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Apache Hadoop vs IBM Db2 Warehouse comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

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

Apache Hadoop
Ranking in Data Warehouse
13th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Db2 Warehouse
Ranking in Data Warehouse
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Apache Hadoop is 3.1%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Db2 Warehouse is 2.6%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Warehouse Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Apache Hadoop3.1%
IBM Db2 Warehouse2.6%
Other94.3%
Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

NR
Financial Advisor at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Reliable performance maintained but requires ongoing management and support
Hadoop was used for years, but there were problems since the people who originally set it up left the firm. The group that owned it later didn't have the technical resources to properly maintain it. Although there was nothing wrong with Hadoop itself, issues arose without proper management and upgrades.
Sherpard  Muzuva - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Manager at SYSTEMS INTEGRATED LTD (SYMPHONY)
Advanced features enhance business intelligence, but complex management calls for improved user guidance
While my experience with IBM Db2 Warehouse is somewhat limited, when compared to other databases such as Oracle, there are areas for improvement. They need to enhance the database to make it more user-friendly and easier to master. They should implement a more comprehensive graphical user interface with additional features. For instance, when users encounter problems, the system should provide better guidelines and troubleshooting directions, except for hardware-related issues. They need to implement tools that would help users perform basic troubleshooting rather than solely relying on support. Other databases have features where users can investigate specific issues using error codes. From my experience, many minor issues could be resolved before escalating to support.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's primarily open source. You can handle huge data volumes and create your own views, workflows, and tables. I can also use it for real-time data streaming."
"The Distributed File System, which is the base of Hadoop, has been the most valuable feature with its ability to store video, pictures, JSON, XML, and plain text all in the same file system."
"Two valuable features are its scalability and parallel processing. There are jobs that cannot be done unless you have massively parallel processing."
"What comes with the standard setup is what we mostly use, but Ambari is the most important."
"Apache Hadoop can manage large amounts and volumes of data with relative ease, which is a feature that is beneficial."
"They have integrated other tools as well, like Power BI and Oracle BI, both on Azure, for reporting. Oracle BI is difficult to integrate."
"The solution is perfect for when you have big data."
"After switching to big data pipelines, our query performance improved a hundred times."
"IBM Db2 Warehouse is more resilient when dealing with business intelligence applications."
"The most valuable features of IBM Db2 Warehouse include its availability, easy integration, ability to deal with a large size of data, excellent performance with no delays, powerful security mechanisms, and effective support."
"The analytics engine is not bad at forecasting predictions."
"The solution is stable."
"It can scale effectively as long as resources are available."
"It's easy and practical to use."
"The initial setup was really easy; it's Docker compliant, you just pull the image from the IBM repository and that's it, and the deployment must have taken less than an hour, making it really fast to have it completely working."
"The solution works with big data, so it's pretty scalable."
 

Cons

"Since it is an open-source product, there won't be much support."
"The integration with Apache Hadoop with lots of different techniques within your business can be a challenge."
"It requires a great deal of learning curve to understand."
"It needs better user interface (UI) functionalities."
"The key shortcoming is its inability to handle queries when there is insufficient memory. This limitation can be bypassed by processing the data in chunks."
"The load optimization capabilities of the product are an area of concern where improvements are required."
"We're finding vulnerabilities in running it 24/7. We're experiencing some downtime that affects the data."
"From the Apache perspective or the open-source community, they need to add more capabilities to make life easier from a configuration and deployment perspective."
"The biggest problems we have is when the backup solution is failing or slow and we run out of log space, which has happened probably a couple of times in the last four years."
"There should be more material available for training and training should be free."
"It takes a long time to have a new version or release, similar to Oracle."
"The primary challenges customers face with IBM Db2 Warehouse are related to its complexity in usage. It requires highly skilled professionals who understand Db2, and both training and support are challenging to obtain."
"The biggest challenge anyone could have with Db2 Warehouse is their references or online resources and documentation. They are very, very, very limited on the web."
"The areas of the solution that is needing the most improvement are separating compute from storage, elasticity, which means scaling up and then retracting."
"There were some initial challenges with IBM Db2 Warehouse about eight months ago when I worked in this environment. When I coordinated with IBM support, they mentioned that the memory was insufficient for our needs. Our business environment required significantly more memory than the previous cluster could provide. Consequently, we have worked closely with on-site IBM technical personnel to address this issue."
"On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the technical support as a five. It is fairly bad."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Do take into consider that data storage and compute capacity scale differently and hence purchasing a "boxed" / 'all-in-one" solution (software and hardware) might not be the best idea."
"It's reasonable, but there's room for improvement in cost-effectiveness."
"We just use the free version."
"We don't directly pay for it. Our clients pay for it, and they usually don't complain about the price. So, it is probably acceptable."
"If my company can use the cloud version of Apache Hadoop, particularly the cloud storage feature, it would be easier and would cost less because an on-premises deployment has a higher cost during storage, for example, though I don't know exactly how much Apache Hadoop costs."
"This is a low cost and powerful solution."
"The price could be better. Hortonworks no longer exists, and Cloudera killed the free version of Hadoop."
"​There are no licensing costs involved, hence money is saved on the software infrastructure​."
"In a traditional on-prem database, in a data warehouse, the solution is probably on the expensive side."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
25%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise22
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Apache Hadoop?
The problem with Apache Hadoop arose when the guys that originally set it up left the firm, and the group that later owned it didn't have enough technical resources to properly maintain it. This wa...
What is your primary use case for Apache Hadoop?
My use cases for Apache Hadoop include the setups I completed, connecting to the database, and analyzing the incidences, making it a good tool for Hadoop. Apache Hadoop helps us analyze all of the ...
What advice do you have for others considering Apache Hadoop?
When I've dealt with open-source technologies, it's crucial that there's a mechanism for issue escalation. Structured support is invaluable, which is why I appreciate having technical account manag...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Db2 Warehouse?
The pricing for medium and large environments is almost the same as Oracle. I rate the pricing as six out of ten.
What needs improvement with IBM Db2 Warehouse?
While my experience with IBM Db2 Warehouse is somewhat limited, when compared to other databases such as Oracle, there are areas for improvement. They need to enhance the database to make it more u...
What is your primary use case for IBM Db2 Warehouse?
The main advantages of IBM Db2 Warehouse become apparent when dealing with business intelligence applications. I worked with it when it was installed for one of our customers, a utilities company, ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
InfoSphere Warehouse, IBM InfoSphere Warehouse
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon, Adobe, eBay, Facebook, Google, Hulu, IBM, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Spotify, AOL, Twitter, University of Maryland, Yahoo!, Cornell University Web Lab
Alameda County Social Services Agency, Sui Southern Gas Company Limited
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Hadoop vs. IBM Db2 Warehouse and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.