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Metabase vs Pentaho Business Analytics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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

Metabase
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
25th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Pentaho Business Analytics
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
21st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Operations Analytics (2nd), Reporting (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Metabase is 0.8%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pentaho Business Analytics is 1.0%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Pentaho Business Analytics1.0%
Metabase0.8%
Other98.2%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Ibrahim Izz El-Deen - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Engineer at USYTech
Modern analytics tool enhances user interactions with neat visualizations for improved decision-making
One area for improvement could be in offering more advanced features even in the open-source edition or making the paid versions more cost-effective. Data scalability, especially if the data grows, requires manual infrastructure management, which could be improved. Increased customization and visualization options in the open-source edition would be beneficial. Additionally, it might be helpful if more complex queries and stored procedures were supported.
JB
Founder at SJT Consult
Solution enables effective ETL processes and exhibits high satisfaction
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 is based on what I have heard about novelties in the market. I do not see the need to extend the coverage of Pentaho Business Analytics's domain. For things that it does not do, there are better solutions on the market, and it would be costly to implement them. Pentaho Business Analytics is a very great tool for very specific standardized scenarios. If you need more complex elastic solutions because the process is different, there are better tools available.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is easy for a new user to learn the tool."
"I rate the solution’s stability a nine out of ten."
"Metabase's key advantage is its modern approach to business intelligence."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its interface, which is used to query data into Metabase. I think it is very useful and handy for a novice."
"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."
"We wanted a tool where by using it we could integrate multiple data sets, and could get responsive reports and Pentaho helped us do this in a good way."
"We can demonstrate a better report UI and vivid experience for our customers."
"It is robust, offers market intelligence, and utilizes modules effectively."
"Powerful Analytics, Fast KPI Analysis"
"Easy to use components to create the job."
"We were able to configure our data warehouse and implement more than eight data cubes in a very short period of time."
"I use the BI Server, CDE Dashboards, Saiku, and Kettle, because these tools are very good and highly experienced."
 

Cons

"The solution could provide more customization."
"I think there is a need to add a few more advanced visuals in the tool. There are a standard set of visuals in the tool which are available."
"One area for improvement could be in offering more advanced features even in the open-source edition or making the paid versions more cost-effective."
"The tool must be made more user-friendly."
"It's still not user friendly or robust enough for our needs."
"For those that run the open source community edition at times it can be difficult to find updated references for support."
"R Script."
"The OEM license pricing is quite expensive."
"We are a big telecoms company and we deal with a lot of data, approximately two million per day; it is too slow in rendering it."
"In the reporting tool, I would like to see what code it generates. As of now, there is no provision to see the underlying code of the PRD file."
"Pentaho Business Analytics is not a good tool for visualization. Another concern is that Pentaho is not customizable or interactive."
"For me, Pentaho is not growing in terms of functionality as fast as other companies in the same segment."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Using the open-source edition of Metabase on AWS EC2 cost us around $29 per month for the EC2 instance, which was affordable."
"The product is open-sourced."
"I would not say it is a cheap tool, but it's viable."
"Free and commercial versions are available."
"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."
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909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user6978 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Metabase?
Using the open-source edition of Metabase on AWS EC2 cost us around $29 per month for the EC2 instance, which was affordable.
What needs improvement with Metabase?
One area for improvement could be in offering more advanced features even in the open-source edition or making the paid versions more cost-effective. Data scalability, especially if the data grows,...
What is your primary use case for Metabase?
I used Metabase for business intelligence and analytics in my organization. We connected Metabase to AWS Athena, allowing us to query and visualize data stored in S3 buckets.
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...
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...
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...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Pentaho, Kettle, Hitachi Pentaho Business Analytics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Cargo 2000 Lufthansa, Marketo, ModCloth, Cardiac Science, Telefonica, ExactTarget, Active Broadband Networks, and Brussels Airport.
Find out what your peers are saying about Metabase vs. Pentaho Business Analytics and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.