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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Pentaho Business Analytics
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Operations Analytics (5th), Reporting (12th)
Sigma
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
16th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Pentaho Business Analytics is 0.5%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sigma is 1.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Mir Gulzar Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
Excels in handling unstructured data, helping organizations navigate through different storage systems
Pentaho can help organizations by providing them an insight of their unstructured data using one platform(Pentaho Business Analytics). The features are almost identical to other BIS platforms but to me, customers can benefit as it has a community version with most of its Enterprise features. It also has a free limited-period trial version. The other feature that I would like to share here is, that users have access to a complete spectrum of data from different sources with the system’s adaptive big data layer, which takes the source of the data into account. The software is built on an open architecture and can be integrated with multiple systems. However, Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics has been acquired by HDS which offers an Enterprise edition for organizations that also need to meet product compliance.
Russell Rothstein - PeerSpot reviewer
Modern dashboards and reports enhance decision-making and presentations
I would love to be able to create my own reports in Sigma, as I can do in Salesforce. Either we are not using it properly, or the software is too complicated. It would be great if there was a way for me to create reports without relying on a data analyst. I'm interested in the upcoming AI co-pilot to enable natural language generation of visualizations and reports. Also, the marketing materials did not match what I feel we've received. Regarding pricing, Sigma's pricing doesn't allow more people to have the ability to create their own reports. We have very few admin or report creator licenses, while everyone else is on a view-only mode.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Pentaho is the Tableau report."
"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."
"It is robust, offers market intelligence, and utilizes modules effectively."
"We were able to install it without any assistance from tech support."
"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."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"I use the BI Server, CDE Dashboards, Saiku, and Kettle, because these tools are very good and highly experienced."
"I find the collaborative features, such as commenting, to be very valuable."
"The most valuable feature of Sigma is the detailed reports."
"Sigma serves as the visualization and reporting front end."
"The tool's interface is easy to use. The functions listed as a part of the menu items are easy to use."
"The most valuable feature of Sigma is the detailed reports."
"Sigma has excellent features, such as lookup tables where you can easily bring data that are not interrelated or at different granularity."
"Sigma is a great software for non-technical business users. If someone's familiar with pivot tables or Excel or Google Sheets, they should be able to pick up Sigma pretty quickly. There is a very low bar for onboarding."
"The most valuable aspect for me is having real-time data."
 

Cons

"The tool is very good, and yet it has some problems as it relies heavily on Java."
"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."
"Another concern is that Pentaho is not customizable or interactive."
"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."
"The repository should be improved."
"Version control would be a good addition."
"Pentaho Business Analytics' user interface is outdated."
"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."
"Sigma lacks a versioning feature to track changes. There is a need for better structuring, like a folder system, to organize diagrams efficiently."
"The only minor area for improvement lies in handling highly complex visualizations."
"Sigma could have better reports."
"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."
"The product's roadmap regarding introducing new features in the solution or new versions of the tool can be made better in the future."
"Sigma could have better reports."
"Either we are not using it properly, or the software is too complicated. It would be great if there was a way for me to create reports without relying on a data analyst."
"I would like to see better visualization options. That would allow me to build out more visually pleasing dashboarding in Sigma."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Free and commercial versions are available."
"The retail price is set at one thousand dollars per creator per year."
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Comparison Review

it_user6978 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
15%
Computer Software Company
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 Sigma?
The tool's interface is easy to use. The functions listed as a part of the menu items are easy to use.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sigma?
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. Most users have view...
What needs improvement with Sigma?
I would love to be able to create my own reports in Sigma, as I can do in Salesforce. Either we are not using it properly, or the software is too complicated. It would be great if there was a way f...
 

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: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.