IBM InfoSphere Information Server vs Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics comparison

IBM and Hitachi Vantara are both solutions in the Data Integration category. IBM is ranked #31 with an average rating of 8.0, while Hitachi Vantara is ranked #22 with an average rating of 7.7. IBM holds a 0.8% mindshare in DI, compared to Hitachi Vantara’s 1.6% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Hitachi Vantara users who would recommend it.

IBM InfoSphere Information ...

Read 7 IBM InfoSphere Information Server reviews

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885 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Pentaho Data Integration an...

Read 53 Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics reviews

2,102 Views
1,065 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

IBM InfoSphere Information ...

Pentaho Data Integration an...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics and IBM InfoSphere Information Server are both strong contenders in the data integration and analytics sector. Pentaho offers an edge in cost-effectiveness and customer support, while IBM InfoSphere shines with feature-rich offerings that justify its premium pricing.

Features: Pentaho is known for its user-friendly interface, data transformation capabilities, and extensive connectivity options, supporting various data formats such as CSV and Excel. In contrast, IBM InfoSphere is lauded for its advanced data management features like data quality and governance.

Room for Improvement: Pentaho could enhance its offerings by expanding advanced data management features and improving scalability. IBM InfoSphere may benefit from simplifying its interface, reducing deployment complexity, and offering more cost-efficient pricing structures.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Pentaho provides a straightforward and easy deployment process with excellent customer service, making it accessible for businesses of all sizes. IBM InfoSphere, on the other hand, has a more complex deployment process, but offers robust support for larger enterprises.

Pricing and ROI: Pentaho is recognized for its budget-friendly pricing, offering a significant return on investment due to its lower initial costs. IBM InfoSphere requires a higher upfront investment but promises considerable ROI through its sophisticated features and long-term value.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM InfoSphere Information Server vs. Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM InfoSphere Information Server vs. Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics

April 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 InfoSphere Information ...

Ranking in Data Integration

31st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Metadata Management (7th)

Pentaho Data Integration an...

Ranking in Data Integration

22nd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of IBM InfoSphere Information Server is 0.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics is 1.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Integration

Featured Reviews

UmeshKumar1

Business Analyst Team Lead at Accenture

Prompt support, reliable, but lacking scalability

IBM InfoSphere Information Server has multiple tools in that product suite. However, we mainly use it as an integration tool I have been using IBM InfoSphere Information Server for approximately five years. IBM InfoSphere Information Server is stable. IBM InfoSphere Information Server should be…

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Ryan Ferdon

Senior Data Engineer at Burgiss

Low-code makes development faster than with Python, but there were caching issues

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. It was kind of buggy sometimes. And when we ran the flow, it didn't go from a perceived start to end, node by node. Everything kicked off at once. That meant there were times when it would get ahead of itself and a job would fail. That was not because the job was wrong, but because Pentaho decided to go at everything at once, and something would process before it was supposed to. There were nodes you could add to make sure that, before this node kicks off, all these others have processed, but it was a bit tedious. There were also caching issues, and we had to write code to clear the cache every time we opened the program, because the cache would fill up and it wouldn't run. I don't know how hard that would be for them to fix, or if it was fixed in version 10. Also, the UI is a bit outdated, but I'm more of a fan of function over how something looks. One other thing that would have helped with Pentaho was documentation and support on the internet: how to do things, how to set up. I think there are some sites on how to install it, and Pentaho does have a help repository, but it wasn't always the most useful.

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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

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"IBM InfoSphere Information Server is stable."

"The integration with different technologies is the most valuable feature."

"This solution is extremely flexible and scalable."

"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."

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

"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 area where Lumada has helped us is in the commercial area. There are many extractions to compose reports about our sales team performance and production steps. Since we are using Lumada to gather data from each industry in each country. We can get data from Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and Colombia at the same time. We can then concentrate and consolidate it in only one place, like our data warehouse. This improves our production performance and need for information about the industry, production data, and commercial data."

"The way it has improved our product is by giving our users the ability to do ad hoc reports, which is very important to our users. We can do predictive analysis on trends coming in for contracts, which is what our product does. The product helps users decide which way to go based on the predictive analysis done by Pentaho. Pentaho is not doing predictions, but reporting on the predictions that our product is doing. This is a big part of our product."

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

"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."

"Lumada has allowed us to interact with our employees more effectively and compensate them properly. One of the cool things is that we use it to generate commissions for our salespeople and bonuses for our warehouse people. It allows us to get information out to them in a timely fashion. We can also see where they're at and how they're doing."

More Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics pros

Cons

"Their technical support needs improvement."

"IBM InfoSphere Information Server should be more scalable. It should have the option to change the configuration to run on a single, non-multiple node, or multi-threading processing."

"This solution would benefit from the engine being made more lightweight."

"There are certain shortcomings in the cloud side of the solution, where improvements are required."

"I work with the Community Edition, therefore I do not have support. There was an issue that I could not resolve with community support."

"While Pentaho Data Integration is very friendly, it is not very useful when there isn't a lot of data to handle."

"I would like to see more improvements with AS400 DB2."

"I work with different databases. I would like to work with more connectors to new databases, e.g., DynamoDB and MariaDB, and new cloud solutions, e.g., AWS, Azure, and GCP. If they had these connectors, that would be great. They could improve by building new connectors. If you have native connections to different databases, then you can make instructions more efficient and in a more natural way. You don't have to write any scripts to use that connector."

"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."

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

"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 could not connect to our Hadoop environment in an easy and flexible way, and it was important to scale our data warehouse."

More Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing cost of IBM InfoSphere Information Server depends on how many users there are."

"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."

"I believe the pricing of the solution is more affordable than the competitors"

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

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

"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."

"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."

"You need to go through the paid version to have Hitachi Lumada specialized support. However, if you are using the free version, then you will have only the community support. You will depend on the releases from Hitachi to solve some problem or questions that you have, such as bug fixes. You will need to wait for the newest versions or releases to solve these types of problems."

"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."

More Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

22%

Government

14%

Insurance Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

22%

Computer Software Company

15%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM InfoSphere Information Server?

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

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What needs improvement with IBM InfoSphere Information Server?

There are certain shortcomings in the cloud side of the solution, where improvements are required. In our company, we are presently in the process of doing a PoC phase since we have the solution cu...

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What is your primary use case for IBM InfoSphere Information Server?

I use IBM InfoSphere Information Server in retail banking for transformation purposes.

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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...

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

Comparisons

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Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 18% of the time

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Compared 11% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Data Integration

March 2025

IBM InfoSphere Information Server report

Download IBM InfoSphere Information Server product report

Buyer's Guide

Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics

April 2025

Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics report

Download Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics product report

Also Known As

InfoSphere Information Server, IBM Information Server

Hitachi Lumada Data Integration, Kettle, Pentaho Data Integration

Overview

IBM InfoSphere Information Server is a market-leading data integration platform which includes a family of products that enable you to understand, cleanse, monitor, transform, and deliver data, as well as to collaborate to bridge the gap between business and IT. InfoSphere Information Server provides massively parallel processing (MPP) capabilities to deliver a highly scalable and flexible integration platform that handles a variety of data volumes (big, small, and everything in between).

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

Canadian National Railway Company, Chickasaw Nation Division of Commerce, Swedish Armed Forces, BG RCI, Janata Sahakari Bank Ltd., University of Arizona, Biogrid Australia

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

Buyer's Guide

IBM InfoSphere Information Server vs. Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics

April 2025

Free Report: IBM InfoSphere Information Server vs. Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM InfoSphere Information Server vs. Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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