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Apache Hadoop vs IBM Db2 Warehouse comparison

 

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
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Db2 Warehouse
Ranking in Data Warehouse
13th
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 May 2026, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Apache Hadoop is 3.3%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Db2 Warehouse is 3.2%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Warehouse Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Apache Hadoop3.3%
IBM Db2 Warehouse3.2%
Other93.5%
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- IBM Enterprise Systems 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

"What comes with the standard setup is what we mostly use, but Ambari is the most important."
"I liked that Apache Hadoop was powerful, had a lot of tools, and the fact that it was free and community-developed."
"What I like about Apache Hadoop is that it's for big data, in particular big data analysis, and it's the easier solution."
"The ability to add multiple nodes without any restriction is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"Hadoop can store any kind of data—structured, unstructured, and semi-structured—and presents it using the relational model through Hive."
"Since both Apache Hadoop and Amazon EC2 are elastic in nature, we can scale and expand on demand for a specific PoC, and scale down when it's done."
"This intermediate step not only mashes data in the form that we want through data Cube slicing, but also helps us save states as snapshots for multiple time frames."
"Hadoop is designed to be scalable, so I don't think that it has limitations in regards to scalability."
"IBM Db2 Warehouse is more resilient when dealing with business intelligence applications."
"It can be mounted on the cloud, which is a huge plus. If the client, for example, starts small with on-premise deployment and then it rapidly needs to grow, we can transfer this to the cloud easily."
"Some of the best features are stored procedures, parallelism, and different indexing strategies."
"I think it scales really well and as long as you take enough time to learn a little bit about it, it works really well."
"It's easy and practical to use."
"Provides good security and reliability."
"The solution is stable."
"Some of the best features are stored procedures, parallelism, and different indexing strategies."
 

Cons

"General installation/dependency issues were there, but were not a major, complex issue. While migrating data from MySQL to Hive, things are a little challenging, but we were able to get through that with support from forums and a little trial and error."
"The price could be better. I think we would use it more, but the company didn't want to pay for it. Hortonworks doesn't exist anymore, and Cloudera killed the free version of Hadoop."
"It needs better user interface (UI) functionalities."
"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."
"It would be good to have more advanced analytics tools."
"I would like to see more direct integration of visualization applications."
"The solution is not easy to use. The solution should be easy to use and suitable for almost any case connected with the use of big data or working with large amounts of data."
"Lacks sufficient documentation and particularly in Spanish."
"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."
"On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the technical support as a five. It is fairly bad."
"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."
"There should be more material available for training and training should be free."
"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 areas of the solution that is needing the most improvement are separating compute from storage, elasticity, which means scaling up and then retracting."
"Responding to support tickets takes a lot of time. It can range from two to four days, even for critical issues."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"For any big enterprise the costs can be handled, and it is suitable for big enterprises because the scale of data is large. For medium and small enterprises, the tool is on the high-price side."
"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."
"The product is open-source, but some associated licensing fees depend on the subscription level."
"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."
"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."
"​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
28%
University
6%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
27%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Apache Hadoop?
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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apache Hadoop?
The product is open-source, but some associated licensing fees depend on the subscription level. While it might be free for students, organizations typically need to pay for their subscriptions. Th...
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 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: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.