Knowage vs Pentaho Business Analytics comparison

Knowage and Hitachi Vantara are both solutions in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category. Knowage is ranked #34, while Hitachi Vantara is ranked #19 with an average rating of 8.5. Knowage holds a 0.7% mindshare in BIT, compared to Hitachi Vantara’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Knowage users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Hitachi Vantara users who would recommend it.

Knowage

Read 18 Knowage reviews

766 Views
590 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Pentaho Business Analytics

Read 45 Pentaho Business Analytics reviews

1,567 Views
595 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

Knowage

Pentaho Business Analytics

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Pentaho Business Analytics and Knowage are business intelligence tools. Pentaho has the upper hand in data integration due to its comprehensive ETL capabilities, while Knowage benefits from its open-source design and flexibility.

Features: Pentaho is known for its extensive ETL capabilities, scalability, and user-friendliness. It facilitates ad-hoc reporting, dashboards, and OLAP analysis. Knowage, on the other hand, is recognized for its open-source framework, self-service BI functions, and the ability to integrate seamlessly into other systems via APIs.

Room for Improvement: Pentaho users suggest enhancements in data visualization and ad-hoc reporting. Knowage could improve in integration consistency, dashboard components, and stability across version updates.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Pentaho offers on-premises and hybrid cloud deployment, supported by a robust community, although its technical support receives mixed reviews. Knowage, primarily an on-premises solution, also benefits from community support but faces criticism for its technical support.

Pricing and ROI: Both tools have community editions that minimize initial costs. Pentaho's enterprise edition, although considered high cost, is seen as valuable, whereas Knowage, being open-source, offers a cost-effective alternative with mixed ROI feedback.

To learn more, read our detailed Knowage vs. Pentaho Business Analytics Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Knowage vs. Pentaho Business Analytics

September 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

Knowage

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

34th

Ranking in Reporting

25th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Pentaho Business Analytics

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

19th

Ranking in Reporting

12th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Operations Analytics (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Knowage is 0.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pentaho Business Analytics is 0.5%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Pentaho Business Analytics	0.5%
Knowage	0.7%
Other	98.8%

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Featured Reviews

AbdulshukoorMohammed

General Manager Information Technology & Enterprise Applications Manager at OXFORD HOLDING

Easy to customize, cross-platform capable, and very stable

The only challenge here is that it's a Java-based platform. It requires very high technical skills. When we come to the integration with the single sign-on facilities, that part is very challenging. In Power BI and other tools, it's very easy to integrate with active directory and single sign-on, and identity management is very easy in other business intelligence tools. However, when it comes to Knowage, it's a bit heavy, it's time-consuming sometimes, it's not very fast, and definitely not as fast as other business intelligence tools in terms of getting graphical reports. The solution could be cheaper.

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Mir Gulzar Ahmed

IT Manager at Synergy Computers

Excels in handling unstructured data, helping organizations navigate through different storage systems

Pentaho can help organizations by providing them an insight of their unstructured data using one platform(Pentaho Business Analytics). The features are almost identical to other BIS platforms but to me, customers can benefit as it has a community version with most of its Enterprise features. It also has a free limited-period trial version. The other feature that I would like to share here is, that users have access to a complete spectrum of data from different sources with the system’s adaptive big data layer, which takes the source of the data into account. The software is built on an open architecture and can be integrated with multiple systems. However, Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics has been acquired by HDS which offers an Enterprise edition for organizations that also need to meet product compliance.

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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

"The concept of engines is quite powerful allowing the user to work with report authoring/provisioning tools of their choice."

"The embedding feature is great."

"I can't name the features the way the Knowage community calls them because I still don't know the lingo. However, I can describe them. I like the ability to join more than one report, set all fields on one end, and replicate that on the other reports. I like that a lot. I think it's one of the features that got me using Knowage. They have tables, and I like that too. They took SQL scripts and many other scripts and enabled them to even correlate with Python. That's also one of the best things about Knowage. You could also decide to get information per user role, and this is also a feature that I like in Knowage."

"We can easily do our own customizations."

"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."

"We were able to install it without any assistance from tech support."

"Easy to use components to create the job."

"I use the BI Server, CDE Dashboards, Saiku, and Kettle, because these tools are very good and highly experienced."

"The interface of Pentaho Business Analytics is easy to use and does not require high-level skills to operate the tool."

"The most valuable feature of Pentaho is the Tableau report."

"Pentaho Business Analytics' best features include the ease of developing data flows and the wide range of options to connect to databases, including those on the cloud."

"Pentaho is an analytics platform that can be used when an organization has a lot of big data storage systems already installed and needs to manage and analyze that data. It has a specific use case for unstructured data, such as documents, and needs to be able to search and analyze it."

More Pentaho Business Analytics pros

Cons

"The dashboard components could be better."

"It would be better if more resources were available to help us learn how to use it. I wanted to use Knowage for a more extended period, but learning materials around the product were not really available and were not really straightforward. I've also seen inconsistencies between versions. For example, under the tools, especially in the cockpit, the way you create reports is now different. You will also find some configurations within a particular state, like a line chart, which differs from version to version. I think consistency is an essential feature in a product, especially for business intelligence products."

"Development of SpagoBI has now been moved to Knowage. Users interested in further developments of the platform will have to look there."

"The only challenge here is that it's a Java-based platform. It requires very high technical skills."

"Pentaho Business Analytics is hard to learn and not suited for initial users as it requires knowledge of operating systems, Java, and other technical skills."

"Pentaho Business Analytics' user interface is outdated."

"We did not achieve the ROI. The work delivered to users had lesser value than the subscription cost."

"Another concern is that Pentaho is not customizable or interactive."

"Version control would be a good addition."

"Logging capability is needed."

"Deployment is not simple. It is not simple because we are dealing with a lot of data; we are dealing with a lot of storage. So, it's not a simple process."

"The repository should be improved."

More Pentaho Business Analytics cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Knowage is open-source, and an enterprise edition is also available."

"It allows the implementation of an effective reporting system using internal skills at a limited upfront cost."

"Pentaho is expensive ."

"We were lucky enough to find a Pentaho OEM partner who offered a data warehouse model and the ETL software for about 60K SGD per year."

"Free and commercial versions are available."

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Comparison Review

it_user6978

Co-Founder at Helical IT Solution (Jaspersoft, Pentaho, Talend, Kettle, DWBI, ETL, Ctools, iReport, Jasper Report)

Jun 10, 2013

Jaspersoft vs. Pentaho – Which one to use & is there any need to purchase the commercial edition

Any company (be it technology, manfucaturing, human resource, ecommerce, SME etc) always has the need for Business Intelligence to some or the other extent. If cost is one of the consideration factor, then the 2 BI tools which are at the forefront are Pentaho and Jaspersoft. But, often the same…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Government

13%

Hospitality Company

13%

Insurance Company

Marketing Services Firm

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

Educational Organization

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	22
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	15

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

Seeking lightweight open source BI software

There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I would recommend as follows: 1) If you have legacies of SAP, Oracle - look for SAP...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pentaho Business Analytics?

Pentaho Business Analytics offers the best value for money. While improvements can be made in some areas, particularly with more cloud-based solutions, it is not in their domain because they do not...

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What needs improvement with Pentaho Business Analytics?

From an integration perspective, Pentaho Business Analytics is not the best tool on the market. There are things done by Apache that are better, though I am not the one implementing them, so this i...

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Knowage

September 2025

Download Knowage product report

Buyer's Guide

Pentaho Business Analytics

August 2025

Download Pentaho Business Analytics product report

Also Known As

SpagoBI

Pentaho, Kettle, Hitachi Pentaho Business Analytics

Overview

Knowage (formerly SpagoBI) has a 14-years history. The actual release is the 6.3.

Knowage offers FULL ANALYTICAL CAPABILITIES, with a special focus on big data analytics and comprehensive support to rich and multi-source data analysis. Knowage provides different modules, each one focused on a specific domain but mutually combinable (Big Data, Smart Intelligence, Enterprise Reporting, Location Intelligence, Performance Management, Predictive Analysis). Moreover, Knowage is an OPEN SOURCE solution: the source code is freely accessible, everyone is allowed to join the community and build the own business solution to ensure strategic decision-making and improved productivity.

Knowage suite is supported by Engineering Group, the leading Italian software and services company, with about 10,000 people and more than 50 offices worldwide. Maintenance and support services (such as trainings, migration support, proof-of-concepts, etc) are provided by Engineering Group (KNOWAGE Labs) under subscription.

Knowage

Pentaho is an open source business intelligence company that provides a wide range of tools to help their customers better manage their businesses. These tools include data integration software, mining tools, dashboard applications, online analytical processing options, and more.

Pentaho has two product categories: There is the standard enterprise version. This is the product that comes directly from Pentaho itself with all of the benefits, features, and programs that come along with a paid application such us analysis services, dashboard design, and interactive reporting.

The alternative is an open source version, which the public is permitted to add to and tweak the product. This solution has its advantages, aside from the fact that it is free, in that there are many more people working on the project to improve its quality and breadth of functionality.

Hitachi Vantara

Sample Customers

FIAT Group, Italian air navigation service provider, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Telecom Italia, ASL Genovese, San Giovanni Battista University Hospital

Cargo 2000 Lufthansa, Marketo, ModCloth, Cardiac Science, Telefonica, ExactTarget, Active Broadband Networks, and Brussels Airport.

Buyer's Guide

Knowage vs. Pentaho Business Analytics

September 2025

Free Report: Knowage vs. Pentaho Business Analytics

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