Pentaho and Jaspersoft: Good Alternatives To Bigger-Name Software? 57
Nerval's Lobster writes "Jeff Cogswell, the developer who recently offered a 'gentle' rant about the current state of software development and installers, returns with a comparison of two players in the open-source BI space, Pentaho and Jaspersoft. 'If you believe the hype, the business-intelligence tools offered by some of the world's largest software companies also pack a substantial punch,' he writes. 'But these systems are often difficult to install and maintain, not to mention downright expensive. Small and medium-sized businesses typically can't afford software platforms that cost upwards of several hundred thousand dollars, but that doesn't mean they're cut off from BI tools in general. In fact, there are some decent open-source options.'"
Re:WTF is BI? (Score:4, Informative)
Dag Nabbit!
Business Intelligence Curse you Chrome Spell check!
No mention of BIRT (Score:4, Informative)
Where is BIRT in this list? BIRT is open source and a top level Eclipse project. It is fully featured out of the box, is extensible, and is implemented and backed by several large companies. It is supported by every major Open Source reporting server (Pentaho, SpagoBI), and for enterprise conscious folks there is a commercial option. And it does away with that god awful banded report design model that is a hold over from the ancient Crystal Reports in favor of a more flexible report design paradigm. My guess is that Pentaho and Jasper paid SlashBI more money for a front page slashvertisement.