Pentaho vs. SAP Data Services

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Pentaho
Score 6.1 out of 10
N/A
Pentaho 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
SAP Data Services
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
SAP Data Services is an offering from SAP to improve data quality.N/A
Pricing
PentahoSAP Data Services
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
PentahoSAP Data Services
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
Features
PentahoSAP Data Services
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Pentaho
9.0
20 Ratings
10% above category average
SAP Data Services
-
Ratings
Pixel Perfect reports8.618 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable dashboards9.918 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates8.718 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Pentaho
8.7
19 Ratings
8% above category average
SAP Data Services
-
Ratings
Drill-down analysis7.618 Ratings00 Ratings
Formatting capabilities8.319 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages9.312 Ratings00 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration9.717 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Pentaho
9.7
20 Ratings
15% above category average
SAP Data Services
-
Ratings
Publish to Web9.618 Ratings00 Ratings
Publish to PDF9.819 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Versioning9.713 Ratings00 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling9.917 Ratings00 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers9.310 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Pentaho
8.1
17 Ratings
2% above category average
SAP Data Services
-
Ratings
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)7.916 Ratings00 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.216 Ratings00 Ratings
Predictive Analytics8.314 Ratings00 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Pentaho
9.1
20 Ratings
7% above category average
SAP Data Services
-
Ratings
Multi-User Support (named login)9.320 Ratings00 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model9.519 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)9.918 Ratings00 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)7.610 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Pentaho
8.3
11 Ratings
5% above category average
SAP Data Services
-
Ratings
Responsive Design for Web Access9.710 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Application7.07 Ratings00 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile8.711 Ratings00 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Pentaho
8.6
10 Ratings
9% above category average
SAP Data Services
-
Ratings
REST API8.310 Ratings00 Ratings
Javascript API9.09 Ratings00 Ratings
iFrames7.39 Ratings00 Ratings
Java API8.79 Ratings00 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)8.910 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)9.610 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Quality
Comparison of Data Quality features of Product A and Product B
Pentaho
-
Ratings
SAP Data Services
6.1
9 Ratings
36% below category average
Data source connectivity00 Ratings5.39 Ratings
Data profiling00 Ratings6.09 Ratings
Master data management (MDM) integration00 Ratings7.07 Ratings
Data element standardization00 Ratings6.99 Ratings
Match and merge00 Ratings5.19 Ratings
Address verification00 Ratings6.38 Ratings
Best Alternatives
PentahoSAP Data Services
Small Businesses
Cyfe
Cyfe
Score 8.8 out of 10
HubSpot Operations Hub
HubSpot Operations Hub
Score 8.3 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
Score 8.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Jaspersoft Community Edition
Jaspersoft Community Edition
Score 9.7 out of 10
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
Score 8.0 out of 10
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User Ratings
PentahoSAP Data Services
Likelihood to Recommend
9.1
(31 ratings)
6.1
(9 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.8
(11 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.3
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.3
(7 ratings)
8.7
(4 ratings)
Online Training
9.5
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
5.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
PentahoSAP Data Services
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
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SAP
It's definitely one of the leading ETL tools, and it's the best ETL tool to use with SAP integration. If you use SAP HANA, then you should think about Data Services as your primary ETL tool.
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Pros
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
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SAP
  • Integration with SAP ERP/ECC works really well.
  • A lot of flexibility in data creation, with different types of communication capabilities like BAPIs, IDocs, and Batch input.
  • Reliable and consistent results and easily enforceable data templates.
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Cons
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.
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SAP
  • Debugging is not very easy. When one wants to see the flow of data from one Query to another, the process is not very smooth and efficient.
  • A lot of functions do not behave the way they should. I have faced problems with the count() function.
  • I have faced problems while loading Excel files. The same set of options will work in one case but not in the other.
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Likelihood to Renew
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
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SAP
No answers on this topic
Usability
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.
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SAP
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
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.
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SAP
As other SAP products, there is excellent support by SAP on this tool. You can access the SAP Help portal in order to give support either from the huge community or directly from SAP.
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Online Training
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
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SAP
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
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.
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SAP
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
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.
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SAP
You cannot afford to run your business on questionable data. With SAP® Data Services software, you can access, transform, and connect data to fuel your critical business processes. Together, these enterprise-class solutions enable data integration and data quality, providing the right level of insight across your business so you can make better decisions and operate more effectively.SAP Data Services was previously known as SAP BusinessObjects Data Services, SAP BusinessObjects Data Integrator, BusinessObjects Data Integrator.
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Return on Investment
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.
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SAP
  • Very positive impact in jobs maintenance since support auto-documentation.
  • Great impact on learning curve.
  • Great results in our Data Quality Projects.
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