Pentaho Business Analytics vs QBO comparison

Hitachi Vantara and Unscrambl, Inc are both solutions in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category. Hitachi Vantara is ranked #20 with an average rating of 8.5, while Unscrambl, Inc is ranked #49. Hitachi Vantara holds a 0.6% mindshare in BIT, compared to Unscrambl, Inc’s 0.6% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of Hitachi Vantara users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of Unscrambl, Inc users who would recommend it.

Pentaho Business Analytics

Read 45 Pentaho Business Analytics reviews

1,867 Views
821 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

QBO

Read 6 QBO reviews

460 Views
460 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Pentaho Business Analytics

QBO

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Pentaho Business Analytics and QBO compete in the field of business intelligence and financial management. Pentaho holds an advantage with its extensive data integration capabilities and flexible dashboards, while QBO excels in financial reporting and collaboration.

Features: Pentaho Business Analytics offers advanced ETL capabilities, ad-hoc reporting, integration with Google Maps for geo-referencing, and supports tools like JasperReport and BIRT. It provides both Community and Enterprise editions, with the open-source Community edition catering to budget-conscious businesses. QBO focuses on finance and accounting, offering robust support for invoicing, order processing, and integrations with major platforms like SAP and Oracle.

Room for Improvement: Pentaho could enhance its user interface, improve dashboard creation, and offer more intuitive reporting features. The need for better version control and comprehensive online resources is noted. QBO could focus on enhancing its inventory management functionalities and improve integration processes with different payment gateways.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Pentaho is available as on-premises and hybrid cloud, relying on its active user community for support, providing a robust layer of assistance. Some mixed reviews exist for technical support. QBO, as a public cloud solution, offers easy access, with mixed reviews on customer service; some praise its responsiveness, while others note limitations in technical support.

Pricing and ROI: Pentaho offers a flexible pricing structure with an open-source Community Edition and a costlier Enterprise Edition. Low entry costs appeal to businesses with tight budgets, though the Enterprise edition requires significant investment. ROI perceptions vary among users. QBO's pricing is relatively high but justified by its extensive financial management features leading to favorable ROI.

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

Buyer's Guide

Pentaho Business Analytics vs. QBO

December 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

Pentaho Business Analytics

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

20th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Operations Analytics (2nd), Reporting (13th)

QBO

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

49th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Pentaho Business Analytics is 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of QBO is 0.6%, up from 0.0% 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	0.6%
QBO	0.6%
Other	98.8%

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Featured Reviews

Julien Baluka

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.

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Mimi Evans

Owner/Operator at Fearless Bookkeeping Services LLC

Offer great partnership models and relatively simple to use

My only issue with QuickBooks Online is their inventory capabilities. My understanding is that they're rolling out improvements in 2023, but anytime a person asks me about using QuickBooks Online and inventory, then I always recommend the desktop version because otherwise the functionality isn't great. They're trying to become the all-in source that we use for everything. However, the product lakcs a client portal, a feature that would make a huge difference. I'm an accountant and if I can't use it well, I can't train my customers to use it well. There are so many professional service companies that would love to be able to offer a client portal of some sort but they're so industry-specific or they're outrageously expensive because they're meant for enterprise level. I don't like the UI or the functionality of their cash flow planner. I would rather pay for another software than use theirs.

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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

"It is robust, offers market intelligence, and utilizes modules effectively."

"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."

"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."

"Easy to use components to create the job."

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

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

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

"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."

More Pentaho Business Analytics pros

"It's intuitive, electronic, and, as in the old days, eliminates the need for pen and paper. It is the only option. It's the best software."

"The most valuable feature is the collaboration around allowing many people to ask questions and see the dashboards together."

"QBO has a very good reconciliation tool."

"The most valuable feature of QBO is that it can be reconnected at any time and anywhere. It is not like other software where you have to back up and restore the data."

"The scheduling feature for salaries and taxes is one of the best features of QBO. It's also very user-friendly."

"The most valuable features of QBO are its order processing and sales capabilities, as well as its invoice and batch processing capabilities. It allows for multiple batch processing and integration with other platforms, such as SAP V1, Oracle, and Dynamics BC. This makes the solution versatile and effective for customers, and they are satisfied with its integration with different platforms. The integration of this solution is not fixed, it can be based on the user's requirements."

Cons

"Logging capability is needed."

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

"Pentaho Business Analytics' user interface is outdated."

"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."

"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, at the general level, should greatly improve the easy construction of its dashboards and easy integration of information from different sources without technical user intervention."

"The repository should be improved."

"Version control would be a good addition."

More Pentaho Business Analytics cons

"The internet version is less user-friendly than the desktop version. The desktop version is their flagship, whereas the online version is considerably different, requiring all new learning and having several glitches."

"QBO could be improved by adding more flexibility in its invoice and sales order processing capabilities. Customers have requested the ability to integrate with different retail services and the ability to easily integrate with different payment gateways, such as PayPal, by providing API and credentials, with the system automatically processing the integration."

"The Linux Operating System feature is not available. When we access it from the accounting features, it does not transit to installation."

"The dashboards can be improved by making them customizable in a more granular manner."

"Compared to offline accounting software with many shortcuts and allows you to operate the software using the keyboard, QBO doesn't have the keyboard feature."

"Inventory capabilities are lacking in the cloud version."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pentaho is expensive ."

"Free and commercial versions are available."

"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."

"In my opinion, QBO is a bit on the pricey side, but you have no choice. It is still better, in the long run, to go with their pricing or their software than the alternatives."

"I give the pricing a nine out of ten."

"The solution is expensive."

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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

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

No data available

Questions from the Community

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?

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Compared 23% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pentaho Business Analytics

January 2026

Download Pentaho Business Analytics product report

Buyer's Guide

QBO

January 2026

Download QBO product report

Also Known As

Pentaho, Kettle, Hitachi Pentaho Business Analytics

No data available

Overview

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

QBO combines the power of natural language and spontaneous collaboration to deliver on-demand insights to the decision-makers. Winning features of QBO: 1. Easily connect to multiple internal and external datasets 2. Slice-and-diced data in infinite ways using natural language (English) and interactive visualizations 3. Responds easily to descriptive, diagnostic, predictive and prescriptive questions 4. Native integration with Microsoft Teams 5. Save and share your findings easily on interactive boards URL of the product : https://www.unscrambl.com/qbo-insights/ Powered by Unscrambl, we believe that our increasingly complex world of data can be simplified and transformed into actionable insights, saving valuable time and resources for every business. Unscrambl develops next-generation conversational analytics software that gives business users the power to access and consume data instantly and collaboratively. Unscrambl is headquartered in the United States and has offices in Singapore, Turkey, India, and the Philippines. For more information, please visit www.unscrambl.com

Unscrambl, Inc

Sample Customers

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

SATS, Celcom, EastWest, DBS, Metrobank, XL-Axiata, Etisalat, UnionBank of the Philippines

Buyer's Guide

Pentaho Business Analytics vs. QBO

December 2025

Free Report: Pentaho Business Analytics vs. QBO

Find out what your peers are saying about Pentaho Business Analytics vs. QBO and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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