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Pentaho Business Analytics vs Sigma comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 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
7.1
Sigma reduces manual spreadsheet maintenance, offers instant insights, and boosts efficiency, justifying higher costs over Tableau for users.
It's essential for everything data-related within our company.
CEO at PeerSpot
I have seen a return on investment with Sigma; we already said that it saves about a quarter, it gets me to answers about 25% faster.
Customer Success Manager at a tech company with 51-200 employees
I have definitely seen a return on investment through time saving because once the dashboards are built, they are built.
Head of Marketing at a tech company with 51-200 employees
 

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
Sigma's support is efficient and reliable, offering quick assistance, but improvements in visualization and data modeling are needed.
As Sigma is a cloud platform, you do not need to do all that maintenance work.
Lead Analytics Consultant at a outsourcing company with 51-200 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
5.2
Sigma's scalability and free unlimited viewer access enhance data sharing, while easy permissions and live data access set it apart.
Permissions are easily set, so you only get to see what you need to see and you can share what needs to be shared.
Head of Marketing at a tech company with 51-200 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
8.3
Sigma is consistently reliable with stable performance, no reported issues, or disruptions, ensuring error-free projects across teams.
It can handle large datasets.
DBA at Federal University of Uberlândia
We did not face typical errors during our project with Sigma.
Lead Analytics Consultant at a outsourcing company with 51-200 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Pentaho Business Analytics lacks an intuitive interface, robust integration, self-service features, and requires technical expertise, limiting usability.
Sigma's limited visuals, complex workflows, and steep learning curve hinder usability compared to competitors like Power BI.
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
The main improvement needed is in data modeling capabilities.
Lead Analytics Consultant at a outsourcing company with 51-200 employees
It is not as intuitive as I was hoping, so once you figure it out and get going, it is easy to use, but I would say at the very beginning, the learning experience is kind of hard.
Head of Marketing at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Sigma lacks a versioning feature to track changes.
Technical Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers find the free Pentaho Community Edition cost-effective, while the Enterprise Edition offers value with support and features.
Enterprise buyers find Sigma licensing costly, with high platform and creator fees, leading to a preference for view-only licenses.
Pentaho Business Analytics is priced similarly to other competitors such as QlikView and Tableau.
DBA at Federal University of Uberlândia
The pricing of Sigma is a concern, as it restricts our ability to provide more users with report-creating capabilities due to the high cost of admin or report creator licenses.
CEO at PeerSpot
 

Valuable Features

Pentaho Business Analytics provides easy data integration, customizable dashboards, extensive connectivity, and supports efficient data transformation and delivery.
Sigma excels with pivot tables, data integration, collaboration, and visual appeal, enhancing teamwork and decision-making efficiency.
It is a stable product, and it can handle large datasets.
DBA at Federal University of Uberlândia
Sigma has positively impacted my organization because I think it has been a huge impact, and we use it for all our reporting and our dashboards for tracking.
Head of Marketing at a tech company with 51-200 employees
The use of Sigma in decision-making, presentations to customers, and reporting to investors showcases its value in handling data-related tasks.
CEO at PeerSpot
Sigma has positively affected my organization by saving us time in accessing information, which ultimately gets us to complete projects faster.
Customer Success Manager at a tech company with 51-200 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Pentaho Business Analytics
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
20th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Operations Analytics (2nd), Reporting (13th)
Sigma
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
15th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (11th)
 

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 Sigma is 1.6%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Sigma1.6%
Pentaho Business Analytics0.6%
Other97.8%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

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.
reviewer2729628 - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Analytics Consultant at a outsourcing company with 51-200 employees
Great collaboration with intuitive interface and dynamic visualization capabilities
As we are exploring multiple features in Sigma, I think Sigma can add more functionality. As Power BI gives multiple modeling options in its interface with the query editor, those features can be added in Sigma for intuitiveness or for making the data very clean. From the dashboarding perspective, it performs well. However, from the modeling perspective, it requires more capabilities that can be added in Sigma. The main improvement needed is in data modeling capabilities. If they add those features in the near future, it would be very helpful for us to implement the same or do the data cleansing part in the Sigma tool itself.
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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
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
9%
 

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 Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise2
 

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 Sigma?
I do not know much about my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing because I am not heavily involved in that.
What needs improvement with Sigma?
I think Sigma can be improved because, for the last ten months since I first started here, this is my first time ever using it, and I think there is a steep learning curve. It is not as intuitive a...
What is your primary use case for Sigma?
My main use case for Sigma is that there are a bunch of reports, and many of our main reports are built on Sigma. I use it as a dashboard, review the reports, filter through there, and use it to he...
 

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.
Snowflake, Fivetran ,Autodesk, Flowspace, Super League Gaming, Zumper, Clover, Volta, Olivela
Find out what your peers are saying about Pentaho Business Analytics vs. Sigma and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
880,954 professionals have used our research since 2012.