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Pentaho Business Analytics vs Spot by Flexera comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 19, 2026

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
7.9
Spot by Flexera cut compute costs by 75%, saved over 500,000 euros annually, and improved flexibility and operations.
A lot of money was saved after starting to use Spot by Flexera. I would say around 500,000 euros per year.
License manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
I cannot share the exact number, but I can share the figure that my EC2 and EKS compute cost reduced by around 65 to 75% with Spot.
Dev Ops Engineer at a construction company with 11-50 employees
Our technology predicts demand, selects the cheapest instance mix, sizes the workloads appropriately, and scales it automatically based on policy, resulting in significant savings by reducing manual work and enhancing our flexibility, which has helped accelerate our deployments.
Global Hyperscaler Alliances Director at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 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
8.4
Spot by Flexera provides responsive and effective customer service, receiving high ratings for their excellent technical support.
I would rate the customer support a nine out of ten.
Global Hyperscaler Alliances Director at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
We did not have to use it many times, but the few times that we did use it, it was very fast and very useful.
License manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ 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
7.6
Spot by Flexera is scalable, adaptable, and open-source, effectively managing AWS expansions and connecting diverse data sources.
It is also a very easy tool to connect to different data sources and different servers since it is open source.
License manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Spot's scalability is quite good, and it can be expanded to multiple environments.
Dev Ops Engineer at a construction company with 11-50 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
6.3
Spot by Flexera is stable but faces data update delays, requiring manual IT asset corrections and user-reported server discrepancies.
It can handle large datasets.
DBA at Federal University of Uberlândia
In Spot by Flexera, we could see both computers, the old and the new one, but the system was not recognizing that the old one was no longer being used.
License manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

Pentaho Business Analytics lacks an intuitive interface, robust integration, self-service features, and requires technical expertise, limiting usability.
Spot by Flexera could improve through storage cost optimization, better integrations, enhanced UI guidance, timely updates, and Kubernetes insights.
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
Spot could be improved by adding features that help identify data to optimize storage costs by detecting datasets within our environment based on criteria such as age and usage.
AVP DevOps and Product Support at a recruiting/HR firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
We had a couple of IT assets that were not being used, and we had this information in our internal servers, but Spot by Flexera was not able to update on time.
License manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
More guided onboarding would help teams adopt advanced features faster.
Dev Ops Engineer at a construction company with 11-50 employees
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers find the free Pentaho Community Edition cost-effective, while the Enterprise Edition offers value with support and features.
Users praise Spot by Flexera's pricing for its competitiveness and convenience, rating it highly against market alternatives.
Pentaho Business Analytics is priced similarly to other competitors such as QlikView and Tableau.
DBA at Federal University of Uberlândia
I was aware of different pricing, setup costs, and licensing across the company.
License manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
The pricing is reasonable and convenient, and the value it offers is completely in line with what I am spending.
Dev Ops Engineer at a construction company with 11-50 employees
 

Valuable Features

Pentaho Business Analytics provides easy data integration, customizable dashboards, extensive connectivity, and supports efficient data transformation and delivery.
Spot by Flexera optimizes cloud costs, manages resources efficiently, and integrates with AWS, improving scalability and decision-making with AI.
It is a stable product, and it can handle large datasets.
DBA at Federal University of Uberlândia
The fact that it can mix dozens of instance families dynamically is something which the AWS native autoscalers simply cannot do.
Dev Ops Engineer at a construction company with 11-50 employees
Spot's automated cost optimization works by continuously analyzing the workload and applying policies to minimize cloud spend without sacrificing performance.
Global Hyperscaler Alliances Director at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
This flexibility made it possible for us to connect all of our data and trust that Spot by Flexera had accurate and updated data to perform reports in different offices across the world.
License manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Pentaho Business Analytics
Ranking in Cloud Operations Analytics
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (19th), Reporting (14th)
Spot by Flexera
Ranking in Cloud Operations Analytics
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (20th), Server Virtualization Software (14th), Cloud Analytics (3rd), Compute Service (9th), Containers as a Service (CaaS) (3rd), Cloud Cost Management (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Cloud Operations Analytics category, the mindshare of Pentaho Business Analytics is 9.7%, down from 28.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Spot by Flexera is 26.7%, up from 21.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Operations Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Spot by Flexera26.7%
Pentaho Business Analytics9.7%
Other63.6%
Cloud Operations Analytics
 

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.
Bruna Müller - PeerSpot reviewer
License manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Centralized asset data has transformed how we manage licenses and make cost-saving decisions
One problem that we faced using Spot by Flexera is that in certain servers, the data was not being updated correctly, and we had a certain delay. For example, someone was using a computer, and then this user received a new one. In Spot by Flexera, we could see both computers, the old and the new one, but the system was not recognizing that the old one was no longer being used. We had a couple of IT assets that were not being used, and we had this information in our internal servers, but Spot by Flexera was not able to update on time. We had to fix this information manually.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Operations Analytics solutions are best for your needs.
889,855 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
13%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise15
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...
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 needs improvement with Spot Ocean?
I think overall Spot is quite good. The UI is powerful, but it can feel a bit dense for some new users. More guided onboarding would help teams adopt advanced features faster, and deeper insights i...
What is your primary use case for Spot Ocean?
My primary use case for Spot revolves around managing and optimizing my compute infrastructure across AWS, mainly EC2 and EKS on a daily basis, such as monitoring the workloads and ensuring that Ku...
What advice do you have for others considering Spot Ocean?
I would definitely recommend Spot for those looking to run their workloads on AWS, especially those needing cheaper compute for tasks that will not require much for temporary processing. For scalin...
 

Also Known As

Pentaho, Kettle, Hitachi Pentaho Business Analytics
Spot Ocean, Spot Elastigroup, Spot Eco
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cargo 2000 Lufthansa, Marketo, ModCloth, Cardiac Science, Telefonica, ExactTarget, Active Broadband Networks, and Brussels Airport.
Freshworks, Zalando, Red Spark, News, Trax, ETAS, Demandbase, BeesWa, Duolingo, intel, IBM, N26, Wix, EyeEm, moovit, SAMSUNG, News UK, ticketmaster
Find out what your peers are saying about Pentaho Business Analytics vs. Spot by Flexera and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
889,855 professionals have used our research since 2012.