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Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics vs SAS Access 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:
 

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
SAS Access
Ranking in Data Integration
59th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 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 SAS Access is 0.8%, up from 0.4% 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%
SAS Access0.8%
Other97.5%
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.
Robert Heck - PeerSpot reviewer
Co Owner at Hecht und Heck GmbH
The solution is stable, scalable, and flexible
I rate the solution eight out of ten. The number of people required to maintain the solution is dependent on the other applications running. The solution in itself does not require a lot of maintenance. The solution is flexible and I recommend it when you have more complex applications with special requirements.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The abstraction is quite good."
"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."
"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."
"We've seen a 50 percent reduction in our ETL development time using the free version of Pentaho, saving about 1,000 euros per week and at least 50,000 euros annually."
"We have been able to expose data services through the use of CDA relying on the same database as the reporting tools, thus avoiding inconsistencies among the data shown by reports and data acquired by external systems."
"Provides a good open source option."
"It's very simple compared to other products out there."
"Lumada Data Integration definitely helps with decision-making for our deans and upper executives, and the fact that we're able to reuse some of the ETLs with the metadata injection saves us time and costs while making it a pretty quick process for our developers to learn and pick up ETLs from each other."
"The most valuable aspect of the solution is the ease of access to the data in those databases."
"The SAS/ACCESS ability to connect creates an elegant simplicity."
"The most valuable part of SAS/ACCESS is what it is made for: connecting to remote systems that are not part of your physical SAS environment."
"The most valuable feature is you have native access to the external databases."
 

Cons

"In terms of our decision to purchase Hitachi's product services or solutions, our satisfaction level is average or on balance."
"There some steps that should perform better like the json input, but because of the flexibility we at inflow, override it by using scripting steps."
"While Pentaho Data Integration is very friendly, it is not very useful when there isn't a lot of data to handle."
"I would like to see improvement when it comes to integrating structured data with text data or anything that is unstructured. Sometimes we get all kinds of different files that we need to integrate into the warehouse."
"Their technical support is not good. I would rate them 2 out of 10 because they don't have good technical skills to solve problems."
"I would like to see more improvements with AS400 DB2. I journalled the tables/instance and the data migration is too slow if I compare it with other databases."
"Larger data jobs take more time to execute."
"If you're working with a larger data set, I'm not so sure it would be the best solution; the larger things got the slower it was and it was kind of buggy sometimes."
"The pricing model needs to be reconsidered and adjusted."
"I can't really recall any missing feature or general improvement that is needed. We don't really add too many new kinds of databases and therefore our needs are already met."
"The primary way that this product can be improved is by adjusting their pricing model."
"The solution can provide access to the newer databases that come out sooner."
"The solution's pricing and licensing are expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"You need to go through the paid version to have Hitachi Lumada specialized support. However, if you are using the free version, then you will have only the community support. You will depend on the releases from Hitachi to solve some problem or questions that you have, such as bug fixes. You will need to wait for the newest versions or releases to solve these types of problems."
"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."
"When we first started with it, it was much cheaper. It has gone up drastically, especially since Hitachi bought out 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."
"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 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."
"The pricing model is complex and is based on modular packages as well as the size of the applicable environment."
"The solution's pricing and licensing are expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Construction Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise32
No data available
 

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
SAS/Access
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

66Controls, Providential Revenue Agency of Ro Negro, NOAA Information Systems, Swiss Real Estate Institute
Los Angeles County, West Midlands Police, Credit Guarantee Corporation, Canada Post, Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty
Find out what your peers are saying about Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics vs. SAS Access and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.