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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
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP Replication Server
Ranking in Data Integration
45th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Database Development and Management (20th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics is 1.7%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Replication Server is 0.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Integration Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics1.7%
SAP Replication Server0.9%
Other97.4%
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.
Imran  Rafi - PeerSpot reviewer
SAP HXM & Integration consultant at Kaar Technologies
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

"Before we used Pentaho, our processes were in Microsoft Excel and the updates from databases had to be done manually, but now all our routines are done automatically and we have more time to do other jobs, saving us four or five hours daily."
"It allows for rapid prototyping of a wide array of ETL workloads."
"Overall it is an awesome tool."
"Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics positively impacted my organization by organizing data that was scattered across many different databases and APIs, reducing a lot of manual work and centralizing it into one data warehouse."
"It is a lightweight ETL tool that's easy to get started on and connects seamlessly to most commonly used data sources."
"We have a huge amount of data that needs to be cleaned and made more valuable for our organization, and this Data Integration helps us to achieve that goal."
"It has made a world of difference."
"It is easy to use, install, and start working with."
"Currently, there is a Hadoop-based infrastructure with several engineers to maintain the data, and now, using SAP Replication Server, it has become automatic and requires fewer people to put data in the data warehouse."
"We use this solution for all kinds of communications like RFC, BAPI, IDoc, connecting with the orders, accounts, finance, data stuff, banking, everything."
"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."
"It's pretty good at handling replication, even under high load. It also provides cross-database replication, for example, from Sybase to Oracle."
"This product has a catalog with the location of all the objects which were replicated, and it's very simple to maintain."
"SAP Replication Server is an application that I consider to be a robust system. It has proven to be highly reliable in my experience."
"The most valuable thing about this product is that it replicates data between SAP databases (ASE to IQ) very successfully."
"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

"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."
"The rule executor step can be improved."
"I have been facing some difficulties when working with large datasets. It seems that when there is a large amount of data, I experience memory errors."
"It's not very stable, at least not in the case of the community edition. I'm working with the community edition right now and I think perhaps it is because of that it is not very stable, it causes the system to sometimes hang."
"I work with different databases. I would like to work with more connectors to new databases, e.g., DynamoDB and MariaDB, and new cloud solutions, e.g., AWS, Azure, and GCP. If they had these connectors, that would be great. They could improve by building new connectors. If you have native connections to different databases, then you can make instructions more efficient and in a more natural way. You don't have to write any scripts to use that connector."
"I would like to see more improvements with AS400 DB2."
"Its UI is probably a bit too confusing for that level of user, so it doesn't allow us to get the tool as widely distributed across the organization to non-technical users as much as we would like."
"The one annoyance that troubled us a lot was the fact that every step in a transformation that needed data, created its own data connection."
"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."
"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."
"There is room for improvement in terms of pricing and faster support."
"There is a need to improve performance in high transactional processes."
"Setup was a little complex."
"I would like to see it become mobile-friendly."
"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."
"It's a very expensive solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I believe the pricing of the solution is more affordable than the competitors"
"The cost of these types of solutions are expensive. So, we really appreciate what we get for our money. Though, we don't think of the solution as a top-of-the-line solution or anything like that."
"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."
"I primarily work on the Community Version, which is available to use free of charge."
"I mostly used the open-source version. I didn't work with a license."
"There was a cost analysis done and Pentaho did favorably in terms of cost."
"When we first started with it, it was much cheaper. It has gone up drastically, especially since Hitachi bought out Pentaho."
"It's a very expensive 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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Educational Organization
8%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Construction Company
17%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Retailer
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise31
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
 

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: May 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.