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Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics vs SAP Replication Server comparison

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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:
 

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 Replication Server
Ranking in Data Integration
55th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Database Development and Management (21st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics is 1.8%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Replication Server is 0.9%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Integration Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics1.8%
SAP Replication Server0.9%
Other97.3%
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.
GagandeepSingh3 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Good at handling replication, provides cross-database replication but SAP can provide better support for cross-database replication to newer technologies
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 replicate their data from Sybase to a newer technology for data warehousing or other purposes, it would be better if they supported those.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We also haven't had to create any custom Java code. Almost everywhere it's SQL, so it's done in the pipeline and the configuration. That means you can offload the work to people who, while they are not less experienced, are less technical when it comes to logic."
"Pentaho Kettle has a very intuitive and easy to use graphical user interface (GUI) and it is possible to understand how to develop an ETL solution even when using it for the first time."
"After using this product, we could do some of the things much faster than before."
"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."
"The solution has a free to use community version."
"This solution allows us to create pipelines using a minimal amount of custom coding."
"It is easy to use, install, and start working with."
"We have seen at least 30% savings in terms of effort, which has helped us to price our service and products more aggressively in the market and win more clients."
"It's pretty good at handling replication, even under high load. It also provides cross-database replication, for example, from Sybase to Oracle."
"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."
"SAP Replication Server is an application that I consider to be a robust system. It has proven to be highly reliable in my experience."
"This product has a catalog with the location of all the objects which were replicated, and it's very simple to maintain."
"We use this solution for all kinds of communications like RFC, BAPI, IDoc, connecting with the orders, accounts, finance, data stuff, banking, everything."
"We can customize any workflow and we also like the business domain modeling that can be done."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"Overall, our Hitachi solution was quite good, but over the last couple of years, we have been trying to move away from the product due to a number of things."
"Communicating with the vendor is challenging, and this hinders its performance in free tool setups."
"The price of the regular version is not reasonable and it should be lower."
"The only complaint that I have with Pentaho has been with scaling."
"Upgrading the bi-platform is a little pain, but the rest is easy to use and to set up."
"It is difficult to process huge amounts of data."
"One thing I wish was better about Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics is its performance, as it sometimes gets intensive on the CPU standpoint, taking a lot of memory in some cases, especially when dealing with big data sets."
"I think Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics needs additional plugins for the market, and for some specific tasks it is very difficult."
"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."
"It's a very expensive solution."
"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."
"It's complex. It's necessary to understand a little about infrastructure, like network LAN and VLAN environment."
"There is room for improvement in terms of pricing and faster support."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I primarily work on the Community Version, which is available to use free of charge."
"It does seem a bit expensive compared to the serverless product offering. Tools, such as Server Integration Services, are "almost" free with a database engine. It is comparable to products like Alteryx, which is also very expensive."
"I believe the pricing of the solution is more affordable than the competitors"
"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."
"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."
"There was a cost analysis done and Pentaho did favorably in terms of cost."
"There is a good open source option (Community Edition)​."
"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
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Construction Company
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Construction Company
22%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
 

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 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...
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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 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.