Cassandra vs Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop comparison

Apache and Cloudera are both solutions in the NoSQL Databases category. Apache is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.5, while Cloudera is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.5. Apache holds a 8.3% mindshare in ND, compared to Cloudera’s 5.5% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Apache users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Cloudera users who would recommend it.

Cassandra

Read 25 Cassandra reviews

3,866 Views
2,436 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Cloudera Distribution for H...

Read 51 Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop reviews

4,750 Views
1,758 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Cassandra

Cloudera Distribution for H...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 7, 2025

Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop and Cassandra compete in the data management solutions category. Cloudera seems to have the upper hand in centralized management and comprehensive data governance, compared to Cassandra's strengths in scalability and high availability.

Features: Cloudera offers features like Impala for fast data processing, Sentry for enhanced security, and Cloudera Manager for centralized administration. Cassandra provides a NoSQL schema, linear scalability, and automated replication, making it suitable for large-scale data handling and quick real-time analytics.

Room for Improvement: Cloudera faces challenges with version stability, complex setup processes, and costs due to its licensing model. Integration with Spark and improved API documentation are areas needing enhancement. Cassandra could benefit from better query optimization and user-friendly documentation. It lacks built-in aggregation functions requiring third-party tools for complex queries.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cloudera is primarily deployed on-premises but supports cloud options; customer service feedback is mixed, with some praising the support and others noting inconsistency. Cassandra offers flexible deployment across cloud and on-premises setups and receives positive feedback for its supportive community and effective forums.

Pricing and ROI: Cloudera's licensing model can be cost-prohibitive for smaller companies, though larger enterprises find value in its features despite the high costs. Cassandra, as an open-source solution, offers economical data management with lowered operational costs, making it attractive for cost-conscious enterprises seeking high ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Cassandra vs. Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Cassandra vs. Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop

April 2026

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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

Cassandra

Ranking in NoSQL Databases

6th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Vector Databases (12th)

Cloudera Distribution for H...

Ranking in NoSQL Databases

10th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Hadoop (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of Cassandra is 8.3%, down from 10.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop is 5.5%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

NoSQL Databases Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cassandra	8.3%
Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop	5.5%
Other	86.2%

NoSQL Databases

Featured Reviews

Monirul Islam Khan

Head, Data Integration & Management at a non-profit with 10,001+ employees

Has maintained secure document storage and efficient data distribution with peer-to-peer architecture

The functions or features in Cassandra that I have found most valuable are that it is a distributed system similar to Mongo. It's good enough for comparison with another SQL database, so it's smooth and organized for distributed database system. The peer-to-peer architecture in Cassandra is helpful for network decentralization, and I have already introduced that feature. Cassandra features in peer-to-peer as well as another monitoring, so basically, it's good enough for our service. The tunable consistency level in Cassandra is good, and we are using that feature already. In terms of built-in caching and lightweight transactions in Cassandra, the transaction level is good, and it's optimized, so there are no more issues in that database. Based on my experience, Cassandra is good for document management system, as well as distributed database system, and the automatic recovery process is there. Additionally, the database monitoring system or auditing system is well-comparable with other database systems, so we are actually happy to be using this Cassandra database.

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Sami Al-Yazidi

Head of Advaced Analytics & Intelligence; AGM at Alinma Bank

Integration of multiple features supports data analytics and processing

Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop provides numerous features and capabilities combined into one platform.The solution offers power processing and supports different file systems and query engines. It provides parallel processing for handling many requests. The platform includes role-based access control in Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop. It secures the data itself and provides users with different roles and privileges.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"If you need availability and consistency, you can go with Cassandra."

"Cassandra is good, it's better than CouchDB, and we are using it in parallel with CouchDB, as Cassandra looks better and is more user-friendly."

"A consistent solution."

"The most valuable feature of Cassandra is its fast retrieval. Additionally, the solution can handle large amounts of data. It is the quickest application we use."

"Some of the valued features of this solution are it has good performance and failover."

"The technical evaluation is very good."

"I am satisfied with the performance."

"We can add almost one million columns to the solution."

More Cassandra pros

"Cloudera is always developing new tools and supports a wide range of tools."

"Cloudera Manager is the most valuable feature for its ease of use, features, ease of upgrade and install components."

"I am very comfortable with this product."

"It is helpful to gather and process data."

"This is the only solution that is possible to install on-premise."

"The file system is a valuable feature."

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

"I like the combination of all the tools that allow me to provide solutions and enable me to solve the use cases I'm working on."

More Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop pros

Cons

"I want Cassandra to update its open-source version more quickly. It's already feature-rich, but I'd appreciate better integration with other NoSQL databases like MariaDB or MongoDB. If I ever need to work with customers or vendors using different NoSQL databases, having native integration in Cassandra would make managing and interacting with their databases much easier."

"There could be more integration, and it could be more user-friendly."

"Cassandra can improve by adding more built-in tools. For example, if you want to do some maintenance activities in the cluster, we have to depend on third-party tools. Having these tools build-in would be e benefit."

"Depending upon our schema, we can't make ORDER BY or GROUP BY clauses in the product."

"If you have a requirement of aggregation and joints, Cassandra doesn't support a solution that can give the aggregation."

"Cassandra is very complex to manage. Sometimes, I need to involve a senior DevOps engineer if we encounter a problem."

"The solution is not easy to use because it is a big database and you have to learn the interface. This is the case though in most of these solutions."

"Row-level locking is not available; might be very helpful in update use cases."

More Cassandra cons

"We're currently trying to perform a failed installation and it's little bit difficult. It should restart the installation where it left off."

"The stability is problematic. We did encounter quite a lot of issues with the cluster going down quite frequently."

"This is a very expensive solution."

"Sometimes the heavy queries do not finish at all."

"There are multiple bugs when we update."

"Cloudera 5 is currently very unstable. Between two Cloudera 5 clusters, we have an incident at least twice a week due to what are now outstanding bugs."

"Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop is not always completely stable in some cases, which can be a concern for big data solutions."

"Without the big data environment, we cannot store all of this data live. We have billions of records and terabytes of storage to be used. It's not an option actually for us to have a big data environment."

More Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cassandra is a free open source solution, but there is a commercial version available called DataStax Enterprise."

"There are licensing fees that must be paid, but I'm not sure if they are paid monthly or yearly."

"We are using the open-source version of Cassandra, the solution is free."

"We pay for a license."

"I use the tool's open-source version."

"I don't have the specific numbers on pricing, but it was fairly priced."

"The price could be better for the product."

"Cloudera requires a license to use."

"I wouldn't recommend CDH to others because of its high cost."

"The solution is expensive."

"The tool is expensive...For the SMB market or customers whose environments are not that complex and do not have multiple systems running, Cloudera might not be a good option."

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

"It is an expensive product."

"I haven't bought a license for this solution. I'm only using the Apache license version."

More Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

Performing Arts

Financial Services Firm

23%

Marketing Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	14

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	32

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cassandra?

The pricing for Cassandra is a little bit high, so it would be better for our community services if they consider community pricing for any non-profit organization like an NGO or other things. It w...

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What needs improvement with Cassandra?

Regarding areas of improvement for Cassandra, currently, we are not facing significant issues. Some issues arise from our vendors like Apache slowness and distribution or load balancing from HAProx...

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What is your primary use case for Cassandra?

My use case for Cassandra is for a document and other unstructured data management system as well as structured data for ultra-poor member community edition, community members' PII information, so ...

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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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop?

If they could support modifying the data more easily than the current implementation, it would be beneficial.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop?

We use Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop for many use cases including analytics, storing huge data sets, and various data processing tasks.

See all answers

Comparisons

ClickHouse vs Cassandra

Compared 8% of the time

MongoDB Enterprise Advanced vs Cassandra

Compared 8% of the time

ScyllaDB vs Cassandra

Compared 5% of the time

DataStax Enterprise vs Cassandra

Compared 5% of the time

Couchbase Enterprise vs Cassandra

Compared 5% of the time

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HPE Data Fabric vs Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop

Compared 7% of the time

Apache Spark vs Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop

Compared 7% of the time

MongoDB Enterprise Advanced vs Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop

Compared 6% of the time

Amazon EMR vs Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop

Compared 5% of the time

IBM Spectrum Computing vs Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cassandra

May 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop

May 2026

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Overview

Cassandra is a distributed and scalable database management system used for real-time data processing.

It is highly valued for its ability to handle large amounts of data, scalability, high availability, fault tolerance, and flexible data model.

It is commonly used in finance, e-commerce, and social media industries.

Apache

Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop provides a comprehensive platform for efficient data management and analytics, integrating advanced analytics tools with enterprise-grade security and hybrid cloud support.

Designed for handling vast datasets, Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop facilitates seamless data processing through its components such as Hive, Pig, and Spark. It supports both structured and unstructured data management with robust scalability and powerful data handling capabilities. While the latest version focuses on enhancing speed and integration, challenges remain with HBase stability and processing in Cloudera 5 clusters. Organizations leverage it for big data management tasks like data warehousing, log analytics, and real-time data processing using tools like Hadoop and Spark.

What are the key features of Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop?

Cloudera Manager: An intuitive interface streamlining installation and management.
Impala Query Speed: Optimized for fast querying of large datasets.
Security: Enterprise-grade security features for robust protection.
Hybrid Cloud Support: Enhanced flexibility with hybrid cloud integration.
Data Handling Components: Includes Hive, Pig, and Spark for comprehensive data management.

What benefits or ROI should users look for?

Efficient Data Management: Optimizes both structured and unstructured data handling.
Advanced Analytics: Supports machine learning and ETL processes for improved analytics.
Scalability: Offers robust scalability for handling large datasets.
Responsive Community Support: Continuous feature enhancements and support from the community.
On-premises Deployment: Effective on-premises data management capabilities for extensive information volumes.

In industries such as finance, retail, and healthcare, Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop is implemented to enhance data-driven decision-making and operational efficiency. It aids in processing large volumes of data for analytics, data warehousing, and infrastructure building. Companies utilize it to streamline machine learning and log analytics, serving as a data lake for preprocessing substantial datasets.

Cloudera

Sample Customers

1. Apple 2. Netflix 3. Facebook 4. Instagram 5. Twitter 6. eBay 7. Spotify 8. Uber 9. Airbnb 10. Adobe 11. Cisco 12. IBM 13. Microsoft 14. Yahoo 15. Reddit 16. Pinterest 17. Salesforce 18. LinkedIn 19. Hulu 20. Airbnb 21. Walmart 22. Target 23. Sony 24. Intel 25. Cisco 26. HP 27. Oracle 28. SAP 29. GE 30. Siemens 31. Volkswagen 32. Toyota

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

Buyer's Guide

Cassandra vs. Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop

April 2026

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