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Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics vs Zapier comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 11, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.2
Pentaho Data Integration offers cost-effective, efficient ETL solutions with significant time savings, enhancing IT processes despite perceived obsolescence.
Sentiment score
6.1
Zapier offers time-saving automation with varied ROI, often seen as cost-effective and a valuable investment despite indirect impacts.
I have seen a return on investment; my team was able to stay extremely small even though we had a lot of data integrations with many companies.
Principal Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I can testify to the return on investment with metrics regarding time saved; we have increased our efficiency by about 20 to 30 percent due to the swift migration processes facilitated by the tool.
Data Integration Developer at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
In a scenario where employing three resources for three months might cost approximately $18,000 to $20,000, Zapier provides substantial cost savings.
Chief Technology Advocate at PURESOFT GLOBAL LLC
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.1
Pentaho's support is praised for knowledge and responsiveness, but response times vary, especially for the community edition.
Sentiment score
7.0
Zapier's customer support is generally rated positively for efficiency, though some desire improved live chat options.
24/7 assistance is available for the Enterprise Edition.
Data architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
take the time to understand our business requirements, offering appropriate recommendations.
Data Integration Developer at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
Communication with the vendor is challenging
Data Architecture and Engineering Specialist at coprocenva
Their technical support is good; they respond promptly and are very helpful.
Go High Level Manager at Virtual Worker Now
This can help if you need assistance, as you can communicate with the community and support system, and most issues are already resolved by AI.
Automation Engineer at Axe Automation
The experience was positive with prompt responses from their team.
Chief Technology Advocate at PURESOFT GLOBAL LLC
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
Pentaho scales well for small to medium data, but may struggle with large datasets, fitting diverse organizational roles.
Sentiment score
7.4
Zapier is adaptable for small to mid-size businesses, but scaling can be costly and less suitable for complex automations.
It can be scaled well until you reach a point where you need to perform a lot of operations, and the issue arises when it runs out of memory to handle some data.
Data engineer at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Pentaho Data Integration handles larger datasets better.
Data Architecture and Engineering Specialist at coprocenva
Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics' scalability is commendable, as it allows us to scale up according to our needs.
Data architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Zapier is suitable for small or simpler automation but not for complex ones.
Automation Engineer at Axe Automation
Scaling it gets quite expensive, and while I cannot evaluate it purely from a technology perspective, compared to Workato, I would give Zapier a seven for scalability.
Product Owner | Integration
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
Pentaho is generally stable and reliable, though occasional memory issues and bugs occur, especially in community editions.
Sentiment score
6.7
Most users find Zapier reliable, despite occasional connectivity issues and challenges with integration changes affecting performance.
Performance issues arise due to reliance on a flowchart-based mechanism instead of scripts, which can lead to longer execution times.
Data architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I find that version 3.1 is the most stable version I have ever used.
Founder-CEO at Ubuntu Analytica
It's pretty stable, however, it struggles when dealing with smaller amounts of data.
Data Architecture and Engineering Specialist at coprocenva
In my current company, we had significant challenges with Zapier regarding maintenance, as Zaps were often broken, not necessarily due to Zapier, but due to changes in the input variables.
Product Owner | Integration
 

Room For Improvement

Pentaho needs improved logging, debugging, user interface, performance, environment management, cloud support, documentation, and user feedback integration.
Zapier needs better Google Sheets features, API support, UI improvements, enhanced logic functions, documentation, and integration capabilities.
We should also explore more effective partitioning for parallel processing and fine-tuning database connections to reduce load times and improve ETL speed.
Data Integration Developer at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics can be improved by working with different environments, specifically the possibility to change the variables, meaning I write my variables only once and can change them for different environments such as production or development.
Founder-CEO at Ubuntu Analytica
I also lack the option to use programming languages beyond Python and SQL, and a provision to incorporate Scala code in the scripting component would be beneficial.
Data architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The error message options in the dashboard should be improved. It should be user-friendly so that beginners or non-technical users can figure out the problems and solutions on their own.
Webflow Developer at Qureos
You can build similar or dependent automations in one Zap, which helps with understanding the process without switching between different records.
Product Owner | Integration
Having flexibility in creating more complex automation would eliminate the need to transform data within the source or destination.
Business Intelligence Developer at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
 

Setup Cost

Pentaho Data Integration provides free and paid versions, with users valuing cost-effectiveness despite rising Enterprise Edition prices.
Zapier's pricing ranges from free to $800, depending on usage, with mixed opinions on cost versus time-saving benefits.
I use the community version of Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics, and I do not need additional costs.
Project Manager at Laberit
The setup cost was minimal, and the pricing experience was pretty good.
Data engineer at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
The pricing is in accordance with market standards and even lower in some cases.
Chief Technology Advocate at PURESOFT GLOBAL LLC
The pricing of Zapier is slightly higher compared to other market automation tools such as Pabbly, Make.com, and N8N, which have good features but are priced lower than Zapier.
Go High Level Manager at Virtual Worker Now
 

Valuable Features

Pentaho offers intuitive data integration with extensive customization, supporting rapid ETL development, big data, and minimal coding.
Zapier seamlessly connects apps for task automation, offering intuitive interfaces with advanced features like webhooks and multi-step zaps.
Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics has positively impacted my organization because it meant we didn't have to write a lot of custom API back-end processing logic; it did the majority of that heavy lifting for us.
Principal Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
It automates the data workflow, including extraction, cleansing, and loading into warehouses for BI reporting purposes, while also removing duplicates, validating data, and standardizing formats, enabling real-time decision-making.
Data Integration Developer at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics has positively impacted my organization because it is easier to use, and my knowledge about this work facilitates the translation from the source to my final system.
Project Manager at Laberit
They have approximately 7,000 connections.
Product Owner | Integration
The automation capabilities are impressive.
Business Intelligence Developer at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
Creating integration points through webhooks is particularly useful for anyone working on integration projects.
Chief Technology Advocate at PURESOFT GLOBAL LLC
 

Categories and Ranking

Pentaho Data Integration an...
Ranking in Data Integration
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zapier
Ranking in Data Integration
17th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Integration (12th), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (16th), AI Software Development (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Data Integration category, the mindshare of Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics is 1.5%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zapier is 0.7%, up from 0.7% 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 Analytics1.5%
Zapier0.7%
Other97.8%
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.
RL
Product Owner | Integration
Diverse integration options support workflow automation while pricing and support need improvements
You can build similar or dependent automations in one Zap, which helps with understanding the process without switching between different records. I would appreciate quicker response times and more direct interactions. It would be great to have a direct contact person for support, but bigger companies usually have solution partners handling support. I do not have a solution partner for Zapier due to using it for small use cases.
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881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Educational Organization
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
University
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Retailer
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise29
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise7
 

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 do you like most about Zapier?
The product's most valuable feature is automation.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zapier?
The pricing is in accordance with market standards and even lower in some cases. The license setup cost is reasonable.
What needs improvement with Zapier?
In my opinion, what could be improved in Zapier is its UI, which operates as a one-line system. Compared to Make.com and other tools that have a drag-and-drop system, this is lacking. If the scenar...
 

Also Known As

Hitachi Lumada Data Integration, Kettle, Pentaho Data Integration
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

66Controls, Providential Revenue Agency of Ro Negro, NOAA Information Systems, Swiss Real Estate Institute
BuzzFeed, Groupon, Spotify, Columbia University, FOX
Find out what your peers are saying about Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics vs. Zapier and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.