Birst vs Pentaho Business Analytics comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Birst and Pentaho Business Analytics based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Tableau, Oracle and others in Reporting.
To learn more, read our detailed Reporting Report (Updated: April 2024).
768,578 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Q&A Highlights
Question: Seeking advise on going with Birst, BOARD or Pentaho as an OEM platform solution where we could end up with 1,000's of users over time.
Answer: Bruce, have you made a decision about which solution is the best fit for your needs? I would love to hear your feedback.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"Dashboards and self-service reports. These are widely used by customers in the EPM domain."

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"The most valuable feature of Pentaho is the Tableau report.""I use the BI Server, CDE Dashboards, Saiku, and Kettle, because these tools are very good and highly experienced.""The initial setup is pretty straightforward.""Pentaho Business Analytics' best features include the ease of developing data flows and the wide range of options to connect to databases, including those on the cloud.""We were able to install it without any assistance from tech support.""Easy to use components to create the job.""Pentaho is an analytics platform that can be used when an organization has a lot of big data storage systems already installed and needs to manage and analyze that data. It has a specific use case for unstructured data, such as documents, and needs to be able to search and analyze it."

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Cons
"Customer support takes lot of time to get a solution."

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"Pentaho Business Analytics' user interface is outdated.""Pentaho, at the general level, should greatly improve the easy construction of its dashboards and easy integration of information from different sources without technical user intervention.""We did not achieve the ROI. The work delivered to users had lesser value than the subscription cost.""The repository should be improved.""Deployment is not simple. It is not simple because we are dealing with a lot of data; we are dealing with a lot of storage. So, it's not a simple process.""Logging capability is needed.""Version control would be a good addition.""Another concern is that Pentaho is not customizable or interactive."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Please negotiate on the price and purchase the latest version."
  • More Birst Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Free and commercial versions are available."
  • "Pentaho is expensive ."
  • "We were lucky enough to find a Pentaho OEM partner who offered a data warehouse model and the ETL software for about 60K SGD per year."
  • More Pentaho Business Analytics Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Comparison Review
    Anonymous User
    Any company (be it technology, manfucaturing, human resource, ecommerce, SME etc) always has the need for Business Intelligence to some or the other extent. If cost is one of the consideration factor, then the 2 BI tools which are at the forefront are Pentaho and Jaspersoft. But, often the same companies are caught up in an imbrogilo as to which tool to use, what are the technology/and end business user wise differences/ do i actually need to purchase commercial edition, is there any work around etc. Differences :- In the below mentioned points, I have tried to cover functionality wise the differences a. Reports :- Jaspersoft is known for its picture pixel perfect reporting. Jasper uses ireport for designing the reports. Hence, for having reports, Jaspersoft is the most ideal candidate. Pentaho uses Pentaho Report Designer. b. Dashboards :- Pentaho provides much more capabililties, interactivity in terms of dashboards. Dashboards designed in Pentaho are far more superior in functionality, aesthetically as compared to Jaspersoft. Pentaho CE uses CDE/CDF, Pentaho EE uses PDD . Dashboard functionality is present only in the Enterprise edition of Jaspersoft. c. Pentaho is having an intermediate layer known as Xactions & hence providing much more flexibility in terms of plugin designing, integration with applications, having out of box experience etc. Xactions supports scripting and scheduling of scripts execution. Jaspersoft dosent provide that much of flexibility in terms of… Read more →
    Answers from the Community
    Anonymous User
    it_user375219 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user375219 (Consultant at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees)
    Real User

    I would recommend you to for Pentaho as it is open source and I think for 1000 users Pentaho is descent and cost effective.

    it_user74796 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user74796 (CEO)
    Vendor

    Hello,
    You can look at our BI & Data Analytics Platform 'pi'. We have replaced the BI Platforms mentioned above at few of our customer locations and will be glad to have a demo arranged for our BI Tool.
    We are a company based out of India.

    Regards,
    Rahul
    www.progenbusiness.com
    +91-98663 97166

    it_user209304 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user209304 (Responsable Datawarehouse at a comms service provider)
    Vendor

    I'm not famialiar with these BI Tools, but I could advise you to use
    SISENSE BI Tools.
    It's really easy to use and for Non IT they could adopt it easily.

    It can handle big data with a best performance and with their concept of
    chipset technology to fetch data you can really the difference.

    And for IT Team, it gives the end user the independance in term of
    experience.

    it_user172275 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user172275 (Consultant at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees)
    Consultant

    Hi,
    I'm working with pentaho tools from 5 year and I've built small and big projects with it. Pentaho is a complete platform, because you can:
    - build ETL
    - build OLAP cube
    - create flat report
    - create OLAP analisys report with drag&drop
    - manage user access with different role
    - schedule and send report to managers
    - and other
    I projected, built and maintained OLAP projects for telecomunication companies (Telecomitalia Spa), automotive companies (Tomasi auto) and food retail companies (Frescomercato), and I can guaranty that all works fine.

    it_user196212 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user196212 (Vice President - Product Information with 51-200 employees)
    Vendor

    Key to our situation are a number of elements that I did not go into since I was asking for specific feedback on three specific options. A couple of those were found to be more difficult which eliminated a number of suppliers including the ones suggested in reply to my original inquiry. Fuzzy matching between many different retailers transaction data and our control data set where there will be significant dirty data. Advanced filters to group data around business rules, such as +/- around different numeric values for comparisons within the group of similar transactions. Any specific feedback on Birst, Board, Pentaho?

    it_user244644 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user244644 (Works with 1,001-5,000 employees)
    Real User

    Hi,

    To be honest, I can't see why you are not looking at Jaspersoft?

    In the words of Gartner... Jaspersoft is widely used by ISVs and end-user organizations to embed content in analytic applications and products. The embedded BI critical capability is another example where the collective strengths of the individual products result in a solid score for Tibco overall. It assesses both the ability of the platform to embed content through APIs, SDKs and open standards, and also its ability to consume PMML- and R-based models.

    Both of TIBCO's core BI products are used in OEM/embedded use cases, so don't discount Spotfire of course, but if you are looking at embedded production reporting then I would suggest Jaspersoft.

    it_user186843 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user186843 (Editor/Writer with 201-500 employees)
    Vendor

    Hi, I can't really help you decide between the options you've asked about since I only really have any hands-on experience with one of the tools that you've mentioned - but I can offer some advice, based on our own experience with OEM clients at Sisense (see, for example, here: www.sisense.com ).

    From your question it's clear that there are two main issues you are concerned with: scalability and ease of deployment.

    In terms of scalability, the first thing you should be worried about is PERFORMANCE. Will the tool continue to work at the same speed and stability when it's running not tens, but tens of thousands of concurrent queries? Which type of hardware infrastructure will this require? Will this force me to limit the size or granularity of the data that my end users see?

    Of course any BI salesperson will tend to answer these questions with an enthusiastic "YES", but check to see that they have some support for their claims. Get your R&D \ IT department on the line and try to understand the technology behind each of the products and whether it is indeed built for the heavy lifting you will need it to do.

    Ask for a real proof of concept, on your own data and according to the approximate "strain" 1000s of concurrent users would put on the system. If your vendor says this can't be done in a reasonable time-frame - run for the hills. At Sisense we're usually the ones who insist on having a full POC on the prospect's own data before signing a deal - to align expectations, prove our product's capabilities, etc.

    In terms of DEPLOYMENT - I would recommend against relying strictly on consultants or your vendor's professional services. This is your own product: your own developers HAVE to know all the ins and outs. Relying too heavily on external developers is dicey - what happens when you want to give your app a complete overhaul in the next release, but only the consultant \ vendor really knows the code or data model that they have implemented? In this case you will be, so to speak, "at their mercy".

    So I would recommend actually minimizing reliance on consultants and the vendor's developers, and instead opting to choose a product that can easily be white-labeled, customized and modified. At Sisense we have ensured this can be done using standard APIs such as REST and Javascript; and additionally included built-in features that allow you to set up data security, SSL, etc., without needing to write any code of your own.

    Again, this is something you should ask the vendor to PROVE as part of a proof of concept, rather than take their word for it, but in the bottom line - I would strongly recommend retaining your developers' independence, rather than going down the consultant \ professional services road.

    And if your shortlist isn't sealed shut yet, I'd take a look at the Sisense OEM program: www.sisense.com

    Best,

    Eran

    it_user254049 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user254049 (Executive - IT with 1,001-5,000 employees)
    Vendor

    Why not go for Tableau for quick easy implementation with robust reporting
    & BI functionalities.

    Questions from the Community
    Ask a question

    Earn 20 points

    Top Answer:There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I would recommend as follows:  1) If you have legacies of SAP, Oracle  - look for SAP… more »
    Top Answer:The organization has both options based on their needs and budget constraints. The Enterprise Edition is expensive with references to an added number of features.
    Top Answer:The product to me is not as user-friendly as other players in the market. It also still needs improvement in the reporting module. You will need to search for deployment examples or need to have a… more »
    Ranking
    32nd
    out of 50 in Reporting
    Views
    209
    Comparisons
    149
    Reviews
    0
    Average Words per Review
    0
    Rating
    N/A
    16th
    out of 50 in Reporting
    Views
    1,444
    Comparisons
    1,055
    Reviews
    4
    Average Words per Review
    526
    Rating
    7.0
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Pentaho, Kettle, Hitachi Pentaho Business Analytics
    Learn More
    Overview

    Birst Networked BI and Analytics eliminates information silos. Decentralized users can augment the enterprise data model virtually, as opposed to physically, without compromising data governance.

    A unified semantic layer maintains common definitions and key metrics.
    Birst’s two-tier architecture aligns back-end sources with line-of-business or local data. Birst’s Automated Data Refinement extracts data from any source into a unified semantic layer. Users are enabled with self-service analytics through executive dashboards, reporting, visual discovery, mobile tools, and predictive analytics. Birst Open Client Interface also offers integration with Tableau, Excel and R.

    Birst goes to market in two primary ways: as a direct sale, for enterprises using Birst on internal data to manage their business; and embedded, for companies who offer analytic products, by embedding and white-labeling Birst capabilities into their products.

    Birst’s is packaged in 3 available formats: Platform and per-user fee; by Department or Business Unit; by end-customer (for embedded scenarios).

    Pentaho is an open source business intelligence company that provides a wide range of tools to help their customers better manage their businesses. These tools include data integration software, mining tools, dashboard applications, online analytical processing options, and more.

    Pentaho has two product categories: There is the standard enterprise version. This is the product that comes directly from Pentaho itself with all of the benefits, features, and programs that come along with a paid application such us analysis services, dashboard design, and interactive reporting.

    The alternative is an open source version, which the public is permitted to add to and tweak the product. This solution has its advantages, aside from the fact that it is free, in that there are many more people working on the project to improve its quality and breadth of functionality.

    Sample Customers
    Citrix Systems, Jive Software, SunnyD, Toshiba Medical Systems, Cisco OpenDNS, RB, Sunny D, Vertafore
    Cargo 2000 Lufthansa, Marketo, ModCloth, Cardiac Science, Telefonica, ExactTarget, Active Broadband Networks, and Brussels Airport.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Healthcare Company25%
    Retailer17%
    Insurance Company8%
    Computer Software Company8%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company19%
    University13%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Educational Organization6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm21%
    Government12%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Educational Organization9%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business14%
    Midsize Enterprise33%
    Large Enterprise52%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business50%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise33%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise60%
    Buyer's Guide
    Reporting
    April 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Tableau, Oracle and others in Reporting. Updated: April 2024.
    768,578 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Birst is ranked 32nd in Reporting while Pentaho Business Analytics is ranked 16th in Reporting with 42 reviews. Birst is rated 7.4, while Pentaho Business Analytics is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Birst writes "The dashboards and Visualizer are valuable". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Pentaho Business Analytics writes "Flexible, easy to understand, and simple to set up". Birst is most compared with Microsoft Power BI, ThoughtSpot and Alteryx, whereas Pentaho Business Analytics is most compared with Microsoft Power BI, Databricks, Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services, SAP Crystal Reports and Tableau.

    See our list of best Reporting vendors.

    We monitor all Reporting reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.