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Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics vs SAP Business Data Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 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
7.1
Pentaho streamlines data integration, reducing costs and development time, with savings up to $75,000 annually and improved efficiency.
Sentiment score
4.5
SAP Business Data Cloud boosts ROI through time savings, efficiency, improved insights, and reduced manual tasks, enhancing decision-making.
I have seen a return on investment; my team was able to stay extremely small even though we had a lot of data integrations with many companies.
Principal Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I can testify to the return on investment with metrics regarding time saved; we have increased our efficiency by about 20 to 30 percent due to the swift migration processes facilitated by the tool.
Data Integration Developer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I have noticed a return on investment with Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics in terms of time savings and staff reduction.
Data Analyst at Telefonica Digital
We have saved a lot on the number of employees, and implementation time for the projects has reduced significantly since we started using the standard features of SAP Business Data Cloud.
Principal Architect at a tech consulting company with 501-1,000 employees
Once the content is available, then it is a faster go-live with lesser cost in implementation, and that would give an ROI.
Director & Co Owner at INFRABEAT TECHNOLOGIES PVT LTD
It will definitely reduce the need for more staff to handle this technology.
SAP BDC Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.1
Users find community resources and forums helpful for Pentaho support, but complex issues sometimes require paid assistance.
Sentiment score
6.2
SAP Business Data Cloud support is generally positive, though complex issues need time and improvements in first-level attention.
24/7 assistance is available for the Enterprise Edition.
Data architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
take the time to understand our business requirements, offering appropriate recommendations.
Data Integration Developer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Communication with the vendor is challenging
Data Architecture and Engineering Specialist at coprocenva
I would give the technical support for SAP Business Data Cloud a 10 out of 10.
Business Data Lead (Egypt And North Africa) at Reckitt Benckiser
On a scale from 0 to 10, I would rate their support 10 out of 10.
Owner at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
The technical support is a very well-organized service, with a lot of tools for me as a consultant and for the end user on how to contact SAP support and get issues solved.
Competence Leader - BI at Sabris CZ s.r.o.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
Pentaho Data Integration scales effectively for large datasets, though massive environments may challenge performance without cloud deployment.
Sentiment score
7.2
SAP Business Data Cloud excels in scalability and integration, efficiently managing growth and supporting various platform connections.
It can be scaled well until you reach a point where you need to perform a lot of operations, and the issue arises when it runs out of memory to handle some data.
Data engineer at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Its ability to scale horizontally in cloud-native architectures or for massive real-time processing is limited.
Data Analyst at Telefonica Digital
Pentaho Data Integration handles larger datasets better.
Data Architecture and Engineering Specialist at coprocenva
The scalability of SAP Business Data Cloud has been strong, as it has handled growth in data volume, user demand, and reporting requirements without significant performance issues.
Technique at Digitaltrack
SAP Analytics Cloud can be used by a small company, and it can be used by a large corporate.
Competence Leader - BI at Sabris CZ s.r.o.
Since SAP has consolidated everything on one platform, there is ample room to expand as much as needed.
Sap Data & Analytics Consultant at Dezert Innovation Technology Company
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Pentaho Data Integration's stability varies, with reliability for small tasks but struggles with massive data and occasional bugs.
Sentiment score
7.5
SAP Business Data Cloud is seen as stable and reliable despite occasional performance issues, especially with large datasets.
Performance issues arise due to reliance on a flowchart-based mechanism instead of scripts, which can lead to longer execution times.
Data architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I find that version 3.1 is the most stable version I have ever used.
Founder-CEO at Ubuntu Analytica
It's pretty stable, however, it struggles when dealing with smaller amounts of data.
Data Architecture and Engineering Specialist at coprocenva
You have a chance to test it on your test tenant in small increments, so it should not break your productive reports and productive environment.
Competence Leader - BI at Sabris CZ s.r.o.
It has been reliable for reporting, analytics, and data integration activities.
Network security engineer at a outsourcing company with 11-50 employees
This really allowed virtual access to data, which means there was no heavy replication of data involved, greatly improving performance.
Associate Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

Pentaho Data Integration needs improved performance, scalability, cloud integration, real-time processing, updated interface, and better documentation and support.
SAP Business Data Cloud users seek improved customization, analytics, integration, cost reduction, onboarding, automation, and enhanced transition from legacy systems.
We should also explore more effective partitioning for parallel processing and fine-tuning database connections to reduce load times and improve ETL speed.
Data Integration Developer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics can be improved by working with different environments, specifically the possibility to change the variables, meaning I write my variables only once and can change them for different environments such as production or development.
Founder-CEO at Ubuntu Analytica
Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics could have real-time processing and automatic alerting, having alerts or automatic notifications when a job fails or when certain data doesn't meet certain rules.
Data Analyst at Telefonica Digital
On the other hand, it is perfectly fitting to the SAP environment, with seamless integration to all SAP modules, not only ERP but also SuccessFactors and other tools from the SAP family.
Competence Leader - BI at Sabris CZ s.r.o.
If SAP can come up with innovative options to reduce licensing costs, many customers would incline toward SAP Business Data Cloud.
Principal Architect at a tech consulting company with 501-1,000 employees
If I compare the cost with SAP competitors, I find that when creating an enterprise data lake, if I don't use SAP Business Data Cloud and make it directly in the hyperscalers, it is pretty much cheaper than doing the same in SAP Business Data Cloud.
Director & Co Owner at INFRABEAT TECHNOLOGIES PVT LTD
 

Setup Cost

Pentaho provides cost-effective data integration and analytics with a free Community Edition and a competitively priced Enterprise Edition.
SAP Business Data Cloud pricing is high but justified by features, though users find it expensive compared to competitors.
I use the community version of Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics, and I do not need additional costs.
Project Manager at Laberit
The setup cost was minimal, and the pricing experience was pretty good.
Data engineer at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
The company covered it and they had no problem paying for it because they saw that it was cost-effective in terms of performance afterwards.
Data Analyst at Telefonica Digital
If I compare the cost with SAP competitors, I find that when creating an enterprise data lake, if I don't use SAP Business Data Cloud and make it directly in the hyperscalers, it is pretty much cheaper than doing the same in SAP Business Data Cloud.
Director & Co Owner at INFRABEAT TECHNOLOGIES PVT LTD
From a planning license perspective, SAC on that side is very expensive if you need developer features.
Director Of Analytics at a outsourcing company with 501-1,000 employees
SAP Business Data Cloud is at a disadvantage when compared to tools like Talend or Informatica, which are cheaper and more capable.
Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

Pentaho Data Integration is user-friendly, versatile, and integrates well with data sources, supporting automation and minimal coding for efficiency.
SAP Business Data Cloud offers seamless integration, real-time analytics, AI support, and centralized data management for enhanced productivity and decision-making.
Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics has positively impacted my organization because it meant we didn't have to write a lot of custom API back-end processing logic; it did the majority of that heavy lifting for us.
Principal Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
It automates the data workflow, including extraction, cleansing, and loading into warehouses for BI reporting purposes, while also removing duplicates, validating data, and standardizing formats, enabling real-time decision-making.
Data Integration Developer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics has positively impacted my organization because it is easier to use, and my knowledge about this work facilitates the translation from the source to my final system.
Project Manager at Laberit
For SuccessFactors and S/4HANA Cloud, there are pre-built reports available which are commonly used by customers.
Project Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
SAP Business Data Cloud has positively impacted my organization by federating SAP data, which is now available for all to use.
Associate director, SAP technical at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The main standout feature is BDC Connect, as it is very useful for sharing data without replicating to third-party tools such as Enterprise Databricks, Snowflake or even in the near future, Google BigQuery as well as Microsoft Fabric.
Principal Architect at a tech consulting company with 501-1,000 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Pentaho Data Integration an...
Ranking in Data Integration
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP Business Data Cloud
Ranking in Data Integration
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
115
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (3rd), Business Performance Management (2nd), Cloud Analytics (2nd), Predictive Analytics (2nd), Data Governance (5th), Cloud Data Warehouse (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics is 1.7%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Business Data Cloud is 1.1%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Integration Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SAP Business Data Cloud1.1%
Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics1.7%
Other97.2%
Data Integration
 

Featured Reviews

Michelle Lawson - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Streamlines complex data workflows and has supported automated customer payment notifications
I haven't used Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics in a couple of years, so I don't know how it can be improved. I was pretty pleased with it and was self-taught on it, working a lot with their team at various times, but they were surprised that I was able to learn it all by myself. The documentation is not bad, and documentation is the main thing that any product can do to make themselves better because the easier it is to find examples of what you're trying to do improves the learning curve. I think it took me the longest to learn how to do the asynchronous processing and have things wait for other things to finish processing before continuing on in the workflow. I choose 8 out of 10 because the one reason that it's been rejected at T-Mobile is that everything has to go through a provisioning process and has to get approved, meaning the actual code base has to be investigated by T-Mobile before they'll allow us to use tools of that nature. For whatever reason, we just haven't been able to get that approval; I don't know if it's on Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics' side or if it's on our side. The more you can make it easier for companies to feel comfortable that your product is secure, robustly tested and bug-free, and free of any other kind of negative hacks, the more quickly it will get accepted.
Pavlina Pankova - PeerSpot reviewer
Competence Leader - BI at Sabris CZ s.r.o.
Brings reporting, planning, and prediction together in one seamless workflow
I think the areas of SAP Analytics Cloud that could be improved or enhanced are mentioned by users or companies, and they would definitely mention the price in terms of planning licensing. From a consulting point of view, I don't see any major weaknesses. It is reasonably well-developed, and the perfect strength is that innovations are coming on a quarterly basis. It is slightly behind other tools in terms of the number of graphical outputs. Some tools have it faster, but every increment of innovations contains new features. On the other hand, it is perfectly fitting to the SAP environment, with seamless integration to all SAP modules, not only ERP but also SuccessFactors and other tools from the SAP family, for example, integrated business planning for the production planning. This is really a highlight compared to other tools.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Educational Organization
9%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise32
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business42
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise69
 

Questions from the Community

Which ETL tool would you recommend to populate data from OLTP to OLAP?
Hi Rajneesh, yes here is the feature comparison between the community and enterprise edition : https://www.hitachivantara.com/en-us/pdf/brochure/leverage-open-source-benefits-with-assurance-of-hita...
What do you think can be improved with Hitachi Lumada Data Integrations?
In my opinion, the reporting side of this tool needs serious improvements. In my previous company, we worked with Hitachi Lumada Data Integration and while it does a good job for what it’s worth, ...
What do you use Hitachi Lumada Data Integrations for most frequently?
My company has used this product to transform data from databases, CSV files, and flat files. It really does a good job. We were most satisfied with the results in terms of how many people could us...
Which would you choose - Tableau or SAP Analytics Cloud?
Tableau is easy to set up and maintain. In about a day it is possible for the entire platform to be deployed for use. This relatively short amount of time can make all the difference for companies ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP Analytics Cloud?
I normally do not deal with the commercials, so I am not aware of the pricing part of it.
What needs improvement with SAP Analytics Cloud?
I think the areas of SAP Analytics Cloud that could be improved or enhanced are mentioned by users or companies, and they would definitely mention the price in terms of planning licensing. From a c...
 

Also Known As

Hitachi Lumada Data Integration, Kettle, Pentaho Data Integration
SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP Digital Boardroom, SAP Analytics Hub
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

66Controls, Providential Revenue Agency of Ro Negro, NOAA Information Systems, Swiss Real Estate Institute
Ericsson, Vodafone, Google, Team Liquid, Ryder Cup, Accenture
Find out what your peers are saying about Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics vs. SAP Business Data Cloud and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.