StyleBI and Pentaho
A Client Generated Comparison
InetSoft has been providing unrivaled business intelligence solutions since 1996. InetSoft's Style Intelligence is an agile business intelligence tool that users from all around the world recognize as one of the best visualization dashboard software tools on the market today.
Recently, users on G2 Crowd roundly endorsed the superiority of StyleBI over competing BI tool Pentaho. From the user level to the administrative, from data mashups to customization, InetSoft's Style Intelligence outranked Pentaho in nearly every category.
An Alternative to Pentaho
Users find the StyleBI GUI very reliable, from the end-user perspective it's also very intuitive, easy to understand and to implement the creation of reports and dashboards with its ability to integrate and join data from various sources, all that leads StyleBI to beat Pentaho in building reports, Data Visualization, Big Data services, Data Modeling, Data trasnformation, Data API's, WYSIWYG Report Design. Pentaho as a competitor on the other side is not an intuitive platform that allows quick and great progress according to users, new users need to learn a lot to be able to perform specific analysis and reporting tasks, and that makes users feel more comfortable with StyleBI capabilities.
InetSoft built a steadfast logical model so users can leverage the easy to use metric creation and interaction without having to know how the data model works, it facilitates the accessibility of relevant information for business visualization and analysis, offering a quick and easy experience in creating and managing reports. InetSoft rates higher than its rival in Meet Requirements, Ease of Use, Ease of Setup, Ease of Admin, Quality of Support, Ease of Doing Business With, Product Direction (%Positive). Users say Style Intelligence's Report Designer interface; Report Interface, Steps to Answer, Graphs and Charts, Score Cards, and Dashboards, fit the purpose of visualizing insight better than Pentaho interface, which one looks clunky at times when trying to perform additional calculation on previous calculated fields or pass values to subreports.
InetSoft Scored Higher than Pentaho in the Following Areas
- Meet Requirements
- Ease of Use
- Ease of Setup
- Ease of Admin
- Quality of Support
- Ease of Doing Business With
- Product Direction (% Positive)
- Calculated field
- Data Column Filtering
- Data discovery
- Search
- Collaboration/Workflow
- Automodeling
- Sandbox/ Test environments
- Customization
- User, Role, and Access Management
- Performance and Reliability
- Breath of Partner Applications
Style Agile and Rich ETL Functionality
StyleBI has an open architecture that allows the possibility to integrate it with other components of Data Warehouse system, enables browsing from StyleBI interface, a data mashup technology and user friendly worksheets for ordinary users with unlimited options to browse their data within Style open platform for Sandbox/Test environments, Customization, User/ Role/Access Management, Performance and Reliability, Breath of Partner Applications. Style has powerful ETL functionality according to users, beating Pentaho that presents inconsistency within its tool for data integration, the interface tools don't bring the end user close to their data, very poor functionality for extracting, transforming and loading data for visualization.
InetsoSt StyleBI agile is very extended according to users, StyleBI's extensibility via Javascript is impressive. Rich functionality, with open systems standards that enables creation of useful dashboards for all levels of business organization to visualize and access data throughout automative system of self service making Calculated field, Data Column Filtering,Data discovery, Search, Collaboration/Workflow, and Automodeling, easier than Pentaho. From reviews on G2 Crow, users says Pentaho requires additional development to create and apply complex filter features building dashboard and reports, the implementation is lengthy and tough,find it rudimentary. Based on reviews, Style is highly superior than its competitor considering Style agile dashboard functionality, easy to use, to configure, to build reports and dashboards, and has very powerful and flexible features.
About StyleBI
StyleBI is a data intelligence platform that enables data transformation and mashups for delivery in dashboards and reports. End-users get visually compelling, highly interactive access to data, and IT gets a highly customizable, easy to learn and quick to deploy business intelligence toolset and information delivery platform. Data mashup capabilities allow for the integration of disparate data sources, enabling agile development and providing maximum self-service, while the application's SOA architecture and open standards-based technology make for an ideal embedding and integration-ready application for dashboards, production reporting, and visualizations.
Scenarios Where InetSoft Is Better Than Pentaho
1. Agile Data Mashups Across Diverse Sources
InetSoft excels at blending data from relational databases, cloud services, big data platforms, and web APIs in real time. Pentaho relies more heavily on ETL pipelines and structured integration, which can slow down agile analytics workflows.
2. Embedded Analytics for OEM and ISV Use
InetSoft offers lightweight, customizable embedding options with full rebranding and multi-tenant support. This makes it ideal for software vendors and enterprises embedding BI into their own platforms. Pentaho’s embedding capabilities are more limited and complex to configure.
3. Pixel-Perfect Dashboard Design
InetSoft provides granular control over layout, styling, and interactivity, enabling precise dashboard design for executive and operational users. Pentaho’s dashboarding tools are more template-driven and less flexible for custom UI needs.
4. Real-Time and In-Memory Performance
InetSoft supports in-memory processing and real-time data refresh, which is critical for monitoring KPIs and operational metrics. Pentaho’s architecture is more batch-oriented, making it less suitable for live dashboards and alerts.
5. Flexible Deployment Models
InetSoft supports cloud, on-premise, hybrid, and embedded deployments with modular licensing. Pentaho is primarily on-premise and requires more infrastructure setup, which can be a barrier for fast-moving teams or cloud-native environments.
6. Advanced Customization and Developer Tools
InetSoft includes APIs, scripting, and styling options for developers to tailor the platform to specific business needs. Pentaho offers extensibility but often requires deeper technical expertise and longer development cycles.
7. Faster Time to Insight
InetSoft’s intuitive interface and agile data preparation tools allow business users to create dashboards and reports quickly. Pentaho’s learning curve and reliance on ETL tools can delay insight generation for non-technical users.
8. Better Fit for Mid-Market and Enterprise BI
InetSoft is optimized for scalable BI across departments and geographies, with strong support for role-based access and governance. Pentaho is often used for data integration and reporting but may lack the agility needed for enterprise-wide analytics.
For organizations seeking a modern, flexible, and embedded-ready BI solution, InetSoft offers a more agile and scalable alternative to Pentaho.