Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop vs Hortonworks Data Platform comparison

Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop vs. Hortonworks Data Platform

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Cloudera Distribution for H...

Ranking in Hadoop

2nd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

NoSQL Databases (8th)

Hortonworks Data Platform

Ranking in Hadoop

6th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Open Source Databases (14th), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (9th)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Hadoop category, the mindshare of Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop is 25.6%, up from 22.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hortonworks Data Platform is 3.6%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Hadoop

Featured Reviews

Rok Dolinsek

Manager, Bussines Development & Co Owner at Troia d.o.o.

Enables on-premise implementation with powerful data processing capabilities

This is the only solution that is possible to install on-premise. Cloudera provides a hybrid solution that combines compute on cloud or on-premises. It includes all machine learning algorithms in the Spark machine learning library. All functionalities needed for a big data platform and ETL are on the platform, eliminating the need for other tools. It is scalable, ready for vertical scaling, and very powerful, offering numerous functionalities and configurations for generative AI.

Read full review

Prashant Singh

Vice President -Product Management at Paytm

A good technology with an easy setup but is at end of life

The solution is fairly simple to set up. It's not too complex or difficult. If you know the solution, it's easy. However, there is a learning curve. If you don't know anything about it, it can be more complex. You can typically deploy it within a week. We have five or six people capable of handling a deployment.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"Very good end-to-end security features."

"The tool's most interesting features are the distributed file system and unstructured data processing capability. Because we have a lot of unstructured data, like XML and social media logs, these features make it more valuable than the usual data warehousing solutions."

"We had a data warehouse before all the data. We can process a lot more data structures."

"The product provides better data processing features than other tools."

"The file system is a valuable feature."

"The features I find most valuable is that the solution is that it is easy to install and to work with. It starts with the installation and from there on the management is very simple and centralized."

"The main advantage is the storage is less expensive."

"CDH has a wide variety of proprietary tools that we use, like Impala. So from that perspective, it's quite useful as opposed to something open-source. We get a lot of value from Cloudera's proprietary tools."

More Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop pros

"We use it for data science activities."

"The Hortonworks solution is so stable. It is working as a production system, without any error, without any downtime. If I have downtime, it is mostly caused by the hardware of the computers."

"The data platform is pretty neat. The workflow is also really good."

"Ambari Web UI: user-friendly."

"Now, using this solution, it is much cheaper to have all of the data available for searching, not in real-time, but whenever there is a pending request."

"It is a scalable platform."

"The upgrades and patches must come from Hortonworks."

"Ranger for security; with Ranger we can manager user’s permissions/access controls very easily."

More Hortonworks Data Platform pros

Cons

"The performance of some analytics engines provided by Cloudera is not that good."

"There are better solutions out there that have more features than this one."

"They should focus on upgrading their technical capabilities in the market."

"There are multiple bugs when we update."

"It is quite complicated to configure and install. Integrating the platform into an information system is always a challenge, especially when starting with on-premise implementation."

"We experienced many issues when we started working with Hadoop 3.0 in the Cloudera 6.0 version, so there is a lot of things that need to improve."

"Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop has a limited feature list and a lot of costs involved."

"The price of this solution could be lowered."

More Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop cons

"Hive performance. If Hive performance increased, Hadoop would replace (not everywhere) traditional databases."

"Since Cloudera acquired HDP, it's been bundled with CBH and HDP. However, the biggest challenge is cloud storage integration with Azure, GCP, and AWS."

"It's at end of life and no longer will there be improvements."

"I work a lot with banking, IT and communications customers. Hortonworks must improve or must upgrade their services for these sectors."

"It would also be nice if there were less coding involved."

"More information could be there to simplify the process of running the product."

"I would like to see more support for containers such as Docker and OpenShift."

"Deleting any service requires a lot of clean up, unlike Cloudera."

More Hortonworks Data Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product’s price depends from project to project."

"The price is very high. The solution is expensive."

"Cloudera requires a license to use."

"The tool is not expensive."

"When comparing with Oracle Sybase and SQL, it's cheaper. It's not expensive."

"The pricing must be improved."

"I believe we pay for a three-year license."

"The solution is fairly expensive."

More Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop pricing and cost advice

"It is priced well and it is affordable"

"Currently, we are using the product in a sandbox environment, and there is no licensing. We might choose a licensing option once we get the results."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

24%

Computer Software Company

15%

Educational Organization

12%

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop?

The tool can be deployed using different container technologies, which makes it very scalable.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop?

The price for Cloudera is average, yet it is very good compared to other solutions. It can be deployed on-premises, unlike competitors' cloud-only solutions.

What needs improvement with Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop?

It is quite complicated to configure and install. Integrating the platform into an information system is always a challenge, especially when starting with on-premise implementation. Integrating wit...

What do you like most about Hortonworks Data Platform?

Distributed computing, secure containerization, and governance capabilities are the most valuable features.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Hortonworks Data Platform?

I haven't done a price analysis specifically for HDP. However, when it was first introduced as Hadoop 2.0, there were a few use cases where the price was quite high. It was particularly expensive f...

What needs improvement with Hortonworks Data Platform?

Since Cloudera acquired HDP, it's been bundled with CBH and HDP. However, the biggest challenge is cloud storage integration with Azure, GCP, and AWS. These platforms offer competitive storage solu...

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Product Reports

Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop

Download Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop product report

Hortonworks Data Platform

Download Hortonworks Data Platform product report

Also Known As

No data available

Hortonworks, HDP

Overview

Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop is the world's most complete, tested, and popular distribution of Apache Hadoop and related projects. CDH is 100% Apache-licensed open source and is the only Hadoop solution to offer unified batch processing, interactive SQL, and interactive search, and role-based access controls. More enterprises have downloaded CDH than all other such distributions combined.

Cloudera

The Hortonworks Data Platform is acclaimed for its robust handling of big data, offering scalable solutions for data storage optimization and advanced analytics. Users benefit from its seamless processing of both streaming and batch data, and efficient maintenance of data lakes for improved governance. Key features include comprehensive security and seamless integration with existing analytics tools, significantly enhancing organizational efficiency and decision-making capabilities.

Cloudera

Sample Customers

37signals, Adconion,adgooroo, Aggregate Knowledge, AMD, Apollo Group, Blackberry, Box, BT, CSC

Mayo Clinic, Symantec, Progressive Insurance, Noble Energy, Cardinal Health, Rogers, Mercy, Neustar, TRUECar, T-Mobile

Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop vs. Hortonworks Data Platform