IBM Cloud Pak for Data vs Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics comparison

IBM and Hitachi Vantara are both solutions in the Data Integration category. IBM is ranked #24 with an average rating of 7.7, while Hitachi Vantara is ranked #18 with an average rating of 7.7. IBM holds a 2.0% mindshare in DI, compared to Hitachi Vantara’s 1.8% mindshare. Additionally, 86% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Hitachi Vantara users who would recommend it.

IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Read 13 IBM Cloud Pak for Data reviews

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2,208 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

Pentaho Data Integration an...

Read 53 Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics reviews

2,444 Views
1,857 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Pentaho Data Integration an...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics and IBM Cloud Pak for Data compete in the data integration and analytics sector. Pentaho is particularly noted for its speed and adaptability, while IBM stands out for its comprehensive capabilities and AI-driven insights. Pentaho seems to have the upper hand due to its cost-effectiveness and adaptability.

Features: Pentaho Data Integration offers an intuitive system that easily integrates with various data sources, excellent data transformation features, and a customizable interface. It facilitates rapid development and effective visualization of diverse data formats. IBM Cloud Pak for Data provides robust data preparation, integration, and governance features along with the versatility of the Watson suite for AI insights, making it suitable for large enterprises seeking comprehensive solutions.

Room for Improvement: Pentaho could improve performance in real-time processing, debugging feedback, and version compatibility. It lacks native support for some modern databases and big data platforms. IBM could benefit from simplified deployment options, more connectors, improved interface responsiveness, and reduced complexity and cost to be more appealing to smaller organizations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Pentaho Data Integration excels in on-premises and hybrid cloud deployments, supported by an active community and online resources, though official support can be slow. IBM Cloud Pak for Data is strong in public and hybrid cloud settings, with robust technical support, but users often find deployment complex. User satisfaction on support responsiveness varies between the products.

Pricing and ROI: Pentaho offers a free Community Edition and an affordable Enterprise Edition, providing significant value and reducing entry barriers for ETL development. Its open-source nature allows for notable savings. IBM Cloud Pak for Data, while offering advanced features, is seen as expensive and geared towards larger enterprises with substantial budgets.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Cloud Pak for Data vs. Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cloud Pak for Data 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

IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Ranking in Data Integration

24th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Virtualization (3rd)

Pentaho Data Integration an...

Ranking in Data Integration

18th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of IBM Cloud Pak for Data is 2.0%, up from 1.7% 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

Michelle Leslie

Data asset management engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

Starts strong with data management capabilities but needs a demo database

What I would love to see is an end-to-end, almost a training demo database of some sort, where one of the biggest problems with data management is demonstrated. There are so many components to data management, and more often than not, people understand one thing really well. They may understand DataStage and how to move data around, but they do not see the impact of moving data incorrectly. They also do not see the impact of everyone understanding a piece of data in the same way. I would love Cloud Pak to come with a demo database that illustrates the different components of data management in a logical way, so I can see the whole picture instead of just the area I'm specializing in. It would be great if Cloud Pak, from a data modeling point of view, allowed us to import our PDMs, for example. It would be ideal to import and create business terms in Cloud Pak. The PEA would be great to create the technical data. The association between the business and the technical metadata could then be automated by pulling it through from your ACE models. The data modeling component is available in Cloud Pak. Additionally, when it comes to Cloud Pak, even though it has the NextGen DataStage built into it, there is Cloud Pak for data integration as well. Currently, I do not think we have a full enough understanding of how CP4D and CP4I can enhance each other.

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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

"Cloud Pak's most valuable features are IBM MQ, IBM App Connect, IBM API Connect, and ISPF."

"The most valuable features are data virtualization and reporting."

"One of Cloud Pak's best features is the Watson Knowledge Catalog, which helps you implement data governance."

"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine or ten out of ten."

"You can model the data there, connect the data models with the business processes and create data lineage processes."

"DataStage allows me to connect to different data sources."

"What I found most helpful in IBM Cloud Pak for Data is containerization, which means it's easy to shift and leave in terms of moving to other clouds. That's an advantage of IBM Cloud Pak for Data."

"IBM Watson Catalog and data pipelines are the most valuable features of the solution."

More IBM Cloud Pak for Data pros

"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."

"It's very simple compared to other products out there."

"It is easy to use, install, and start working with."

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

"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."

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

"One of the most valuable features is the ability to create many API integrations. I'm always working with advertising agents and using Facebook and Instagram to do campaigns. We use Pentaho to get the results from these campaigns and to create dashboards to analyze the results."

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

More Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics pros

Cons

"The solution's catalog searching or map search needs to be improved."

"There is a solution that is part of IBM Cloud Pak for Data called Watson OpenScale. It is used to monitor the deployed models for the quality and fairness of the results. This is one area that needs a lot of improvement."

"The solution could have more connectors."

"The product must improve its performance."

"One challenge I'm facing with IBM Cloud Pak for Data is native features have been decommissioned, such as XML input and output. Too many changes have been made, and my company has around one hundred thousand mappings, so my team has been putting more effort into alternative ways to do things. Another area for improvement in IBM Cloud Pak for Data is that it's more complicated to shift from on-premise to the cloud. Other vendors provide secure agents that easily connect with your existing setup. Still, with IBM Cloud Pak for Data, you have to perform connection migration steps, upgrade to the latest version, etc., which makes it more complicated, especially as my company has XML-based mappings. Still, the XML input and output capabilities of IBM Cloud Pak for Data have been discontinued, so I'd like IBM to bring that back."

"The setup cost is very expensive. The cost depends on the pieces of the solution I'm using, how much data I have, and whether it's on the cloud or on-prem."

"The interface could improve because sometimes it becomes slow. Sometimes there is a delay between clicks when using the software, which can make the development process slow. It can take a few seconds to complete one action, and then a few more seconds to do the next one."

"The tool depends on the control plane, an OpenShift container platform utilized as an orchestration layer...So, we have communicated this issue to IBM and asked if it is feasible to adapt the solution to work on a Kubernetes platform that we support."

More IBM Cloud Pak for Data cons

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

"I would like to see support for some additional cloud sources. It doesn't support Azure, for example. I was trying to do a PoC with Azure the other day but it seems they don't support it."

"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..."

"I would like to see improvements made for real-time data processing."

"It's not very stable, at least not in the case of the community edition. I'm working with the community edition right now and I think perhaps it is because of that it is not very stable, it causes the system to sometimes hang. I'm not sure if this is the case for pair tiers."

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

"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."

"One thing that I don't like, just a little, is the backward compatibility."

More Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."

"It's quite expensive."

"Cloud Pak's cost is a little high."

"I think that this product is too expensive for smaller companies."

"IBM Cloud Pak for Data is expensive. If we include the training time and the machine learning, it's expensive. The cost of the execution is more reasonable."

"For the licensing of the solution, there is a yearly payment that needs to be made. Also, since it is expensive, cost-wise, I rate the solution an eight or nine out of ten."

"The solution's pricing is competitive with that of other vendors."

"I don't have the exact licensing cost for IBM Cloud Pak for Data, as my company is still finalizing requirements, including monthly, yearly, and three-year licensing fees. Still, on a scale of one to five, I'd rate it a three because, compared to other vendors, it's more complicated."

"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."

"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."

"For most development tasks, the Enterprise edition should be sufficient. It depends on the type of support that you require for your production environment."

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

"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."

"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 mostly used the open-source version. I didn't work with a license."

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

More Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

29%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Cloud Pak for Data?

DataStage allows me to connect to different data sources.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Cloud Pak for Data?

The setup cost is very expensive. The cost depends on the pieces of the solution I'm using, how much data I have, and whether it's on the cloud or on-prem.

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What needs improvement with IBM Cloud Pak for Data?

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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...

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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...

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Comparisons

IBM InfoSphere DataStage vs IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Compared 40% of the time

Denodo vs IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Compared 12% of the time

Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Compared 10% of the time

Azure Data Factory vs IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Compared 9% of the time

Palantir Foundry vs IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Compared 8% of the time

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Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) vs Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics

Compared 16% of the time

Informatica PowerCenter vs Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics

Compared 10% of the time

SSIS vs Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics

Compared 10% of the time

Talend Open Studio vs Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics

Compared 8% of the time

SnapLogic vs Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics

Compared 7% of the time

More Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cloud Pak for Data

August 2025

Download IBM Cloud Pak for Data product report

Buyer's Guide

Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics

August 2025

Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics report

Download Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics product report

Also Known As

Cloud Pak for Data

Hitachi Lumada Data Integration, Kettle, Pentaho Data Integration

Overview

IBM Cloud Pak® for Data is a fully-integrated data and AI platform that modernizes how businesses collect, organize and analyze data to infuse AI throughout their organizations. Cloud-native by design, the platform unifies market-leading services spanning the entire analytics lifecycle. From data management, DataOps, governance, business analytics and automated AI, IBM Cloud Pak for Data helps eliminate the need for costly, and often competing, point solutions while providing the information architecture you need to implement AI successfully.

Building on the streamlined hybrid-cloud foundation of Red Hat® OpenShift®, IBM Cloud Pak for Data takes advantage of the underlying resource and infrastructure optimization and management. The solution fully supports multicloud environments such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud™ and private cloud deployments. Find out how IBM Cloud Pak for Data can lower your total cost of ownership and accelerate innovation.

IBM

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

Qatar Development Bank, GuideWell, Skanderborg Music Festival

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

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cloud Pak for Data vs. Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics

July 2025

Free Report: IBM Cloud Pak for Data vs. Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Cloud Pak for Data vs. Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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