We've got some very junior, apprentice-level people, and we've got support analysts who don't have an IT background. It allows us to have quite complicated data flows and embed logic in them. Rather than having to troll through lines and lines of code and try and work out what it's doing, you get a visual representation, which makes it quite easy for people with mixed skills to support and maintain the product. That's one side of it."
"Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics is a great solution to accomplish big things in a very short time."
"I find the drag and drop feature in Pentaho Data Integration very useful for integration."
"Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics has positively impacted my organization because it meant we didn't have to write a lot of custom API back-end processing logic; it did the majority of that heavy lifting for us."
"Since we started using Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics, many of our manual tasks have become automatic, and we have increased our time for productive things."
"It has improved our data integration capabilities​."
"A key feature allows us to enhance job performance by offloading processing to the server side, rather than processing on the server itself."
"A key feature allows us to enhance job performance by offloading processing to the server side, rather than processing on the server itself."
"A key feature allows us to enhance job performance by offloading processing to the server side, rather than processing on the server itself."
"The solution offers very good data manipulation and loading."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its amazing capabilities in regard to data handling."
"The solution is very stable."
 

Cons

"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."
"The performance could be improved. If they could have analytics perform well on large volumes, that would be a big deal for our products."
"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 have been facing some difficulties when working with large datasets. It seems that when there is a large amount of data, I experience memory errors."
"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."
"Communicating with the vendor is challenging, and this hinders its performance in free tool setups."
"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..."
"As far as I remember, not all connectors worked very well. They can add more connectors and more drivers to the process to integrate with more flows."
"The initial setup of SAS Data Integration Server was complex."
"The initial setup had issues, and even after using it for about one year, it was still not fixed."
"The transform tool has limited access. They should make it more flexible."
"One area for improvement is the installation process."
"The initial setup had issues, and even after using it for about one year, it was still not fixed."
"So I would like to see improved integration with other software."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For most development tasks, the Enterprise edition should be sufficient. It depends on the type of support that you require for your production environment."
"The pricing has been pretty good. I'm used to using everything open-source or freeware-based. I understand that organizations need to make sure that the solutions are secure, and that's basically where I hit a roadblock in my current organization. They needed to ensure that we had a license and we had a secure way of accessing it so that no outside parties could get access to our data, but in terms of pricing, considering how much other teams are spending on cloud solutions or even their existing solutions, its price point is pretty good. At this time, there are no additional costs. We just have the licensing fees."
"The price of the regular version is not reasonable and it should be lower."
"Sometimes we provide the licenses or the customer can procure their own licenses. Previously, we had an enterprise license. Currently, we are on a community license as this is adequate for our needs."
"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."
"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"
"I believe the pricing of the solution is more affordable than the competitors"
"It is an expensive program."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Educational Organization
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise30
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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, ...
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...
What needs improvement with SAS Data Integration Server?
One area for improvement is the installation process. Another point could be the syntax, as it sometimes involves using syntax names that are not intuitive. For example, to calculate the difference...
What is your primary use case for SAS Data Integration Server?
I am involved in the ETR job. My role is focused on executing the ETR job.
What advice do you have for others considering SAS Data Integration Server?
I use it without further details. For example, if I use SAS to connect to a NetEazt database or purchase a shared asset to ODBC, I can connect to any database with ODBC connection support. The over...
 

Also Known As

Hitachi Lumada Data Integration, Kettle, Pentaho Data Integration
SAS Enterprise Data Integration Server, Enterprise Data Integration Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

66Controls, Providential Revenue Agency of Ro Negro, NOAA Information Systems, Swiss Real Estate Institute
Credit Guarantee Corporation, Cr_dito y Cauci‹n, Delaware State Police, Deutsche Lufthansa, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, DSM, Livzon Pharmaceutical Group, Los Angeles County, Miami Herald Media Company, Netherlands Enterprise Agency, New Zealand Ministry of Health, Nippon Paper, West Midlands Police, XS Inc., Zenith Insurance
Find out what your peers are saying about Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics vs. SAS Data Integration Server and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
882,103 professionals have used our research since 2012.