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Pentaho Business Analytics vs SAS Visual Analytics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
6.3
Organizations saw varied ROI from SAS Visual Analytics, noting improved efficiency and financial tracking despite initial cost challenges.
The enterprise subscription offers more benefits, ensuring valuable outcomes.
Senior Manager: ICT Compliance at DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATION
 

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
6.8
SAS Visual Analytics customer service is mixed, with praise for technical support but noted gaps in business needs and regional availability.
They provide callbacks to ensure clarity and resolution of any queries.
Senior Manager: ICT Compliance at DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATION
 

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
7.8
SAS Visual Analytics effectively scales for large datasets and users, though high resource demands and expenses may concern some.
 

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
7.1
SAS Visual Analytics is generally reliable but can face performance issues with large data, often due to user practices.
It can handle large datasets.
DBA at Federal University of Uberlândia
SAS Visual Analytics is stable and manages data effectively without crashing.
Senior Manager: ICT Compliance at DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATION
 

Room For Improvement

Pentaho Business Analytics lacks an intuitive interface, robust integration, self-service features, and requires technical expertise, limiting usability.
SAS Visual Analytics is complex and costly, with challenges in integration, performance, user-friendliness, and external language support.
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
In terms of configuration, I would like to see AI capabilities since many applications are now integrating AI.
Senior Manager: ICT Compliance at DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATION
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers find the free Pentaho Community Edition cost-effective, while the Enterprise Edition offers value with support and features.
SAS Visual Analytics is costly for small enterprises, but offers strong analytics and simplicity, though consulting and scaling add expenses.
Pentaho Business Analytics is priced similarly to other competitors such as QlikView and Tableau.
DBA at Federal University of Uberlândia
 

Valuable Features

Pentaho Business Analytics provides easy data integration, customizable dashboards, extensive connectivity, and supports efficient data transformation and delivery.
SAS Visual Analytics excels in data visualization, advanced analytics, and user-friendly interface with rapid processing and seamless integration.
It is a stable product, and it can handle large datasets.
DBA at Federal University of Uberlândia
The ability to query information from our Excel data into SAS to view specific data is invaluable.
Senior Manager: ICT Compliance at DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATION
 

Categories and Ranking

Pentaho Business Analytics
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), Reporting (14th)
SAS Visual Analytics
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Pentaho Business Analytics is designed for BI (Business Intelligence) Tools and holds a mindshare of 0.7%, up 0.4% compared to last year.
SAS Visual Analytics, on the other hand, focuses on Data Visualization, holds 1.8% mindshare, down 4.6% since last year.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Pentaho Business Analytics0.7%
Microsoft Power BI9.3%
Tableau Enterprise6.7%
Other83.3%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
Data Visualization Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SAS Visual Analytics1.8%
Tableau Enterprise11.0%
Domo5.7%
Other81.5%
Data Visualization
 

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.
AN
Senior Manager: ICT Compliance at DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATION
Enables effective data management and reporting with a straightforward setup
SAS Visual Analytics is helpful as it allows us to perform any queries we need. The ability to query information from our Excel data into SAS to view specific data is invaluable. In terms of reporting, it is easy to extract quick reports and provides graphical representations of the data, which is a great feature.
report
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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
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
10%
Construction Company
8%
University
7%
 

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 Business13
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise19
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAS Visual Analytics?
It's about an average of five. It's easy to scale, but it comes with cost.
What needs improvement with SAS Visual Analytics?
In terms of configuration, I would like to see AI capabilities since many applications are now integrating AI. It may be that our current subscription does not include AI-enabled features, but I wo...
What is your primary use case for SAS Visual Analytics?
I started to work with SAS Visual Analytics ( /products/sas-visual-analytics-reviews ) in 2015. We use it for analysis on ICT expenditure information and ICT personnel information. The analytics ar...
 

Also Known As

Pentaho, Kettle, Hitachi Pentaho Business Analytics
SAS BI
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cargo 2000 Lufthansa, Marketo, ModCloth, Cardiac Science, Telefonica, ExactTarget, Active Broadband Networks, and Brussels Airport.
Staples, Ausgrid, Scotiabank, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Oklahoma Gas & Electric, Xcel Energy, and Triad Analytics Solutions.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Salesforce, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools. Updated: March 2026.
885,728 professionals have used our research since 2012.