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Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop vs Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
5.5
Measuring ROI from Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop is complex due to diverse applications, pricing, and evaluation difficulties.
Sentiment score
6.2
Organizations report cost savings and efficiency with Azure Cosmos DB, but some experience complexity and difficulty achieving expected savings.
Getting an MVP of that project would have taken six to eight months, but because we had an active choice of using Azure Cosmos DB and other related cloud-native services of Azure, we were able to get to an MVP stage in a matter of weeks, which is six weeks.
Director | Data & AI at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
You can react quickly and trim down the specs, memory, RAM, storage size, etc. It can save about 20% of the costs.
Co-Founder at arpa
When I have done comparisons or cost calculations, I have sometimes personally seen as much as 25% to 30% savings.
Solutions Architect at CompuNet
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
Cloudera's Hadoop support receives mixed reviews, with users praising responsiveness while noting concerns on quality and accessibility.
Sentiment score
6.7
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB support is generally responsive, but experiences vary, with premium users often reporting better satisfaction.
The technical support is quite good and better than IBM.
Manager, Bussines Development & Co Owner at Troia d.o.o.
Premier Support has deteriorated compared to what it used to be, especially for small to medium-sized customers like ours.
Head of IT, Infrastructure, Operations & Applications Development at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
The response was quick.
Lead Cloud Architect at Solliance, Inc
I would rate customer service and support a nine out of ten.
Director | Data & AI at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop is highly scalable and flexible, suitable for large deployments but can be costly to expand.
Sentiment score
7.7
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB offers scalable, flexible solutions with efficient cost management, ideal for large enterprises, despite partition size limits.
The system scales up capacity when needed and scales down when not in use, preventing unnecessary expenses.
Associate Software Architect at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
We like that it can auto-scale to demand, ensuring we only pay for what we use.
CTO at Stellium Consulting
We have had no issues with its ability to search through large amounts of data.
Full Stack Software Developer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop has mixed stability reviews, with hardware issues noted, but support and workarounds are available.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB offers high availability and reliability, with users praising its scalability, integration, and minimal downtime.
We faced challenges but overcame those challenges successfully.
Head of Advaced Analytics & Intelligence; AGM at Alinma Bank
We have multiple availability zones, so nothing goes down.
Hands on user at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Azure Cosmos DB would be a good choice if you have to deploy your application in a limited time frame and you want to auto-scale the database across different applications.
Associate Data Analytics L1 at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
I would rate it a ten out of ten in terms of availability and latency.
Azure Consultant at Deloitte
 

Room For Improvement

Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop struggles with stability and integration, needing better performance, security, documentation, and modern deployment solutions.
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB needs improvements in query complexity, API integration, performance, documentation, cost management, and user-interface enhancements.
Integrating with Active Directory, managing security, and configuration are the main concerns.
Manager, Bussines Development & Co Owner at Troia d.o.o.
We must ensure data security remains the top priority.
Cloud Solutions Architect and Microsoft Principal Consultant for EMEA at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
You have to monitor the Request Units.
Co-Founder at arpa
The dashboard could include more detailed RU descriptions, IOPS, and compute metrics.
Architecte Cloud at Visiativ SA
 

Setup Cost

Cloudera's Hadoop distribution is costly, aimed at large enterprises, lacking a community version, with per-node licensing.
Azure Cosmos DB pricing varies, appreciated for scalability but seen as costly with high demand and complex environments.
It can be deployed on-premises, unlike competitors' cloud-only solutions.
Manager, Bussines Development & Co Owner at Troia d.o.o.
Initially, it seemed like an expensive way to manage a NoSQL data store, but so many improvements that have been made to the platform have made it cost-effective.
Lead Cloud Architect at Solliance, Inc
Cosmos DB is expensive, and the RU-based pricing model is confusing.
IT Data Architect & Manager at Ternium Mexico S.A. de C.V.
Cosmos DB is great compared to other databases because we can reduce the cost while doing the same things.
Lead Software Architect at CPower
 

Valuable Features

Cloudera for Hadoop offers easy installation, robust security, tool integration, scalability, and supports on-premises and cloud environments.
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is valued for scalability, ease of integration, global distribution, security, and support for diverse applications.
This is the only solution that is possible to install on-premise.
Manager, Bussines Development & Co Owner at Troia d.o.o.
The most valuable feature of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is its real-time analytics capabilities, which allow for turnaround times in milliseconds.
Vice President, Machine Learning at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Performance and security are valuable features, particularly when using Cosmos DB for MongoDB emulation and NoSQL.
IT Data Architect & Manager at Ternium Mexico S.A. de C.V.
The performance and scaling capabilities of Cosmos DB are excellent, allowing it to handle large workloads compared to other services such as Azure AI Search.
CTO at Stellium Consulting
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudera Distribution for H...
Ranking in NoSQL Databases
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
Hadoop (2nd)
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB
Ranking in NoSQL Databases
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
109
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (4th), Managed NoSQL Databases (1st), Vector Databases (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop is 3.3%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is 6.7%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NoSQL Databases Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB6.7%
Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop3.3%
Other90.0%
NoSQL Databases
 

Featured Reviews

Rok Dolinsek - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
reviewer2724105 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Director of Product Management at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Provides super sharp latency, excellent availability, and the ability to effectively manage costs across different tenants
For integrating Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB with other Azure products or other products, there are a couple of challenges with the current system. Right now, the vectors are stored as floating-point numbers within the NoSQL document, which makes them inefficiently large. This leads to increased storage space requirements, and searching through a vast number of documents in the vector database becomes quite costly in terms of RUs. While the integration works well, the expense associated with it is relatively high. I would really like to see a reduction in costs for their vector search, as it is currently on the expensive side. The areas for improvement in Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB are vector pricing and vector indexing patterns, which are unintuitive and not well described. I would also like to see the parameters of Fleet Spaces made more powerful, as currently, it's somewhat lightweight. I believe they've made those changes intentionally to better understand the cost model. However, we would like to take a more aggressive approach in using it. One of the most frustrating aspects of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB right now is that you can only store one vector per document. Additionally, you must specify the configuration of that vector when you create an instance of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB. Once the database is set up, you can't change the vector configuration, which is incredibly limiting for experimentation. You want the ability to try different settings and see how they perform, as there are numerous use cases for storing more than one vector in a document. While interoperability within the vector database is acceptable—for example, I can search for vectors—I still desire a richer set of configuration options.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Legal Firm
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise31
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise58
 

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?
If they could support modifying the data more easily than the current implementation, it would be beneficial.
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?
The initial setup is simple and straightforward. You can set up a Cosmos DB in a day, even configuring things like availability zones around the world.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB's pricing model has aligned with my budget expectations because I can tune the RU as I need to, which helps a lot. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB's dynamic auto-scale or server...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB?
I have not utilized Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB multi-model support for handling diverse data types. I'm not in the position to decide if clients will use Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB or any other datab...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Azure DocumentDB, MS Azure Cosmos DB
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

37signals, Adconion,adgooroo, Aggregate Knowledge, AMD, Apollo Group, Blackberry, Box, BT, CSC
TomTom, KPMG Australia, Bosch, ASOS, Mercedes Benz, NBA, Zero Friction, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Kinectify
Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop vs. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.