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Apache Hadoop vs IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (9th)
IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (16th)
 

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.
FM
Database Engineer at Meezan Bank
Enhancing analytics with seamless data dumping and reliable support
Our primary use case is data storage and analytics The organization has decided to purchase a full stack solution from IBM due to positive responses, which helped them upgrade from the previous version. The data dumping into the raw zone and the feature of BigQuery is quite attractive. There…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"With the increase in data size for the business, this horizontal scalable appliance has answered every business question in terms of storage and processing."
"As compared to Hive on MapReduce, Impala on MPP returns results of SQL queries in a fairly short amount of time, and is relatively fast when reading data into other platforms like R (for further data analysis) or QlikView (for data visualisation)."
"Most valuable features are HDFS and Kafka: Ingestion of huge volumes and variety of unstructured/semi-structured data is feasible, and it helps us to quickly onboard a new Big Data analytics prospect."
"The most valuable features are the ability to process the machine data at a high speed, and to add structure to our data so that we can generate relevant analytics."
"Apache Hadoop helps us in cases of hardware failure because it works 24/7, and sometimes servers crash in the field."
"I liked that Apache Hadoop was powerful, had a lot of tools, and the fact that it was free and community-developed."
"The most valuable features are powerful tools for ingestion, as data is in multiple systems."
"With the use of Hadoop and ecosystem components and tools, and managing it in Amazon EC2, we have created a Big Data lab which helps us to centralize all our work and solutions into a single repository, cutting down time in terms of maintenance, development and, especially, data processing challenges."
"DashDB is a good product to work with and the extra cost you spend on performance, technical support and tools to work with is worth it."
"The performance is okay as long as the volume of queries is not too high."
"It is stable when there is support from IBM."
"The way that it scales will help a lot of customers that are stuck with Netezza boxes that can't grow any larger.​"
"One of the most amazing features of dashDB is how it uses compression to get results in lighting speed."
"The performance is okay as long as the volume of queries is not too high."
"Ease of migration from Netezza DB; IBM ported over all Netezza's functionality and made the warehouse DB/dashDB the best of breed of the two."
"It will be MPP, so performance should improve."
 

Cons

"It's good for what is meant to do, a lot of big data, but it's not as good for low latency applications."
"It requires a great deal of learning curve to understand. The overall Hadoop ecosystem has a large number of sub-products. There is ZooKeeper, and there are a whole lot of other things that are connected. In many cases, their functionalities are overlapping, and for a newcomer or our clients, it is very difficult to decide which of them to buy and which of them they don't really need. They require a consulting organization for it, which is good for organizations such as ours because that's what we do, but it is not easy for the end customers to gain so much knowledge and optimally use it."
"I rate it an eight out of 10. It's huge, complex, slow."
"It would be good to have more advanced analytics tools."
"In the next release, I would like to see Hive more responsive for smaller queries and to reduce the latency."
"I mentioned it definitely, and this is probably the only feature we can improve a little bit because the terminal and coding screen on Hadoop is a little outdated, and it looks like the old C++ bio screen. If the UI and UX can be improved slightly, I believe it will go a long way toward increasing adoption and effectiveness."
"There is a lack of virtualization and presentation layers, so you can't take it and implement it like a radio solution."
"We would like to have more dynamics in merging this machine data with other internal data to make more meaning out of it."
"I would like to see improvements in backup and authentication. It needs the ability to increase the number of retained backups to more than 2 days."
"Db2 is not a solution that I recommend. We have a lot of experience and we are not satisfied with the product or the support that we received."
"With dashDB, scalability and uptime need more improvement."
"I would rate the level of dashDB support 3.5/5. While they are very knowledgeable in many areas, you can still struggle to get the correct resolution."
"The support channels need to improve."
"Tech support for dashDB is awful. We usually have tickets open for three to four weeks."
"There are some limitations in adding data files to table spaces, and improvements are needed for regional support."
"Right now, we are implementing on ESX VMware 6.0. Support for this platform is poor. Also, one of the backup/recovery options is broken and IBM is not addressing the issue."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price could be better. Hortonworks no longer exists, and Cloudera killed the free version of Hadoop."
"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​."
"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."
"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."
"It's reasonable, but there's room for improvement in cost-effectiveness."
"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 your going to go with warehouse DB/dashDB, use the cloud or Sailfish version."
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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
15%
Construction Company
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Comms Service Provider
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 Business4
Large Enterprise3
 

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 advice do you have for others considering IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud?
Organizations of all sizes, especially those who are in need of powerful and elastic cloud data warehouse solutions that can help administrators maximize the efficiency of their data-based operatio...
What needs improvement with IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud?
There are some limitations in adding data files to table spaces, and improvements are needed for regional support.
What is your primary use case for IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud?
Our primary use case is data storage and analytics.
 

Also Known As

No data available
IBM dashDB
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon, Adobe, eBay, Facebook, Google, Hulu, IBM, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Spotify, AOL, Twitter, University of Maryland, Yahoo!, Cornell University Web Lab
Copenhagen Business School, BPM Northwest, GameStop
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Hadoop vs. IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud and other solutions. Updated: May 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.