Alternative to Pentaho Reports

Alternative to Pentaho Reports

In today’s fast-paced data-driven landscape, many organizations are actively searching for an alternative to Pentaho Reports that is more flexible, modern, and scalable. Pentaho reports have been used for creating pixel perfect form or document kind of reports like invoices, bank statements, salary slips etc. While Pentaho has been a reliable reporting solution for years, evolving business needs demand advanced capabilities, better user experience, and seamless integration with modern data ecosystems and databases. Further

This article uncovers why businesses are moving away from Pentaho Reports, what to look for in a new solution, and why open source BI Helical Insight stands as a good cost affective option offering canned reporting, tableau kind of dashboards charting experience and lot of other functionalities.

Why Do Businesses Need an Alternative to Pentaho Reports?

As organizations scale and data becomes more complex, legacy reporting systems like Pentaho often fall short. Here’s why businesses are exploring alternatives:

  • End of Community Support: With Pentaho’s community edition updates slowing down, businesses face risks due to lack of active support and updates. This is specifically happening after Pentaho acquisition by Hitachi, there has not been lot of innovation happening
  • Licensing terms changes with no longer support of Apache licensing, thus its usage has become quite restrictive.
  • Outdated User Interface: The UI feels dated, non-intuitive, and less appealing compared to newer platforms.
  • Limited Self-Service Capabilities: Pentaho has poor capabilities when it comes to self service dashboards, charts
  • Rigid Architecture: Pentaho Reports are tightly coupled with legacy systems, making integrations and customizations difficult.
  • Cost of Enterprise Version: The enterprise version can be cost-prohibitive for startups and mid-sized companies.

What to Look for in an Alternative to Pentaho Reports

When selecting a replacement for Pentaho Reports, organizations should evaluate the following factors:

  • Open-Source or Affordable Licensing: Choose tools with transparent, flexible pricing models and community support.
  • Self-Service BI: Not only traditional canned reports, but the tool should also support new generation drag-and-drop dashboards with drill down drill through and cross filtering capabilities, natural language querying, and visualizations without coding.
  • Scalable Architecture: Should support large-scale data environments with smooth performance.
  • Cross-Database Connectivity: Support for multiple data sources (SQL, NoSQL, cloud, etc.) as well as new age databases as well.
  • Embedded Analytics Capabilities: Ability to embed dashboards and reports into existing web apps and portals. Hence there should be support of various kind of embedding, SSO options
  • Customization & Extensibility: Look for API support, plugin architecture, and customization options for developers.
  • Licensing terms and conditions should not be restrictive

Helical Insight: The Best Alternative to Pentaho Reports

Helical Insight is an advanced open-source BI platform built for modern reporting needs. Designed for enterprises, SMBs, and developers, it bridges the gaps left by tools like Pentaho.

Key Features of Helical Insight:

  • Canned Reporting Module which can allow to create pixel perfect document kind of reports with page header, page footer, report header, summary and much more. This module is especially useful for customers who are using a lot of Pentaho reports.
  • Drag-and-Drop Interface for charts and dashboards with drill down, drill through, cross filtering and other interactivity options
  • NLP Interface: Ask questions in plain English and get instant answers
  • Workflow Engine which can help in creating custom work flows and achieve use cases which are not directly possible
  • Support of new generation datasources, databases, GPU db etc.
  • Extensive embedding & White Labelling options for product based companies, SaaS companies
  • Flat Pricing Model, unlike other tools wherein the cost just keeps on increasing with additional users, or features or data sizes.

Helical Insight combines open-source flexibility with enterprise-grade power.

By addressing both business user and developer needs, Helical Insight provides an ideal balance of simplicity, power, and flexibility.

Please register on https://www.helicalinsight.com/register/ to organize a demo, FREE POC as well as with any other set of assistance regarding the reports, dashboards migration to Helical Insight.

FAQs: Alternative to Pentaho Reports

Why are businesses looking for an alternative to Pentaho Reports?

Businesses are moving away from Pentaho Reports due to its outdated UI, limited self-service capabilities, rigid architecture, lack of innovation post-Hitachi acquisition, restrictive licensing, and the high cost of its enterprise version.

Is Pentaho Reports still supported and updated?

While Pentaho is still available, updates to the community edition have significantly slowed down, and active innovation has stalled since its acquisition by Hitachi. Many users are now seeking more modern and actively developed alternatives.

What are the limitations of Pentaho Reports for modern BI needs?

Pentaho Reports struggles with modern requirements like self-service dashboards, real-time analytics, embedding, cross-database integration, and flexible customization. It is also not ideal for use cases requiring NLP and advanced interactivity.

What features should I look for in a Pentaho alternative?

A good Pentaho alternative should offer:

  • Pixel-perfect canned reports
  • Drag-and-drop dashboards
  • Natural language query interface (NLP)
  • Cross-database and cloud data support
  • API-based extensibility
  • Embedding & SSO options
  • Affordable or open-source licensing

What is the best open-source alternative to Pentaho Reports?

Helical Insight is one of the best open-source alternatives. It supports canned and interactive reporting, drag-and-drop dashboards, natural language querying, embedding, flat pricing, and full customization, making it ideal for enterprises, ISVs, and SaaS companies.

Can I migrate my existing Pentaho Reports to Helical Insight?

Yes, Helical Insight provides support for migrating reports from Pentaho. Their team can assist with a free proof of concept (POC), demo, and technical support for a smooth transition.

Does Helical Insight support pixel-perfect reports like Pentaho?

Absolutely. Helical Insight includes a canned reporting module that lets you create detailed, print-ready reports such as invoices, salary slips, and statements—similar to what Pentaho offers, but with more modern flexibility.

How does Helical Insight handle embedding and white labeling?

Helical Insight offers robust embedding options (iFrame, JavaScript API, REST API) and white labeling features. This makes it a great fit for SaaS platforms and product-based companies needing to integrate analytics seamlessly into their apps.

Is Helical Insight really cost-effective for startups and SMBs?

Yes. Unlike tools that charge based on users or features, Helical Insight follows a flat pricing model. This allows startups and mid-sized businesses to scale without worrying about rising BI costs.

How can I get started with Helical Insight?

You can register for a free demo, POC, and migration consultation by visiting:
👉 https://www.helicalinsight.com/register/

You May Also Like

Leave a Reply

Helical Insight’s self-service capabilities is one to reckon with. It allows you to simply drag and drop columns, add filters, apply aggregate functions if required, and create reports and dashboards on the fly. For advanced users, the self-service component has ability to add javascript, HTML, HTML5, CSS, CSS3 and AJAX. These customizations allow you to create dynamic reports and dashboards. You can also add new charts inside the self-service component, add new kind of aggregate functions and customize it using our APIs.
Helical Insight’s self-service capabilities is one to reckon with. It allows you to simply drag and drop columns, add filters, apply aggregate functions if required, and create reports and dashboards on the fly. For advanced users, the self-service component has ability to add javascript, HTML, HTML5, CSS, CSS3 and AJAX. These customizations allow you to create dynamic reports and dashboards. You can also add new charts inside the self-service component, add new kind of aggregate functions and customize it using our APIs.
Helical Insight, via simple browser based interface of Canned Reporting module, also allows to create pixel perfect printer friendly document kind of reports also like Invoice, P&L Statement, Balance sheet etc.
Helical Insight, via simple browser based interface of Canned Reporting module, also allows to create pixel perfect printer friendly document kind of reports also like Invoice, P&L Statement, Balance sheet etc.
If you have a product, built on any platform like Dot Net or Java or PHP or Ruby, you can easily embed Helical Insight within it using iFrames or webservices, for quick value add through instant visualization of data.
If you have a product, built on any platform like Dot Net or Java or PHP or Ruby, you can easily embed Helical Insight within it using iFrames or webservices, for quick value add through instant visualization of data.
Being a 100% browser-based BI tool, you can connect with your database and analyse across any location and device. There is no need to download or install heavy memory-consuming developer tools – All you need is a Browser application! We are battle-tested on most of the commonly used browsers.
Being a 100% browser-based BI tool, you can connect with your database and analyse across any location and device. There is no need to download or install heavy memory-consuming developer tools – All you need is a Browser application! We are battle-tested on most of the commonly used browsers.
We have organization level security where the Superadmin can create, delete and modify roles. Dashboards and reports can be added to that organization. This ensures multitenancy.
We have organization level security where the Superadmin can create, delete and modify roles. Dashboards and reports can be added to that organization. This ensures multitenancy.
We have organization level security where the Superadmin can create, delete and modify roles. Dashboards and reports can be added to that organization. This ensures multitenancy.
We have organization level security where the Superadmin can create, delete and modify roles. Dashboards and reports can be added to that organization. This ensures multitenancy.
A first-of-its-kind Open-Source BI framework, Helical Insight is completely API-driven. This allows you to add functionalities, including but not limited to adding a new exporting type, new datasource type, core functionality expansion, new charting in adhoc etc., at any place whenever you wish, using your own in-house developers.
A first-of-its-kind Open-Source BI framework, Helical Insight is completely API-driven. This allows you to add functionalities, including but not limited to adding a new exporting type, new datasource type, core functionality expansion, new charting in adhoc etc., at any place whenever you wish, using your own in-house developers.
It handles huge volumes of data effectively. Caching, Pagination, Load-Balancing and In-Memory not only provides you with amazing experience, but also and does not burden the database server more than required. Further effective use of computing power gives best performance and complex calculations even on the big data even with smaller machines for your personal use. Filtering, Sorting, Cube Analysis, Inter Panel Communication on the dashboards all at lightning speed. Thereby, making best open-source Business Intelligence solution in the market.
It handles huge volumes of data effectively. Caching, Pagination, Load-Balancing and In-Memory not only provides you with amazing experience, but also and does not burden the database server more than required. Further effective use of computing power gives best performance and complex calculations even on the big data even with smaller machines for your personal use. Filtering, Sorting, Cube Analysis, Inter Panel Communication on the dashboards all at lightning speed. Thereby, making best open-source Business Intelligence solution in the market.
With advance NLP algorithm, business users simply ask questions like, “show me sales of last quarter”, “average monthly sales of my products”. Let the application give the power to users without knowledge of query language or underlying data architecture
With advance NLP algorithm, business users simply ask questions like, “show me sales of last quarter”, “average monthly sales of my products”. Let the application give the power to users without knowledge of query language or underlying data architecture
Our application is compatible with almost all databases, be it RDBMS, or columnar database, or even flat files like spreadsheets or csv files. You can even connect to your own custom database via JDBC connection. Further, our database connection can be switched dynamically based on logged in users or its organization or other parameters. So, all your clients can use the same reports and dashboards without worrying about any data security breech.
Our application is compatible with almost all databases, be it RDBMS, or columnar database, or even flat files like spreadsheets or csv files. You can even connect to your own custom database via JDBC connection. Further, our database connection can be switched dynamically based on logged in users or its organization or other parameters. So, all your clients can use the same reports and dashboards without worrying about any data security breech.
Our application can be installed on an in-house server where you have full control of your data and its security. Or on cloud where it is accessible to larger audience without overheads and maintenance of the servers. One solution that works for all.
Our application can be installed on an in-house server where you have full control of your data and its security. Or on cloud where it is accessible to larger audience without overheads and maintenance of the servers. One solution that works for all.
Different companies have different business processes that the existing BI tools do not encompass. Helical Insight permits you to design your own workflows and specify what functional module of BI gets triggered
Different companies have different business processes that the existing BI tools do not encompass. Helical Insight permits you to design your own workflows and specify what functional module of BI gets triggered