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Top 20 Hadoop Competitors and Alternatives

Kevin Johnson
March 7, 2024
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14 min read

Hadoop is an open-source big data analytics platform headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland. The solution evolved from the Google File System paper published by Doug Cutting and Mike Cafarella in October 2003 as part of the Apache Nutch project. The co-founders moved the platform to the Hadoop subproject in 2006.

In 2007, Dhruba Borthakur wrote the first design document for the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS). Hadoop expanded its framework to manage data processing and storage for big data apps in scalable clusters of computer servers. According to ResearchAndMarkets.com research, the Hadoop big data analytics market will register a CAGR of 16.10% from 2023 to 2028. [1]

Hadoop supports predictive analytics, data mining, machine learning, and deep learning solutions. Businesses use the platform to store and process structured and unstructured data quickly and efficiently. Hadoop was the first data framework to support custom data transformation for large datasets. It has four modules: HDFS, YARN, MapReduce, and Hadoop Common. Businesses can use HDFS for data storage, Hadoop YARN for cluster resource management and job scheduling, and Hadoop MapReduce to run batch applications. However, Hadoop’s popularity has declined as businesses deploy Big Data systems in the cloud. Hadoop faces stiff competition from Google Cloud, Databricks, Cloudera, Snowflake, OpenText, Microsoft, Posit, AWS, Qubole, and IBM. [2]

Here is an in-depth analysis of Hadoop’s top competitors and alternatives:  

1. Google Cloud

Year founded: 2008
Headquarter: Mountain View, California

Google Cloud is a leading cloud platform offering BigQuery and Dataproc. BigQuery is a fully managed serverless data warehouse. In October 2022, Google Cloud introduced several BigQuery upgrades and enhancements. [3]

Google Cloud’s enterprise-grade solutions accelerate organizations’ digital transformation. Businesses can use Google Cloud Dataproc to process big datasets and BigQuery to analyze unstructured and streaming data. In August 2023, Google Cloud unveiled new AI-enhanced tools to deliver generative AI benefits to users, making it the top Hadoop competitor and alternative. [4]

2. Databricks

Year founded: 2013
Headquarter: San Francisco, California

Databricks is an enterprise software company. It offers the Databricks Lakehouse Platform, a big data processing and distribution solution. As of July 2023, Databricks had 4,000 employees and over 10,000 customers globally.

Databricks Lakehouse Platform simplifies big data processing and distribution. The product received FedRAMP authorized status in October 2022, making it the go-to solution for the US government and contractors. In September 2023, Databricks raised $500 million in a Series I round, increasing its valuation to $43 billion. Databricks is one of the best alternatives to Hadoop. [5]

3. Cloudera

Year founded: 2008
Headquarter: Santa Clara, California

Cloudera is a software company specializing in enterprise data management systems. It offers cloud services and data processing solutions for machine learning and data analysis applications. In 2022, Cloudera had around 2,700 employees and served over 1,800 customers.

Cloudera Enterprise Core helps users store and manage data. It combines storage, processing, and exploration in a single enterprise-grade storage and management platform. In January 2023, Cloudera was recognized as a Leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Cloud DBMS. Cloudera is one of the top competitors for Hadoop. [6]

4. Snowflake

Year founded: 2012
Headquarter: Bozeman, Montana

Snowflake is a cloud computing and data cloud company. It offers a data-as-a-service (DaaS) solution, which combines cloud-based data storage and analytics. In January 2023, Snowflake had around 3,900 employees.

Snowflake’s integrated data warehouse platform eliminates data management and processing barriers by providing instant and secure access to users’ entire data network. Organizations use Snowflake to extract insights from data, develop apps, and maximize the value of their data. As of August 2023, Snowflake served 639 Forbes Global 2000 companies, making it one of the best alternatives to Hadoop. [7]

5. OpenText Vertica

Year founded: 1991
Headquarter: Waterloo, Canada

OpenText is a software company specializing in enterprise information management. It offers OpenText Vertica, a software-based analytics platform. In January 2023, OpenText had 24,100 employees.

OpenText Vertica has a 4.3-star rating out of 5 on G2.com. The solution helps organizations of all sizes monetize data in real-time. In August 2023, the company unveiled opentext.ai and AI-powered products. OpenText Vertica is one of the best alternatives to Hadoop. [8]

6. Microsoft SQL Server

Year founded: 1975
Headquarter: Redmond, Washington

Microsoft is a multinational tech company offering enterprise-grade solutions. Its SQL Server delivers robust capabilities to Windows, Linux, and Docker containers, enabling developers to build intelligent apps in their preferred language and environment. In January 2023, Microsoft had over 220,000 employees.

SQL Server offers innovative big data processing and security features. Users can transform their businesses with AI and leverage mobile BI to extract insights from data. The company also provides Azure Synapse Analytics, a cloud-based enterprise data warehouse. In August 2023, Microsoft launched new features to accelerate AI transformations, making it a formidable competitor for Hadoop. [9]

7. Posit

Year founded: 2009
Headquarter: Boston, Massachusetts

Posit is a data science software company founded as RStudio. In July 2022, the company rebranded from RStudio to Posit after expanding its offering to cater to R, Visual Studio, and Python users. Posit employs 43 software engineers and over 50 part-time workers. [10]

Posit’s open-source data science software caters to developers across all stages. Organizations can use Posit Connect, Posit Workbench, and Posit Packet Manager to access enterprise-ready software products. According to G2, Posit has a 4.5-star rating out of 5 from 552 customer reviews. Posit is one of the best alternatives to Hadoop.

8. Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Year founded: 2006
Headquarter: Seattle, Washington

AWS is the world’s leading cloud computing platform. It offers over 200 services, including computing, data storage, databases, networking, analytics, AI, app development, IoT, VR, and AR. In H1 2023, Amazon laid off around 27,000 employees, including AWS’s staff. [11]

AWS offers Amazon EMR, a cloud-native big data platform that organizations can use to process tons of data by leveraging open-source tools. However, the main selling point of EMR is its integration with AWS’s robust ecosystem. Analytical teams can leverage the scalability of Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3’s storage to run Petabyte-scale analysis. AWS is a formidable competitor for Hadoop.

9. Qubole

Year founded: 2011
Headquarter: Santa Clara, California

Qubole is a multi-cloud data lake platform for machine learning, streaming, and ad-hoc analytics. It accelerates data lake adoption, reduces time to value, and lowers costs by 50%. According to G2, Qubole has a 4.0-star rating out of 5 from 259 customer reviews. [12]

Qubole offers end-to-end data lake services, including cloud infrastructure management, data engineering, analytics, and machine learning. However, the main competitive advantage of Qubole is its openness and data workload flexibility. Global brands such as Expedia, Disney, Oracle, Gannett, and Adobe use Qubole to spur innovation and transform their businesses. Qubole is a worthy alternative to Hadoop.

10. IBM Analytics Engine

Year founded: 1911
Headquarter: Armonk, New York

IBM is a leading tech company specializing in software and hardware solutions. The IBM Analytics Engine simplifies big data processing. In January 2023, IBM employed around 350,000 people.

IBM offers several data processing, management, and visualization solutions, including IBM Analytics Engine, BigInsights, and Cognos Analytics. BigInsights is a data visualization and analytics tool. In June 2023, IBM released Cognos Analytics 12.0.0 with AI-driven self-service, high-performance interactivity, and a robust BI platform. IBM is one of the top competitors for Hadoop. [13]

11. Apache Spark

Year founded: 2009
Headquarter: Berkeley, California

Apache Spark is an open-source unified analytics engine. It is a leading global big data distributed processing framework. According to TrustRadius, Spark has an 8.6 score out of 10.

Apache Spark 2.3 was released in 2018 with a continuous processing mode for Structured Streaming. This feature handles responses with latencies as low as 1 ms. In March 2023, the Apache Spark team introduced Spark 3.3.2 with advanced capabilities. Tech giants like Apple, IBM, Meta, and Microsoft use Apache Spark for distributed computing and big data processing, making it a worthy alternative to Hadoop. [14]

12. Presto

Year founded: 2012
Headquarter: San Francisco, California

Presto is a SQL-based distributed query engine for big data. Users can query data from multiple sources, such as Hadoop, Cassandra, Kafka, AWS, MySQL, and MongoDB. As of June 2023, Presto served innovative global giants like Adobe, Bytedance, Alibaba Cloud, Intuit, Meta, and Uber.

Presto is flexible and works with open data formats. Companies use Presto as the backbone for their Open Data Lakehouse. For example, Uber runs 100 million queries daily with Presto for over 7,000 weekly active users on a 50PB data lake. In early 2023, IBM launched Watsonx.data with Presto as the query engine. This solution increases Presto’s competitive advantage over Hadoop. [15]

13. Teradata Corporation

Year founded: 1979
Headquarter: San Diego, California

Teradata is an American software company founded by researchers at Caltech and Citibank’s tech group. The company offers cloud database and analytics-related products and services. In December 2022, Teradata had around 7,000 employees.

Teradata offers a comprehensive cloud analytics and data platform that helps companies make informed decisions and drive business growth. In September 2023, Teradata unveiled its new ask.ai generative AI capability for VantageCloud Lake. Organizations can use the solution to query their data in natural language and receive instant responses from VantageCloud Lake. Teradata is an innovative Hadoop competitor. [16]

14. Apache Hive

Year founded: 2010
Headquarter: Geneva, Switzerland

Apache Hive is database and data warehouse software. The platform supports data querying and analysis of large datasets in Hadoop HDFS and other compatible systems. According to TrustRadius, Apache Hive has an 8.2 score out of 10.

Apache Hive’s data warehouse software helps users read, write, and manage large datasets in distributed storage using SQL. However, the main selling point of Hive is its robust features, including Hive Query Language (HQL) and custom user-defined functions (UDF). Unlike SQL, HQL executes queries on Hadoop’s infrastructure instead of traditional databases. Apache Hive is one of the best alternatives to Hadoop. [17]

15. Informatica

Year founded: 1993
Headquarter: Redwood City, California

Informatica is an American software development company. It offers enterprise cloud data management and data integration. In December 2022, Informatica had over 6,000 employees.

Informatica offers robust solutions and cloud-native services. In September 2023, the company released its PowerCenter Cloud Edition. This solution converts customers’ on-premises workloads to the cloud using cloud data integration for PowerCenter (CDI-PC), PowerCenter to CDI, and cloud data validation (CDV). These cloud-native services can poach customers from Hadoop. [18]

16. Greenplum

Year founded: 2003
Headquarter: Palo Alto, California

Greenplum is a Big Data technology provider. Its platform leverages the power of open-source PostgreSQL and MPP database architecture to simplify data processing. In July 2010, EMC Corp acquired Greenplum for an undisclosed amount. EMC later sold Greenplum to its current parent company, VMware.

Greenplum offers advanced big data analytics and data science tools. In August 2023, VMware released Greenplum 7 with cutting-edge resource management and analytics capabilities. This flexible SQL-based online analytical processing (OLAP) platform can handle structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data. Greenplum is a state-of-the-art alternative to Hadoop. [19]

17. Apache Pig

Year founded: 2006
Headquarter: Wakefield, Massachusetts

Apache Pig is a high-level data processing language and framework. Users write complex data transformations using the Pig Latin scripting to simplify data analysis. On TrustRadius.com, Apache Pig has an 8.3 score out of 10. [20]

Apache Pig offers a robust platform for processing and analyzing tons of data in a distributed computing environment. However, the main selling point of Apache Pig is its scalability and simple scripting language. Users load their data into Apache Pig from files or distributed systems like Hadoop HDFS and apply Pig Latin to transform data. Apache Pig is one of the best alternatives to Hadoop.

18. Bigtable

Year founded: 2005
Headquarter: Mountain View, California

Bigtable is a fully managed, low-latency NoSQL database service. It is part of the Google Cloud portfolio and helps organizations manage large analytical and operational workloads. In September 2023, Bigtable introduced new multi-cloud capabilities for hybrid analytical and transactional processing (HTAP).

The main competitive advantage of Bigtable is its integration with Google Cloud and other systems. Users can replicate changes from Bigtable to BigQuery for analytics and leverage ElasticSearch for autocomplete and full-text search. They can also integrate Bigtable with Vertex AI for ML-driven experiences. As a Google Cloud solution, Bigtable has enough resources to poach some customers from Hadoop. [21]

19. Pentaho

Year founded: 2004
Headquarter: Orlando, Florida

Pentaho is a business intelligence software company owned by Hitachi Data Systems since 2015. The company offers data integration, mining, and extraction, OLAP services, reporting tools, information dashboards, and data load capabilities. In 2022, Hitachi Vantara had over 10,000 employees.

Pentaho helps organizations integrate, manage, and process their business data. In August 2023, Hitachi Vantara enhanced the Pentaho 9.4 Enterprise Edition with new features and user experience improvements. It offers a Thin Kettle engine, Mongo DB plugins, Pentaho Analyzer visualization configurations, and business analytics server performance. Pentaho is one of the best alternatives to Hadoop. [22]

20. Ceph

Year founded: 2004
Headquarter: Los Angeles, California

Ceph is an open-source software-defined storage platform. It addresses the block, file, and object storage needs of modern enterprises. In September 2023, the company relaunched the Ceph User + Developer virtual platform to encourage collaboration and refocus on user-facing topics. [23]

The main selling point of Ceph is its highly scalable architecture. Several companies have adopted the platform for high-growth block storage, object stores, and data lakes. In February 2023, Bloomberg hosted the Ceph Days NYC event in New York City. About 50 members of the Ceph community and speakers from Canonical, SoftIron, Bloomberg, IBM, and Platina presented their innovative Ceph tools and use cases. Ceph is an emerging competitor of Hadoop. [24]

 References & more information

  1. com (2023, Jul 27). Hadoop Big Data Analytics Market to Register 16.10% CAGR 2023-2028. Business Wire
  2. Kromka, M. (2023, Mar 14). Is Hadoop still relevant? Is it our future, or does it belong to the past? Virtus Lab
  3. Woodie, A. (2022, Oct 11). Google Cloud opens up its Data Cloud at Next ’22. Datanami
  4. Google Cloud (2023, Aug 29). Google Cloud Kicks Off Next ’23 with a New Way to Cloud. PRNewswire
  5. Wilhelm, A. (2023, Sep 14). Databricks raises $500M more, boosting valuation to $43B despite late-stage gloom. TechCrunch
  6. Cloudera, Inc. (2023, Jan 10). Cloudera was recognized as a Leader in the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud Database Management Systems. PRNewswire
  7. Snowflake (2023, Aug 23). Snowflake Reports Financial Results for the Second Quarter of Fiscal 2024. Snowflake.com
  8. Open Text Corporation (2023, Aug 3). OpenText Reports Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2023 Financial Results. PRNewswire
  9. Venturini, F. (2023, Aug 24). How the Microsoft Cloud is accelerating AI transformation in media. Microsoft.com
  10. Machlis, S. (2022, Jul 27). RStudio changed its name to Posit and expanded its focus to include Python and VS Code. Info World
  11. Haranas, M. (2023, Apr 6). AWS Confirms Layoffs Impacting ‘Single Digit Percentage’ Of Employees. CRN
  12. G2 (2023, Aug 6). What is Qubole? G2.com
  13. Aston, T. (2023, Jun 6). Cognos Analytics 12.0.0 is here to bring AI-powered insights to everyone faster! IBM.com
  14. Pointer, I. (2023, Mar 30). What is Apache Spark? This big data platform crushed Hadoop. InfoWorld
  15. LeClerc, A. (2023, Jun 23). Recapping PrestoCon Day 2023: Presto for the Data Lakehouse. PrestoDB.com
  16. Teradata Corporation (2023, Sep 11). Teradata launches ask.ai and brings Generative AI capabilities to VantageCloud Lake. Teradata.com
  17. Simplilearn (2023, Mar 31). What is Hive? Introduction to Hive in Hadoop. Simplilearn.com
  18. Informatica (2023, Sep 19). Informatica Accelerates Cloud Modernization Journey with PowerCenter Cloud Edition. Informatica.com
  19. Chakraborty, A. (2023, Aug 22). Announcing VMware Greenplum 7: The Next Big Leap in Data Warehousing, Big Data Analytics, and AI/ML. VMware.com
  20. Musgrove, V. (2023, Oct 10). What is Apache Pig? Cellular News
  21. Govindhtech (2023, Sep 2). Bigtable at Next ’23: What’s New? Medium
  22. Pentaho Team (2023, Aug 11). What’s new in Pentaho 9.4? HitachiVantara.com
  23. Flores, L. (2023, Aug 31). Join Us for the Relaunch of the Ceph User + Developer Monthly Meeting! Ceph.io
  24. Ceph Team (2023, Feb 21). Bloomberg: Fostering a vibrant Ceph community at Ceph Days NYC. Ceph.io
  25. Featured Image by Campaign Creators

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