Pentaho Business Analytics vs XLCubed comparison

Hitachi Vantara and Fluence Technologies are both solutions in the Reporting category. Hitachi Vantara is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.5, while Fluence Technologies is ranked #31. Hitachi Vantara holds a 1.7% mindshare in RT, compared to Fluence Technologies’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of Hitachi Vantara users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 50% of Fluence Technologies users who would recommend it.

Pentaho Business Analytics

Read 45 Pentaho Business Analytics reviews

1,867 Views
784 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

XLCubed

Read 2 XLCubed reviews

404 Views
271 Comparison Views

50% willing to recommend

Pentaho Business Analytics

XLCubed

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

Pentaho Business Analytics and XLCubed are competitive products in business analytics, each offering distinct capabilities. XLCubed holds an edge for those prioritizing advanced analytical features due to its flexibility and depth.

Features: Pentaho Business Analytics provides data integration, customizable dashboards, and extensive visualization tools. XLCubed offers powerful data analysis, seamless Excel integration, and enhanced flexibility for modeling and reporting, with notable analytical depth.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Pentaho Business Analytics generally offers an easier deployment experience with comprehensive documentation and support. XLCubed, while requiring more initial setup, is supported by highly responsive and effective customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Pentaho Business Analytics is more affordable, appealing to cost-conscious buyers through competitive pricing. XLCubed, while higher in upfront costs, provides substantial ROI for those seeking advanced data manipulation and analytical features, justifying the investment with its deep insights.

To learn more, read our detailed Pentaho Business Analytics vs. XLCubed Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Pentaho Business Analytics vs. XLCubed

December 2025

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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 Reporting

13th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (20th), Cloud Operations Analytics (2nd)

XLCubed

Ranking in Reporting

31st

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

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 XLCubed is 0.8%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Reporting Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Pentaho Business Analytics	1.7%
XLCubed	0.8%
Other	97.5%

Reporting

Featured Reviews

Julien Baluka

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.

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it_user1391316

Head of Finance Systems at NHS

Cost effective with great capability, performance, flexibility and visuals

In general, we're happy with the solution but we're always looking to see what else is out there. The thing we've struggled with is our partnership with Tagetik UK, the consultants, and the issue we had gaining access to consultants to develop the solution on our behalf. Thankfully we connected directly with XLCubed and now have a pretty close and good relationship with them so the earlier problem we had of actually getting resources to help us develop has now been solved. One of the things that we've been asking for and would like as an additional feature is a sort of benchmarking functionality. The ability to be able to benchmark, directly against the company digital corporate numbers. That said, there seems to be improved functionality within the latest release that could help us develop that further.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The interface of Pentaho Business Analytics is easy to use and does not require high-level skills to operate the tool."

"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."

"The most valuable feature of Pentaho is the Tableau report."

"When I have a customer that wants to have a real ETL tool in a standardized way with a real code written product, it is the cheapest."

"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."

"Easy to use components to create the job."

"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."

More Pentaho Business Analytics pros

"I am looking forward to testing their full graphics that are available, as they looked very interesting in the demo."

"Great capability, performance, flexibility, visuals, and the solution is also very cost effective."

Cons

"Version control would be a good addition."

"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."

"The tool is very good, and yet it has some problems as it relies heavily on Java."

"Another concern is that Pentaho is not customizable or interactive."

"The repository should be improved."

"Pentaho Business Analytics' user interface is outdated."

"Logging capability is needed."

"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."

More Pentaho Business Analytics cons

"Would like the ability to be able to benchmark."

"There should be a better or an easier way to establish that connection to external sources."

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."

"I am still using the two-week trial, but at first sight, the price is reasonable."

"14,000 Pounds per year for licensing."

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Comparison Review

it_user6978

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…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	22
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	15

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...

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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...

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What needs improvement with Pentaho Business Analytics?

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Comparisons

KNIME Business Hub vs Pentaho Business Analytics

Compared 23% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Pentaho Business Analytics

Compared 10% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Pentaho Business Analytics

Compared 10% of the time

Databricks vs Pentaho Business Analytics

Compared 7% of the time

Apache Spark vs Pentaho Business Analytics

Compared 7% of the time

More Pentaho Business Analytics Competitors

Microsoft Power BI vs XLCubed

Compared 64% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs XLCubed

Compared 36% of the time

More XLCubed Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pentaho Business Analytics

January 2026

Download Pentaho Business Analytics product report

Buyer's Guide

Reporting

January 2026

Download XLCubed product report

Also Known As

Pentaho, Kettle, Hitachi Pentaho Business Analytics

No data available

Overview

Pentaho is an open source business intelligence company that provides a wide range of tools to help their customers better manage their businesses. These tools include data integration software, mining tools, dashboard applications, online analytical processing options, and more.

Pentaho has two product categories: There is the standard enterprise version. This is the product that comes directly from Pentaho itself with all of the benefits, features, and programs that come along with a paid application such us analysis services, dashboard design, and interactive reporting.

The alternative is an open source version, which the public is permitted to add to and tweak the product. This solution has its advantages, aside from the fact that it is free, in that there are many more people working on the project to improve its quality and breadth of functionality.

Hitachi Vantara

Produce insightful, interactive reports on, company-wide metrics for any business audience. Now all in Excel.
Pixel-perfect financial reporting with the skill sets you already have. No IT required.
Meet XLCubed: The data-connected Excel add-in for all your reporting needs.

Fluence Technologies

Sample Customers

Cargo 2000 Lufthansa, Marketo, ModCloth, Cardiac Science, Telefonica, ExactTarget, Active Broadband Networks, and Brussels Airport.

Marshalls Ltd, BP Exploration and Production, Thorntons, Ted Baker, Bristol-Myers, Rank Group, ING Bank Genve, Cargill Value Investment, Chloride Power, Auchan, Erste, UEFA, Novartis, Porsche Informatik, Raiffeisen Bank International

Buyer's Guide

Pentaho Business Analytics vs. XLCubed

December 2025

Free Report: Pentaho Business Analytics vs. XLCubed

Find out what your peers are saying about Pentaho Business Analytics vs. XLCubed and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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