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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Microsoft Access

    Score7.5 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft Access is a database management system from Microsoft that combines the relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and software-development tools.

    $139.99

    per PC

    Pentaho

    Score6 out of 10
    N/APentaho is a suite of open source business intelligence and analytics products, now offered and supported by Hitachi Data Systems since the June 2015 acquisition.N/A
    Pricing
    Microsoft AccessPentaho
    Editions & Modules
    Microsoft Access
    $139.99
    per PC
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Microsoft AccessPentaho
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Microsoft AccessPentaho
    Considered Both Products
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Hitachi Vantara
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    97%
    Would buy again
    29 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    5 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    29 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    5 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    93%
    Happy with the feature set
    28 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    5 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    86%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    19 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    91%
    Implementation went as expected
    21 Answers
    80%
    Implementation went as expected
    4 Answers
    Features
    Microsoft AccessPentaho
    Relational Databases
    Comparison of Relational Databases features of Microsoft Access and Pentaho
    Feature
    Microsoft Access
    7.7
    3 Ratings
    5% below category average
    Pentaho
    -
    Ratings
    ACID compliance7.02 Ratings00 Ratings
    Database monitoring8.02 Ratings00 Ratings
    Database locking8.03 Ratings00 Ratings
    Encryption7.02 Ratings00 Ratings
    Disaster recovery7.73 Ratings00 Ratings
    Flexible deployment8.02 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multiple datatypes8.03 Ratings00 Ratings
    BI Standard Reporting
    Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Microsoft Access and Pentaho
    Feature
    Microsoft Access
    -
    Ratings
    Pentaho
    9.0
    20 Ratings
    10% above category average
    Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings8.618 Ratings
    Customizable dashboards00 Ratings9.918 Ratings
    Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings8.718 Ratings
    Ad-hoc Reporting
    Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Microsoft Access and Pentaho
    Feature
    Microsoft Access
    -
    Ratings
    Pentaho
    8.7
    19 Ratings
    8% above category average
    Drill-down analysis00 Ratings7.618 Ratings
    Formatting capabilities00 Ratings8.319 Ratings
    Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings9.312 Ratings
    Report sharing and collaboration00 Ratings9.717 Ratings
    Report Output and Scheduling
    Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Microsoft Access and Pentaho
    Feature
    Microsoft Access
    -
    Ratings
    Pentaho
    9.7
    20 Ratings
    17% above category average
    Publish to Web00 Ratings9.618 Ratings
    Publish to PDF00 Ratings9.819 Ratings
    Report Versioning00 Ratings9.713 Ratings
    Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings9.917 Ratings
    Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings9.310 Ratings
    Data Discovery and Visualization
    Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Microsoft Access and Pentaho
    Feature
    Microsoft Access
    -
    Ratings
    Pentaho
    8.1
    17 Ratings
    1% above category average
    Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)00 Ratings7.916 Ratings
    Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings8.216 Ratings
    Predictive Analytics00 Ratings8.314 Ratings
    Access Control and Security
    Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Microsoft Access and Pentaho
    Feature
    Microsoft Access
    -
    Ratings
    Pentaho
    9.1
    20 Ratings
    7% above category average
    Multi-User Support (named login)00 Ratings9.320 Ratings
    Role-Based Security Model00 Ratings9.619 Ratings
    Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)00 Ratings9.918 Ratings
    Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings7.610 Ratings
    Mobile Capabilities
    Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Microsoft Access and Pentaho
    Feature
    Microsoft Access
    -
    Ratings
    Pentaho
    8.3
    11 Ratings
    7% above category average
    Responsive Design for Web Access00 Ratings9.710 Ratings
    Mobile Application00 Ratings6.97 Ratings
    Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile00 Ratings8.711 Ratings
    Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
    Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Microsoft Access and Pentaho
    Feature
    Microsoft Access
    -
    Ratings
    Pentaho
    8.6
    10 Ratings
    10% above category average
    REST API00 Ratings8.310 Ratings
    Javascript API00 Ratings9.09 Ratings
    iFrames00 Ratings7.39 Ratings
    Java API00 Ratings8.79 Ratings
    Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings8.910 Ratings
    Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings9.610 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Microsoft AccessPentaho
    Small Businesses
    Amazon RDS
    Score8.1 out of 10
    Cyfe
    Score4 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    SingleStore
    Score8.2 out of 10
    Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
    Score8.1 out of 10
    Enterprises
    SAP IQ
    Score5.4 out of 10
    Sisense
    Score6.9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Microsoft AccessPentaho
    Likelihood to Recommend
    7.4
    (102 ratings)
    9.1
    (31 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (15 ratings)
    8.8
    (11 ratings)
    Usability
    7.6
    (8 ratings)
    9.3
    (6 ratings)
    Availability
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    6.4
    (5 ratings)
    9.3
    (7 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.5
    (2 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    Data Sharing and Collaboration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.4
    (16 ratings)
    Data Sources
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.6
    (16 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Microsoft AccessPentaho
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Microsoft
    As a Material Purchasing/Planning/inventory tracking application, Microsoft Access serves its purpose well. It's presentation is clean, data entry is simple and the ability to customize search fields is welcome. It does, however, come with some caveats; namely, when setting search filters and the need arises to back up a step or two, with Microsoft Access you have to reset, or "clear all", adding extra steps/time to a query.
    Incentivized
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    Hitachi Vantara
    Pentaho is very well suited to perform data extraction & data mining from various cloud storage & transform that data using various available data models. However, the software struggles when it comes to visualizing the extracted data in an appealing manner & can be difficult for end-users to get an understanding of data tables created using those models.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    Microsoft
    • Very easy to create entity-relationship diagrams for various tables and designing mock layouts.
    • Really easy to navigate as it hold[s] the classic Microsoft UI. Another good thing is that it comes with the complete MS Office Suite.
    • It is really fast when joining multiple tables no matter what type of join.
    • Works on pretty much same SQL scripts so no need to learn a new language!
    Incentivized
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    Hitachi Vantara
    • Integrate and synchronize with big data easily
    • Import data from any sources and different databases
    • Managing data in on-premise, hybrid and cloud environments.
    • Compatibility and flexibility of the platform with any type of scenario and any business or industry
    • Various tools in the software suite to transformation of data
    • Simple interface appearance and creative UI graphics
    Read full review
    Cons
    Microsoft
    • Microsoft Access has not really changed at all for several years. It might be nice to see some upgrades and changes.
    • The help info is often not helpful. Need more tutorials for Microsoft Access to show how to do specific things.
    • Be careful naming objects such as tables, forms, etc. Names that are too long can get cut off in dialog boxes to choose a table, form, report, etc. So, I wish they would have resizable dialog boxes to allow you to see objects with long names.
    • I wish it could show me objects that are not in use in the database for current queries, tables, reports, forms, and macros. That way unused objects can be deleted without worrying about losing a report or query because you deleted the underlying object.
    Incentivized
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    Hitachi Vantara
    • I think the relative obscurity of the tool is a downside, not as many developers, consultants or peers you can tap into.
    • Lack of a solid user community held us back, looking at Power BI and Qlik, they have huge user communities that help each other out. Would have liked that here.
    • Smaller company means smaller sales force, and the lack of a local presence made it hard to only interact online with the account rep. Other companies have someone local who often stops by with pre-sales developers to just pitch in free of charge when they have time.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    Microsoft
    I and the rest of my team will renew our Microsoft Access in the future because we use and maintain many different applications and databases created using Microsoft Access so we will need to maintain them in the future. Additionally, it is a standard at our place of work so it is at $0 cost to us to use. Another reason for renewing Microsoft Access is that we just don' t have the resources needed to extend into a network of users so we need to remain a single-desktop application at this time.
    Read full review
    Hitachi Vantara
    I will use Pentaho until I find a better tool with a better, easier to use report designer client. For now, Pentaho has been the most powerful reporting tool for our clients because of its ability to connect to Odoo, integrate in Odoo (reports are accessible in Odoo) and the flexibility in report design and parameter integration
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    Microsoft
    Microsoft Access is easy to use. It is compatible with spreadsheets. It is a very good data management tool. There is scope to save a large amount of data in one place. For using this database, one does not need much training, can be shared among multiple users. This database has to sort and filtering features which seem to be very useful.
    Incentivized
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    Hitachi Vantara
    The Pentaho tools are designed so you can start playing around on your own. Of course, you will need guidance at some point, but the training teams are good at guiding new users, and the online documentation is usually pretty up-to-date.
    Some of the tools, such as the Pentaho Data Integration tool and the Pentaho Server, are pretty self-explanatory. The other tools maybe are not so quickly and obvious to use, but again, with some documentation and some customer support, you can find your way around them.
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    Microsoft
    I don't think the program has ever failed me. It is one of those programs where there is always a solution if you know where to look.
    Incentivized
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    Hitachi Vantara
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Microsoft
    While I have never contacted Microsoft directly for product support, for some reason there's a real prejudice against MS Access among most IT support professionals. They are usually discouraging when it comes to using MS Access. Most of this is due to their lack of understanding of MS Access and how it can improve one's productivity. If Microsoft invested more resources towards enhancing and promoting the use of MS Access then maybe things would be different.
    Incentivized
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    Hitachi Vantara
    They were responsive to our questions when we raised issues. They gave us workarounds when required. They were quite knowledgeable when it came to issue analysis and providing fixes. They were forthright in informing us if a bug was not due for release soon.
    Incentivized
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    Online Training
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Hitachi Vantara
    Course Taken: DI1000 Pentaho Data Integration Fundamentals Setup A week before your class started, the instructor will start sending out class material and lab setup instructions. This is helpful so that you understand how the environment is laid out and can start reviewing the content. Ultimately it saved about a 1/2 day trying to setup with 10 other people online which was great! The Course The 3-day course was laid out like many other technical classes with 15-30 minutes instruction and 15-60 minutes of lab exercises. The instructor was very knowledgeable with the functionality from version to version and answered questions as we went along. I was amazed at some of the functionality that was available that I was not using at the time and quickly implemented changes to many existing transformations and jobs. The novice users seemed to catch on quickly and more experienced users explained how some of the functionality was used in their home environments. Towards the end there was enough time so that we were able to ask very directed questions about our own environments. Overall, I really found the class to be informative and deliver enough information to be dangerous. My skills improved and I was able to design better and efficient transformations for the HIE. Course Description: https://training.pentaho.com/instructor-led-training/pentaho-data-integration-fundamentals-di1000
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Microsoft
    there is no key idea, since it is easy to implement Microsoft Access
    Read full review
    Hitachi Vantara
    Get the right people in before starting implementation. Start small and build as you go approach is time consuming and involves lot of rework. Evangalize within the organization the capabilities and limitations equally so that correct delivery expectations are set. Set expectations with the Customer that the tool cannot replace proprietary software in terms of stability/usability and that timelines could change given the new ness of the product.
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Microsoft
    Excel is a fantastic - robust application that can do so much so easily. Its easy to train and understand. However - excel does not provide a reporting function and that is typically where we will suggest a move to [Microsoft] Access. [Microsoft] Access requires a little more knowledge of data manipulation.
    Incentivized
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    Hitachi Vantara
    Since the Pentaho platform offers a range of broad functionality across data preparation and advanced analytics, it also can be easily integrated to support many data sources and machine-learning frameworks. Based on that fact, we selected Pentaho to be used in our internal department. It also supports many of our BI use cases as required by company management or the business user. Last but not least, the Pentaho license is cheaper than their competitor.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    Microsoft
    • Not having to recreate queries or reports every time you want to use them.
    • Once an item is created and saved as part of the database, you save manpower by not having to recreate them.
    • ROI from a usability standpoint is great. Solid product with great functionality that requires low maintenance usually.
    Incentivized
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    Hitachi Vantara
    • Pentaho has improved our overall business process.
    • Pentaho has helped the Managers and Directors to analyze the numbers going up and down from time to time.
    • We have a started a big project using Pentaho that is going to include all the business processes in the organization.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots