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Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics vs SAP Replication Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

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 Data Integration an...
Ranking in Data Integration
18th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP Replication Server
Ranking in Data Integration
35th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Database Development and Management (19th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics is 1.7%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Replication Server is 0.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Integration Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics1.7%
SAP Replication Server0.6%
Other97.7%
Data Integration
 

Featured Reviews

Aqeel UR Rehman - PeerSpot reviewer
Transform data efficiently with rich features but there's challenges with large datasets
Currently, I am using Pentaho Data Integration for transforming data and then loading it into different platforms. Sometimes, I use it in conjunction with AWS, particularly S3 and Redshift, to execute the copy command for data processing Pentaho Data Integration is easy to use, especially when…
Imran  Rafi - PeerSpot reviewer
Foolproof stability and robust system
SAP Replication Server is an application that I consider to be a robust system. It has proven to be highly reliable in my experience. One of its notable features is real-time replication, which ensures that data changes are replicated immediately. This is particularly advantageous when we need to execute full processes promptly.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The graphical nature of the development interface is most useful because we've got people with quite mixed skills in the team. We've got some very junior, apprentice-level people, and we've got support analysts who don't have an IT background. It allows us to have quite complicated data flows and embed logic in them. Rather than having to troll through lines and lines of code and try and work out what it's doing, you get a visual representation, which makes it quite easy for people with mixed skills to support and maintain the product. That's one side of it."
"It is easy to use, install, and start working with."
"It has a really friendly user interface, which is its main feature. The process of automating or combining SQL code with some databases and doing the automation is great and really convenient."
"Pentaho Data Integration is quite simple to learn, and there is a lot of information available online."
"I can create faster instructions than writing with SQL or code. Also, I am able to do some background control of the data process with this tool. Therefore, I use it as an ELT tool. I have a station area where I can work with all the information that I have in my production databases, then I can work with the data that I created."
"It makes it pretty simple to do some fairly complicated things. Both I and some of our other BI developers have made stabs at using, for example, SQL Server Integration Services, and we found them a little bit frustrating compared to Data Integration. So, its ease of use is right up there."
"I absolutely love Hitachi. I'm one of the forefront supporters of Hitachi for my firm. It's so easy to integrate within our environments. In terms of being able to quickly build ETL jobs, transform, and then automate them, it's really easy to integrate throughout for data analytics."
"The abstraction is quite good."
"SAP is renovating different things. We are using external tools to connect as of now. It is going well, and now the new generation integration platforms are going to be pretty easy."
"We can customize any workflow and we also like the business domain modeling that can be done."
"It's pretty good at handling replication, even under high load. It also provides cross-database replication, for example, from Sybase to Oracle."
"SAP Replication Server is an application that I consider to be a robust system. It has proven to be highly reliable in my experience."
"It speeds up the performance in terms of how fast you are able to access the data, look at it, get it reported to you, and send it to somebody. It also reduces the amount of storage."
 

Cons

"Since Hitachi took over, I don't feel that the documentation is as good within the solution. It used to have very good help built right in."
"I experience difficulties when handling millions of rows, as the data movement from one source to another becomes challenging."
"I would like to see support for some additional cloud sources. It doesn't support Azure, for example. I was trying to do a PoC with Azure the other day but it seems they don't support it."
"The support for the Enterprise Edition is okay, but what they have done in the last three or four years is move more and more things to that edition. The result is that they are breaking the Community Edition. That's what our impression is."
"Parallel execution could be better in Pentaho. It's very simple but I don't think it works well."
"The testing and quality could really improve. Every time that there is a major release, we are very nervous about what is going to get broken. We have had a lot of experience with that, as even the latest one was broken. Some basic things get broken. That doesn't look good for Hitachi at all. If there is one place I would advise them to spend some money and do some effort, it is with the quality. It is not that hard to start putting in some unit tests so basic things don't get broken when they do a new release. That just looks horrible, especially for an organization like Hitachi."
"In terms of the flexibility to deploy in any environment, such as on-premise or in the cloud, we can do the cloud deployment only through virtual machines. We might also be able to work on different environments through Docker or Kubernetes, but we don't have an Azure app or an AWS app for easy deployment to the cloud. We can only do it through virtual machines, which is a problem, but we can manage it. We also work with Databricks because it works with Spark. We can work with clustered servers, and we can easily do the deployment in the cloud. With a right-click, we can deploy Databricks through the app on AWS or Azure cloud."
"As far as I remember, not all connectors worked very well. They can add more connectors and more drivers to the process to integrate with more flows."
"Improvement is a never ending story, and HANA is doing some improvements. We are able to adopt that, and we have to do it by integration with HANA. They are very major changes that we need to see."
"There is room for improvement in terms of pricing and faster support."
"I would like to see it become mobile-friendly."
"If someone wants to replicate their data from Sybase to a newer technology for data warehousing or other purposes, it would be better if they supported those."
"The private solution is expensive. If you're in a situation where you're paying IBM or AWS or somebody just to host you specifically, you're paying people to run it and you're taking care of all the upgrades."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the regular version is not reasonable and it should be lower."
"I use it because it is free. I download from their page for free. I don't have to pay for a license. With other tools, I have to pay for the licenses. That is why I use Pentaho."
"I think Lumada's price is fair compared to some of the others, like BusinessObjects, which is was the other thing that I used at my previous job. BusinessObject's price was more reasonable before SAP acquired it. They jacked the price up significantly. Oracle's OBIEE tool was also prohibitively expensive."
"Sometimes we provide the licenses or the customer can procure their own licenses. Previously, we had an enterprise license. Currently, we are on a community license as this is adequate for our needs."
"We did a two or three-year deal the last time we did it. As compared to other solutions, at least so far in our experience, it has been very affordable. The licensing is by component. So, you need to make sure you only license the components that you really intend to use. I am not sure if we have relicensed after the Hitachi acquisition, but previously, multi-year renewals resulted in a good discount. I'm not sure if this is still the case. We've had the full suite for a lot of years, and there is just the initial cost. I am not aware of any additional costs."
"There was a cost analysis done and Pentaho did favorably in terms of cost."
"We are using the Community Edition. We have been trying to use and sell the Enterprise version, but that hasn't been possible due to the budget required for it."
"If a company is looking for an ETL solution and wants to integrate it with their tech stack but doesn't want to spend a bunch of money, Pentaho is a good solution"
"You can pick one of the hosted cloud services as opposed to owning it and doing it yourself. Your cost of ownership on the hardware, the data storage, and the maintenance all go down. It depends on what service you use."
"It's a very expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Retailer
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise25
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
 

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...
What needs improvement with SAP Replication Server?
SAP can provide better support for cross-database replication to newer technologies. The product supports Oracle, but I am not aware of what other technologies it supports. If someone wants to repl...
What is your primary use case for SAP Replication Server?
It's basically to transfer data from one server to another. It's used for this purpose.
 

Also Known As

Hitachi Lumada Data Integration, Kettle, Pentaho Data Integration
Sybase Replication Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

66Controls, Providential Revenue Agency of Ro Negro, NOAA Information Systems, Swiss Real Estate Institute
Medtronic, Cirque du Soleil, Antarc, B&G Manufacturing, EarlySense, eBay, Ferrero, James Austin Company, Lenovo, Sagem, RAK Ceramics, Vodafone
Find out what your peers are saying about Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics vs. SAP Replication Server and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,760 professionals have used our research since 2012.