We use this solution for the hospitality industry.
Manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
A seamless solution with a solid workflow
Pros and Cons
- "The data platform is pretty neat. The workflow is also really good."
- "It would also be nice if there were less coding involved."
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
It was for end to end data processing and data manipulations.
What is most valuable?
The data platform is pretty neat. The workflow is also really good.
What needs improvement?
The NiFi platform could be enhanced. This refers to the data ingestion in a workflow.
It would also be nice if there was less coding involved.
Buyer's Guide
Cloudera Data Platform
June 2025

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For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for six years.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is okay, but not excellent. They can take a while to respond.
What other advice do I have?
If you wish to use this solution, make sure you compare it with some other solutions first to make sure it's right for your needs.
Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of nine.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

Senior IT Officer- Head of Administration, System Administration Division for Unix and Linux Servers at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
A cost-effective alternative for managing our big data
Pros and Cons
- "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."
- "I would like to see more support for containers such as Docker and OpenShift."
What is our primary use case?
We use this solution to look at and manage big data. It's mostly historical data that we offload from our data warehouse, as well as from other databases in other platforms.
We have two different installations. The first one is based on IBM POWER CPUs, and the other one is based on Intel CPUs. Our data center is on-premise. There is some thought on moving to a private could, or a private IBM cloud, but we have not proceeded with that as of yet.
How has it helped my organization?
This solution is a cheaper way for us to offload the otherwise expensive data. We can move data from outdated database versions, such as Oracle 10. It is now out of support, but still hosts some of our historical data. This solution has helped us move our data to the current version.
Previously, we had our data on more expensive platforms. 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.
What needs improvement?
We have had problems with the backup and with services that require a disaster site. We are still struggling with some of these issues.
We are having trouble with Active Directory and Hive integration.
I would like to see more support for containers such as Docker and OpenShift.
For how long have I used the solution?
About a year and a half.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We have had some issues with the code, but it's mostly from the developers. From our side, we don't see any issues with stability, although it may be that we have a lot of unused CPU capacity.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have not acquired any additional hardware since our initial purchase. However, we expect more use cases to be added, at which point we may have performance or scalability problems.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is not very difficult. The configuration is not easy, but somebody with some experience is able to set it up. We had users for which we had to set up quotas and queues. For us, the basic installation was completed within a matter of a week.
What about the implementation team?
We had IBM set up both of our installations.
What other advice do I have?
This is a good product, but we still have some issues with backup, and the performance monitors that we install on every system. There may be solutions, but we're struggling to integrate them.
This is a product that I recommend. It's a solution that comes at a lower price, and it works well if you don't have expectations that it will behave like a much more expensive system.
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Buyer's Guide
Cloudera Data Platform
June 2025

Learn what your peers think about Cloudera Data Platform. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Solution Architect at Teradata Corporation
We use it for data science activities. Security and workload management need improvement.
Pros and Cons
- "We use it for data science activities."
- "Security and workload management need improvement."
What is our primary use case?
We use it for data science activities.
How has it helped my organization?
Data is now available.
What is most valuable?
I have no preferences towards any feature.
What needs improvement?
- Security
- Performance
- Workload management
For how long have I used the solution?
Less than one year.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Works at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Enabled us to implement fraud detection and improve performance at a lower cost
Pros and Cons
- "Ranger for security; with Ranger we can manager user’s permissions/access controls very easily."
- "Hive performance. If Hive performance increased, Hadoop would replace (not everywhere) traditional databases."
What is most valuable?
A few of them, namely: Hive/Tez, HBase, Ranger, Yarn and Ambari. Ambari helps managing the platform, Hive is very easy to use. Ranger for security; with Ranger we can manager user’s permissions/access controls very easily.
How has it helped my organization?
We have successfully ported a Microsoft SSIS product application into Hadoop, that saved millions of dollars for the company and, at the same time, they are getting better performance. Also, we implemented fraud detection, as quickly as possible, for the online orders. (Fraudulent orders became a big headache for our company. The early detection of fraud is saving the company a lot of money).
What needs improvement?
Hive performance. If Hive performance increased, Hadoop would replace (not everywhere) traditional databases (Oracle/Teradata, etc.), which would save a lot of money for the company.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working on this HDP platform since Jan 2015.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
No, our company is a satisfied customer.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
No, not at all.
What other advice do I have?
Product is good. Reason I gave a rating of eight is that their community is very large and relatively very quick in bug fixes.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
BigData(QA & RnD) with 51-200 employees
The user-friendly feature of the Ambari Web UI is one of its best features. On the other hand, the Ambari upgrade is difficult.
Pros and Cons
- "Ambari Web UI: user-friendly."
- "Deleting any service requires a lot of clean up, unlike Cloudera."
What is most valuable?
- Ambari Web UI: user-friendly
- Views for Hive, Tez, Pig
- Spark and Ranger
How has it helped my organization?
It has helped our organisation cater to clients who are using Big Data for data storage and analysis combined with our security product.
What needs improvement?
Deleting any service requires a lot of clean up, unlike Cloudera.
For how long have I used the solution?
Five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Not until now.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
No.
How are customer service and technical support?
Very supportive, prompt responses.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We didn't use a previous solution.
How was the initial setup?
The Ambari upgrade is not very user-friendly.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Not applicable.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Cloudera and MapR.
What other advice do I have?
It's a great company with a great product employing dedicated people.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Big Data - Senior Solutions Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
It is open and there is no lock-in.
What is most valuable?
We evaluated Cloudera and Hortonworks. Based on our evaluation and actual experience in production of 60 nodes and development of 12 nodes, the most valuable features of Hortonworks are:
- 100% open
- No lock-in like Cloudera
- Fast and accurate support instantly
- Largest number of committers to Hadoop by any means
- Hive is better in performance and ease of use compared to Impala
How has it helped my organization?
It helps a lot in data in motion (ingestion and manage in real time). We are able to do 3rd-party data monetization of our data within a t+20 minute time frame to our end customers.
What needs improvement?
- Cost
- Reliability
- Speed
- Ease of use
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used it for three years.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
I initially encountered deployment issues, but they were very good in resolving them.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have not encountered stability issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I have not encountered any scalability issues at all. That's the key reason we picked HDP over Cloudera, as Cloudera have issues & don't support compression of Hive in ORC format. They push only their products (not good).
How are customer service and technical support?
Customer Service:
Customer service has been excellent from the day one until now... and our Admin is comfortable with the SLA and turnaround time.
Technical Support:Technical support is very good and proactive with SmartSense.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used a different solution. We switched from Cloudera. Initially, we went with Cloudera due to it being a popular choice in the market, etc, then realized it was bad choice. Before we scaled from 6 nodes to 12 nodes and before we went livein production, we scrapped it due to Impala's performance and lock-in.
How was the initial setup?
Using Ambari, it was easy to set up and we even tried the AWS for a test cluster.
What about the implementation team?
An in-house team implemented it: two admins, seven developers, one data scientist, one PM and 22 business users at the customer (end-user side).
What was our ROI?
ROI is 300%.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Hortonworks is the best, comparing all three flavors. If all is well, we might use open source alone in the next three years; others you can't due to lock-in...
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing this product, we also evaluate Cloudera.
What other advice do I have?
It is the best in terms of product vision and actual delivery.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Solution Architect at MIMOS Berhad
It gives us semantic analysis based on the feeds from social networking data, clickstream data, etc., but it needs to support disaster recovery features such as mirroring.
What is most valuable?
- It's the one and only complete open source big data platform
- Ambari-managed admin configuration for HDFS, YARN, Hive, HBase, etc.
- Customized dashboards
- Web-based HDFS browser
- SQL editor for Hive
- Apache Phoenix - OLTP and operational analytics on Hadoop
- Apache Zeppelin - A web-based notebook that enables interactive data analytics
How has it helped my organization?
- Maintenance of our own data lake in the enterprise-level
- Storage and analysis of server logs
- Applying Operational Intelligence in the enterprise-level based on the analysis of various department units data
- Semantic analysis based on the feeds from social networking data, clickstream data, etc.
What needs improvement?
- Rolling upgrade
- Disaster recovery features such as mirroring should be supported
For how long have I used the solution?
We've used it for one year.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
No issues encountered.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
No issues encountered.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
No issues encountered.
How are customer service and technical support?
Customer Service:
3/10
Technical Support:3/10
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
No previous solution was in place.
How was the initial setup?
It's easy to setup.
What about the implementation team?
We did it in-house.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Completely use the community edition along with other features that can be implemented on top.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
No other solutions were looked at.
What other advice do I have?
Study, analyze, and compare with other big data platforms features according to your requirements before choosing the appropriate one.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
CTO at a tech services company
The setup of hadoop was easy thanks to Ambari, but installing the security components was complex.
What is most valuable?
It has a powerful, user-friendly interface called Ambari which allowed us to administrate our cluster easily.
How has it helped my organization?
It allows us to performa data lake implementation to handle/treat huge amounts of data, or what we call the "terrible bytes”.
What needs improvement?
Integrate a complete hive web client (Ambari views), like Hue Today, in the next release.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used it for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The HDP v2.3 is stable release. But we have encountered some issues linked to hbase (fixed by: hbase server and region server should not be installed on the same node).
How are customer service and technical support?
It has good documentation, but it's not fully complete for complex security needs (knox/ranger with cluster).
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have installed our first cluster using native Apache repositories.
How was the initial setup?
The setup of Hadoop was easy thanks to Ambari, but installing the security components was complex.
What about the implementation team?
Our cluster has been implemented in-house. We have automated the entire installation of Hadoop, set-up and configuration included.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Hadoop/Cloudera is still much cheaper than Oracle's RDBM system, if you want to handle a huge amount of data and make complex analytics.
It's 40,000€ for 10 Hadoop nodes vs 1.7 million Euros for an Oracle server with 40 cores.
What other advice do I have?
In short, I recommend this product simply because Hortonworks is the only distribution that runs on Linux and Windows Servers.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

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Updated: June 2025
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