How to Install Pentaho Data Integration 11 on Windows, Mac and Linux (2026)

Pentaho Data Integration (PDI) 11 is the current long-term support release of Pentaho. A lot has changed since my PDI 7.0 install guide and the CE 9.3 guide for Mac. The Java requirement is different, the free Community Edition is gone in its old form, and the client is over 1 GB smaller.

This post walks through getting PDI 11 running on Windows, macOS and Linux, plus the errors you are most likely to hit on the way.

What changed in PDI 11 (for installers)

• Java 21. Oracle Java 21 and OpenJDK 21 are the certified runtimes. Java 17 (Oracle, OpenJDK, Temurin, Azul Zulu) is still supported. Java 8 and Java 11 setups from older installs will not do.
• No more Karaf/OSGi. It has been removed from PDI completely. Big data components (Hadoop, etc.) are now ordinary plugins instead of a separate add-on, which is why the download is much smaller.
• Plugin Manager. New features ship as plugins, managed from one place.
• Pipeline Designer. A browser-based editor for transformations and jobs, compatible with files built in Spoon. Spoon is still the desktop client covered here.
• LTS release. Version 11.0 is supported until at least mid-2029, while 9.3 went out of support on July 1, 2026. If you are still on 9.x, now is the time to plan the move.

Step 1: Get the software (read this first)

This is the biggest change. You can no longer just grab pdi-ce-x.x.zip from SourceForge for the latest version. The old Community Edition has been renamed Developer Edition, and access now depends on who you are:

• Students, educators and academic researchers: apply for the Developer Edition through the Pentaho Academic Access Program at pentaho.com/academic-access. Applications are reviewed before approval.
• Companies evaluating Pentaho: request a free trial at pentaho.com/get-started. You receive the software plus a trial activation code.
• Existing Enterprise customers: download from the Pentaho Support Portal as usual.

Licensing note: since 10.2, the Developer Edition includes code under the Business Source License (BSL 1.1), which does not allow production use. It is fine for learning, development and testing. For production workloads you need an Enterprise license. Check the license terms that come with your download before using it at work.

Whichever route you take, you want the PDI client (the design tools) download, not the Pentaho Server package.

Step 2: Check your machine

Item	Requirement
Operating system (certified)	Windows 11, macOS 15 Sequoia, Ubuntu Desktop 22.04 (macOS 14 Sonoma is supported)
Processor	64-bit Intel/AMD dual-core, or Apple M1/M2/M3
Memory	2 GB dedicated to PDI (more if you process large files)
Disk	2 GB free after installation
Screen	1280 x 960 minimum
Java	Java 21 (certified) or Java 17 (supported), 64-bit

Step 3: Install Java 21

Windows: download the Eclipse Temurin 21 MSI from adoptium.net (or Oracle Java 21). During setup, enable the options to Set JAVA_HOME variable and Add to PATH.

macOS (with Homebrew):

brew install --cask temurin@21

Ubuntu:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install openjdk-21-jdk

Verify the install in a new terminal or command prompt:

java -version

The output should mention version 21 (or 17).

Tip: if you have several Java versions on the machine, point PDI at the right one with the PENTAHO_JAVA_HOME environment variable. PDI's startup scripts check it before JAVA_HOME, so you can run PDI on Java 21 without changing the Java used by your other tools.

Step 4: Extract PDI

PDI does not have an installer. You unzip it and run it.

1. Create a folder with no spaces in the path, for example C:\pentaho on Windows or ~/pentaho on Mac/Linux. Spaces in the path are a classic cause of odd startup failures.
2. Extract the downloaded ZIP into that folder. You should end up with a data-integration folder containing Spoon.bat, spoon.sh, Kitchen, Pan and the lib and plugins folders.

Step 5: Launch Spoon

Windows

Open the data-integration folder and double-click Spoon.bat. The first start takes a minute or two. If a console window flashes and closes, see the troubleshooting section below.

macOS

Open the data-integration folder and double-click the Data Integration app icon. If macOS blocks it because it was downloaded from the internet, remove the quarantine flag from the whole folder and try again:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine ~/pentaho/data-integration

Linux

cd ~/pentaho/data-integration
chmod +x *.sh
./spoon.sh

Step 6: Activate the license

The first time Spoon starts without a license, the License Manager opens:

1. Click the plus sign (+) to open Add License.
2. For a trial, choose Activation Code and paste the code you received. For company installs, choose License Server and enter the license server URL from your administrator.
3. Review the list of components you are entitled to, then click Close.

Spoon then opens on the main canvas.

Step 7: Quick test

Make sure everything works with a two-step transformation:

1. Go to File > New > Transformation.
2. Drag a Data Grid step onto the canvas and add a couple of rows (see my Data Grid step post if you have not used it).
3. Add a Text file output step, connect the two with a hop and set an output file name.
4. Click Run. When the Step Metrics tab shows the rows written and the file appears on disk, your install is good.

Recommended: give PDI more memory

The default heap is fine for small tests, but real jobs often need more. Set the PENTAHO_DI_JAVA_OPTIONS environment variable before starting Spoon. For example, on Windows:

setx PENTAHO_DI_JAVA_OPTIONS "-Xms1024m -Xmx4096m"

On Mac/Linux, add this to ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc:

export PENTAHO_DI_JAVA_OPTIONS="-Xms1024m -Xmx4096m"

Keep -Xmx at no more than about half your RAM.

Troubleshooting common install problems

Spoon window flashes and closes (Windows)

Run SpoonDebug.bat instead of Spoon.bat. It writes a log you can read. The cause is almost always Java: the wrong version, a 32-bit Java, or JAVA_HOME pointing at an old install. Check java -version and set PENTAHO_JAVA_HOME to your Java 21 folder.

"Could not reserve enough space for object heap"

Your -Xmx value is bigger than the memory Java can get. Lower it in PENTAHO_DI_JAVA_OPTIONS.

"libwebkitgtk-1.0-0 not found" on Ubuntu

Spoon's embedded browser (welcome page, marketplace) needs an old library that is not in the default repositories for Ubuntu 20.04 and later. The ETL canvas works without it. The simplest fix is to tell Spoon not to use it: open spoon.sh and add this to the PENTAHO_DI_JAVA_OPTIONS line:

"-Dorg.eclipse.swt.browser.DefaultType=mozilla"

If the error persists, use "-Dorg.eclipse.swt.browser.UseWebKitGTK=false" instead. The welcome screen will be blank, but everything else works. Kitchen, Pan and Carte are not affected at all, so servers running jobs from the command line can ignore this error.

"Missing plugins" when opening an old transformation

Big data and some other components are now separate plugins. Install the plugin the transformation needs through the Plugin Manager, then reopen the file.

Upgrading from 9.x or 10.x?

• Install PDI 11 in a new folder instead of overwriting the old one, so you can compare results.
• Back up the .kettle folder in your home directory (it holds kettle.properties, shared connections and repository settings) before starting the new version.
• Copy your JDBC drivers from the old lib folder into the new one.
• Open and run your key jobs and transformations in a test environment before switching production.

Wrapping up

The install itself is still "unzip and run," but the path to the download and the Java version have changed. Get Java 21 sorted first, and most of the problems go away.

In the next posts I will cover what is new in PDI 11 for developers and how to run jobs from the command line with Kitchen and Pan. If you get stuck on any step, leave a comment with your OS, Java version and the error message, and I will try to help.

References: Pentaho Components Reference, What's New in 11.0, Pentaho Product Lifecycle.