Cassandra vs Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop comparison

Apache and Cloudera are both solutions in the NoSQL Databases category. Apache is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.1, while Cloudera is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.4. Apache holds a 8.0% mindshare in ND, compared to Cloudera’s 3.3% 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

2,135 Views
1,430 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Cloudera Distribution for H...

Read 51 Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop reviews

1,935 Views
581 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: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cassandra vs. Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop

December 2025

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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

7th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Vector Databases (14th)

Cloudera Distribution for H...

Ranking in NoSQL Databases

9th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Hadoop (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of Cassandra is 8.0%, down from 12.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop is 3.3%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

NoSQL Databases Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Cassandra	8.0%
Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop	3.3%
Other	88.7%

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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Rok Dolinsek

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.

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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

"Cassandra offers high availability and fault tolerance, making it suitable for large-scale data storage and real-time processing."

"A consistent solution."

"The most valuable features of Cassandra are its scaling capabilities and its non-SQL nature capabilities."

"The most valuable features of this solution are its speed and distributed nature."

"Since I haven't had years of experience with it, it's still new to me. One valuable feature is its distribution, so I can run it partly in the cloud and part on-prem. That's a feature I'd like to use but haven't yet because we're trying to move to Azure. I don't know if or when that will happen. Ideally, we'd have it distributed over the cloud and on-prem simultaneously, so if something happens to our on-prem, we can keep going in the cloud, like a pay-as-you-go model with Azure."

"I am satisfied with the performance."

"The technical evaluation is very good."

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

More Cassandra pros

"Provides a viable open-source solution for enterprise implementations and reliable, intelligent data analysis."

"We experienced many issues when we started working with Hadoop 3.0 in the Cloudera 6.0 version, so there are a lot of things that need to improve. I believe they are working on that."

"The solution is stable."

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

"Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop provides numerous features and capabilities combined into one platform, offers power processing, supports different file systems and query engines, and provides parallel processing for handling many requests."

"The solution's most valuable feature is the enterprise data platform."

"The most valuable feature is that I can use CDH for almost all use cases across all industries, including the financial sector, public sector, private retailers, and so on."

"The solution is reliable and stable, it fits our requirements."

More Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop pros

Cons

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

"Fine-tuning was a bit of a challenge."

"There were challenges with the query language and the development interface. The query language, in particular, could be improved for better optimization. These challenges were encountered while using the Java SDK."

"We experience configuration issues when accommodating the volumes we require, which often necessitates consultation with the Cassandra development team."

"Batching bulk data can cause performance issues."

"The initial setup of Cassandra can be difficult in the configuration. There might be a need to have assistance. The implementation process can six months for connecting to certain databases."

"The solution doesn't have joins between tables so you need other tools for that."

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

More Cassandra cons

"There is a maximum of a one-gigabyte block size, which is an area of storage that can be improved upon."

"The solution does not support multiple languages very well and this means users need to create work-arounds to implement some solutions."

"The competitors provide better functionalities."

"The price of this solution could be lowered."

"The solution is not fit for on-premise distributions."

"Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop has a limited feature list and a lot of costs involved."

"It is quite complicated to configure and install. Integrating the platform into an information system is always a challenge, especially when starting with on-premise implementation."

"There are multiple bugs when we update."

More Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay for a license."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The tool is not expensive."

"The price is very high. 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."

"The product’s price depends from project to project."

"The solution is fairly expensive."

"Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop is expensive, with support costs involved."

"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%

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

Retailer

Financial Services Firm

23%

Computer Software Company

Healthcare Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	14

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	31

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cassandra?

The use of Cassandra in real-time data analytics has been pivotal for our e-commerce platform. As our platform operates 24/7, providing services to sellers and customers alike, the need for real-ti...

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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 do you like most about Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop?

The tool can be deployed using different container technologies, which makes it very scalable.

See all answers

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

Comparisons

MongoDB Enterprise Advanced vs Cassandra

Compared 12% of the time

ClickHouse vs Cassandra

Compared 12% of the time

Couchbase Enterprise vs Cassandra

Compared 8% of the time

InfluxDB vs Cassandra

Compared 5% of the time

PostgreSQL vs Cassandra

Compared 2% of the time

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HPE Data Fabric vs Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop

Compared 15% of the time

MongoDB Enterprise Advanced vs Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop

Compared 11% of the time

Amazon EMR vs Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop

Compared 11% of the time

Couchbase Enterprise vs Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop

Compared 9% of the time

Cloudera Data Platform vs Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop

Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cassandra

January 2026

Download Cassandra product report

Buyer's Guide

Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop

January 2026

Download Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop product report

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 is the world's most complete, tested, and popular distribution of Apache Hadoop and related projects. CDH is 100% Apache-licensed open source and is the only Hadoop solution to offer unified batch processing, interactive SQL, and interactive search, and role-based access controls. More enterprises have downloaded CDH than all other such distributions combined.

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

December 2025

Free Report: Cassandra vs. Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop

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