In turn, JasperSoft and Pentaho's breadth of technology lags behind that of major platforms such as BusinessObjects and Cognos, but this is not surprising given their comparatively small size and shorter time in the market, Evelson added.

Pentaho's platform has worked so far for Boyne Resorts. The Boyne Falls, Michigan, hospitality chain has been using the software since version 1.2, and plans to upgrade to 3.5 in October, according to Carlos Lopez, business intelligence manager.

"It's just going to save a lot of time on the development side," he said. "Some features that right now have to be hand-coded, they are just there."

Lopez creates a variety of reports with Pentaho, concerning areas like revenue, labor and guest satisfaction surveys, he said.

While many of the capabilities the tools provide are available in common platforms such as Microsoft's SQL Server Reporting Services, "price" was a key reason why the resort company went with Pentaho, he said.