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Pentaho Business Analytics vs QlikView comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
5.4
Pentaho Business Analytics mixed ROI perceptions highlight efficiency gains but unclear returns compared to competitors like QlikView and Tableau.
Sentiment score
6.4
QlikView ROI appears through time savings, decision-making improvements, and efficient deployment, despite licensing complexity impacting perception.
The biggest return on investment is the time saving for the customer.
Managing Director at Hurricnae
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
Pentaho Business Analytics receives mixed reviews for customer support, with users relying heavily on forums and community assistance.
Sentiment score
6.1
QlikView's customer support is highly rated, with quick responses, a helpful community, and generally strong availability despite geographic factors.
I would rate the customer support a solid 10.
Managing Director at Hurricnae
I am totally satisfied with technical support from Qlik.
Financial Controller with task of Business Intelligence Implementation at a wholesaler/distributor with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.0
Pentaho Business Analytics is scalable with good performance but occasionally needs professional help for complex data handling.
Sentiment score
7.0
QlikView scales well with efficient resource management, but superior scalability features are found in Qlik Sense, requiring robust infrastructure.
If you want better performance with a larger volume of data, you can simply add an additional server.
Financial Controller with task of Business Intelligence Implementation at a wholesaler/distributor with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.5
Pentaho Business Analytics is stable but may face Java caching issues, impacting performance and requiring careful cache management.
Sentiment score
7.7
Users rate QlikView's stability highly, with issues mainly due to infrastructure or large data, resolved with hardware tweaks.
 

Room For Improvement

Pentaho Business Analytics lacks an intuitive interface, robust integration, self-service features, and requires technical expertise, limiting usability.
QlikView needs a more intuitive interface, better scalability, integration, predictive analytics, and cost-effective licensing for improved user experience.
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.
DBA at Federal University of Uberlândia
AI features are already available in Qlik Sense, so you would need to migrate to that platform.
Financial Controller with task of Business Intelligence Implementation at a wholesaler/distributor with 1,001-5,000 employees
In QlikView, I believe the improvement that should be made is to bring the costs down, as you'll have to be competitive with Power BI, aiming for at least a 30% reduction to stop the hemorrhaging to Power BI.
Managing Director at Hurricnae
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers find the free Pentaho Community Edition cost-effective, while the Enterprise Edition offers value with support and features.
QlikView pricing is variable and can be costly, but strategic planning can maximize ROI for organizations.
Pentaho Business Analytics is priced similarly to other competitors such as QlikView and Tableau.
DBA at Federal University of Uberlândia
The license cost per user or per year for QlikView is about 500 Euros annually.
Managing Director at Hurricnae
I would rate the pricing for QlikView as not cheap, but it is reasonable.
Financial Controller with task of Business Intelligence Implementation at a wholesaler/distributor with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Valuable Features

Pentaho Business Analytics provides easy data integration, customizable dashboards, extensive connectivity, and supports efficient data transformation and delivery.
QlikView offers powerful data analysis with dynamic dashboards, intuitive interface, and rapid visualization for enhanced business performance and insights.
It is a stable product, and it can handle large datasets.
DBA at Federal University of Uberlândia
Data integration capabilities are quite good; you can integrate any information stored anywhere in different systems with QlikView.
Financial Controller with task of Business Intelligence Implementation at a wholesaler/distributor with 1,001-5,000 employees
The best features in QlikView are rapid development, the fact that I can do what I want in QlikView, and full control along with ease of use.
Managing Director at Hurricnae
 

Categories and Ranking

Pentaho Business Analytics
Ranking in Reporting
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (20th), Cloud Operations Analytics (2nd)
QlikView
Ranking in Reporting
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
163
Ranking in other categories
Embedded BI (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Pentaho Business Analytics is 1.7%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of QlikView is 4.1%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Reporting Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
QlikView4.1%
Pentaho Business Analytics1.7%
Other94.2%
Reporting
 

Featured Reviews

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.
MA
Managing Director at Hurricnae
Rapid development and flexibility transform commercial decision-making processes
In QlikView, I believe the improvement that should be made is to bring the costs down, as you'll have to be competitive with Power BI, aiming for at least a 30% reduction to stop the hemorrhaging to Power BI, considering that you're losing a lot of customers to Power BI. Reducing costs is the main improvement needed, as this is the biggest burden currently faced in the South African market, with Microsoft converting QlikView customers due to the perceived cost reduction. I am aware of several big corporations, such as Sanofi and Aspen Pharmacare, which have left QlikView due to cost issues.
report
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879,853 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager - BI Head with 5,001-10,000 employees
Feb 4, 2015
Comparison of SAP BO, Tableau, QlikView, Cognos, Microsoft, OBIEE and Pentaho
1. SAP BO/BI Enterprise scalability Security Ease of use Semantic layer 2. Tableau Visualization Data discovery Turnaround time 3. IBM Cognos Enterprise scalability Security In-memory feature 4. MS BI - Flexibility 5. Pentaho - Open source but still enterprise grade 6. QlikView Data…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Performing Arts
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business73
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise76
 

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...
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...
What do you like most about QlikView?
If you correctly use the product for your use cases, it provides value for money.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for QlikView?
I would rate the pricing for QlikView as not cheap, but it is reasonable.
What needs improvement with QlikView?
We are not using analytics features and possibly predictive analytics and forecasting features in QlikView, although they are available. QlikView is very flexible, but we are currently using only t...
 

Also Known As

Pentaho, Kettle, Hitachi Pentaho Business Analytics
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cargo 2000 Lufthansa, Marketo, ModCloth, Cardiac Science, Telefonica, ExactTarget, Active Broadband Networks, and Brussels Airport.
Canon, Gatorade, Amcor, Panasonic, Fila, Cambridge University Hospitals, Global Retail Bank, North Yorkshire Police department, Lanoo Group Publishers, and AonGroep Nederland.
Find out what your peers are saying about Pentaho Business Analytics vs. QlikView and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,853 professionals have used our research since 2012.