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Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics vs SSIS vs Talend Open Studio comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics is 1.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SSIS is 7.9%, up from 7.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Talend Open Studio is 4.8%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Integration
 

Featured Reviews

Ryan Ferdon - PeerSpot reviewer
Low-code makes development faster than with Python, but there were caching issues
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. It was kind of buggy sometimes. And when we ran the flow, it didn't go from a perceived start to end, node by node. Everything kicked off at once. That meant there were times when it would get ahead of itself and a job would fail. That was not because the job was wrong, but because Pentaho decided to go at everything at once, and something would process before it was supposed to. There were nodes you could add to make sure that, before this node kicks off, all these others have processed, but it was a bit tedious. There were also caching issues, and we had to write code to clear the cache every time we opened the program, because the cache would fill up and it wouldn't run. I don't know how hard that would be for them to fix, or if it was fixed in version 10. Also, the UI is a bit outdated, but I'm more of a fan of function over how something looks. One other thing that would have helped with Pentaho was documentation and support on the internet: how to do things, how to set up. I think there are some sites on how to install it, and Pentaho does have a help repository, but it wasn't always the most useful.
BobAmy - PeerSpot reviewer
Robust and does a good job of handling overload conditions
We purchase an add-on called task factory primarily to allow bulk delete, update, and upsert capability. I'd like to see this be part of the standard package. I believe there are ways to build a model and set variables so that it can be a generic process. In my next system, I would like to have a generic process that would handle all the logging and processing in a model that can be modified and enhanced as the need for a better process, or different statistics to be logged is discovered. I'd want this in a way that the model can be changed and all the processes, with their unique parameters, could all be changed with the model upgraded. I believe they should add some features that help to create the code using a model. This would allow for continuous improvement of the model uses and easy replication of all the different programs that use the model.
Jason Hale - PeerSpot reviewer
Intuitive interface and documentation make it simple to build jobs and APIs and logging helps pinpoint and resolve issues quickly
Talend is doing a lot of work at the moment, and it's not there yet, but the whole platform could be managed in a SaaS-type environment. You still need to have the Studio running on a virtual desktop or a PC. They will get to be able to do the whole thing inside your browser, so you don't need to install anything locally. It's down the track, and it's the nirvana that we were looking for in Boomi. But the biggest challenge they have is that the platform is so focused on the Studio for all of its development. They'll probably get there, but they have such a mature Studio client that it's a huge amount of work to get all of that functionality into a browser or SaaS platform. That's pretty much the biggest flaw with the Talend environment—being reliant on the Studio, which needed to be on a local machine. The only other thing is that you have to integrate into an API gateway. We're in Azure, so we use Microsoft Azure Gateway. It doesn't come with its own gateway, which is another sort of big plus side that we saw in Boomi. Talend isn't quite there yet with the API gateway. Other than that, it's bloody hard to find something because it just seems to be all good.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Pentaho Data Integration is easy to use, especially when transforming data."
"We're using the PDI and the repository function, and they give us the ability to easily generate reporting and output, and to access data. We also like the ability to schedule."
"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."
"The solution has a free to use community version."
"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."
"One of the most valuable features is the ability to create many API integrations. I'm always working with advertising agents and using Facebook and Instagram to do campaigns. We use Pentaho to get the results from these campaigns and to create dashboards to analyze the results."
"The product is user-friendly and intuitive"
"It's already very user-friendly and has a good dashboard."
"The performance is good."
"The UI is very user-friendly."
"The most important features are it works well and provides self-service BI."
"This solution is easy to implement, has a wide variety of connectors, has support for Visual Basic, and supports the C language."
"The most valuable feature of SSIS is its ease of use. It is easier to use than other applications."
"I have found its most valuable features to be its package management capabilities and the flexibility it offers in designing workflows."
"You can get data from any data source with SSIS and dump it to any outside source. It is helpful. Getting, extracting, converting, and dumping data doesn't require much effort because we can do everything in the user interface. You drag and drop, then give the required input. It's intuitive."
"We have contacted their technical support. They are great. They offer very professional help. If I need some technical answer, they are very professional. They are quick, professional, and very accurate."
"The data integration aspect of the solution is excellent."
"The best thing I have found with Talend Open Studio is their major support for the lookups."
"Open Studio's best features are that it's user-friendly, even for beginners, and very easy to implement."
"This solution has improved our overall time to value for data ingestion."
"This product is very easy to use."
"We're able to handle large amounts of data with ease."
"Talend Open Studio's installation process is easy. One just needs to install Java before installing the product"
 

Cons

"I'm still in the very recent stage concerning Pentaho Data Integration, but it can't really handle what I describe as "extreme data processing" i.e. when there is a huge amount of data to process. That is one area where Pentaho is still lacking."
"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."
"The reporting definitely needs improvement. There are a lot of general, basic features that it doesn't have. A simple feature you would expect a reporting tool to have is the ability to search the repository for a report. It doesn't even have that capability. That's been a feature that we've been asking for since the beginning and it hasn't been implemented yet."
"It could be better integrated with programming languages, like Python and R. Right now, if I want to run a Python code on one of my ETLs, it is a bit difficult to do. It would be great if we have some modules where we could code directly in a Python language. We don't really have a way to run Python code natively."
"One thing that I don't like, just a little, is the backward compatibility."
"Lumada could have more native connectors with other vendors, such as Google BigQuery, Microsoft OneDrive, Jira systems, and Facebook or Instagram. We would like to gather data from modern platforms using Lumada, which is a better approach. As a comparison, if you open Power BI to retrieve data, then you can get data from many vendors with cloud-native connectors, such as Azure, AWS, Google BigQuery, and Athena Redshift. Lumada should have more native connectors to help us and facilitate our job in gathering information from these new modern infrastructures and tools."
"Should provide additional control for the data warehouse"
"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."
"Future releases should improve the data lineage, as it currently is not good."
"I would like to see better integration with Power BI."
"We purchase an add on called task factory primarily to allow bulk delete, update and upsert capability. I'd like to see this be part of the standard package."
"SSIS sometimes hangs, and there are some problems with servers going down after they've been patched."
"Tuning using this solution requires extensive expertise to improve performance."
"I would like to see better technical documentation because many times information is missing."
"At one point, we did have to purchase an add-on."
"The security could be improved, as it is more important in our context."
"The only other thing is that you have to integrate into an API gateway. We're in Azure, so we use Microsoft Azure Gateway. It doesn't come with its own gateway, which is another sort of big plus side that we saw in Boomi. Talend isn't quite there yet with the API gateway."
"We don't get continuous replication of the data."
"The security features could be improved."
"Talend Open Studio is in Java language, and right now, you can only use the debug functionality in Java. I see that people who know programming languages other than Java currently face difficulties."
"Technical support and customer service need to be improved."
"It is complicated to understand the configuration process for email components."
"The technical support and documentation need a lot of work to come up to standard."
"I would say that writing to JSON is kind of a pain. It reads from a JSON file pretty well, but writing to a JSON file is not so great because its components are not good."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the regular version is not reasonable and it should be lower."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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"
"I mostly used the open-source version. I didn't work with a license."
"People have to opt for a perpetual-based licensing model."
"This solution has provided an inexpensive tool, and it is easy to find experienced developers."
"It comes bundled with other solutions, which makes it difficult to get the price on the specific product."
"It would be beneficial if the solution had a less costly cloud offering."
"All of my clients have this product included as part of their Microsoft license."
"We purchased the standard edition of SQL Server and SSIS came with it free of charge."
"The solution is economical. You don't have to worry about the pricing as long as you're installing both services on the same server."
"Based on my experience and understanding, Talend comes out to be a little bit expensive as compared to SSIS. The average cost of having Talend with Talend Management Console is around 72K per region, which is much higher than SSIS. SSIS works very well with Microsoft technologies, and if you have Microsoft technologies, it is not really expensive to have SSIS. If you have SQL Server, SSIS is free."
"Talend is free and you can download it."
"There are many versions available and one is open-sourced which is free."
"For Talend Open Studio, there is a need to make yearly payments towards the licensing cost. Talend Open Studio is a bit expensive, in my opinion."
"The cost, particularly in Africa, is quite high."
"The cost for one year for the ETL tools, not for the big data, is 6K per year. It is a good price."
"Pricing is always a challenge. It is quite an expensive model, but because the platform is so simple to use, we haven't had to purchase any additional licenses."
"I am using the open-source version of the solution, so there are no extra costs for any feature."
"The solution will be more expensive if you have a low data volume and a large number of developers."
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Comparison Review

it_user90069 - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 20, 2014
Informatica PowerCenter vs. Microsoft SSIS - each technology has its advantages but also have similarities
Technology has made it easier for businesses to organize and manipulate data to get a clearer picture of what’s going on with their business. Notably, ETL tools have made managing huge amounts of data significantly easier and faster, boosting many organizations’ business intelligence operations…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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.hitachivan...
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 Hi...
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 j...
Which is better - SSIS or Informatica PowerCenter?
SSIS PowerPack is a group of drag and drop connectors for Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services, commonly called ...
What do you like most about SSIS?
The product's deployment phase is easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SSIS?
Utilizing SSIS involves no extra charges beyond the SQL Server license. It's an economical choice for my clients.
How does Talend Open Studio compare with AWS Glue?
We reviewed AWS Glue before choosing Talend Open Studio. AWS Glue is the managed ETL (extract, transform, and load) f...
What do you like most about Talend Open Studio?
It is easy to use and covers most of the functions needed. We can use the code without any extra effort. The open sou...
 

Also Known As

Hitachi Lumada Data Integration, Kettle, Pentaho Data Integration
SQL Server Integration Services
Open Studio
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

66Controls, Providential Revenue Agency of Ro Negro, NOAA Information Systems, Swiss Real Estate Institute
1. Amazon.com 2. Bank of America 3. Capital One 4. Coca-Cola 5. Dell 6. E*TRADE 7. FedEx 8. Ford Motor Company 9. Google 10. Home Depot 11. IBM 12. Intel 13. JPMorgan Chase 14. Kraft Foods 15. Lockheed Martin 16. McDonald's 17. Microsoft 18. Morgan Stanley 19. Nike 20. Oracle 21. PepsiCo 22. Procter & Gamble 23. Prudential Financial 24. RBC Capital Markets 25. SAP 26. Siemens 27. Sony 28. Toyota 29. UnitedHealth Group 30. Visa 31. Walmart 32. Wells Fargo
Almerys, BF&M, Findus
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