Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop vs IBM InfoSphere BigInsights [EOL] comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Cloudera and IBM are both solutions in the Hadoop category. Additionally, 92% of Cloudera users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 83% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Cloudera Distribution for H...

Read 51 Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop reviews

6,988 Views
3,634 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

IBM InfoSphere BigInsights ...

Read 7 IBM InfoSphere BigInsights [EOL] reviews

83% willing to recommend

Cloudera Distribution for H...

IBM InfoSphere BigInsights ...

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop and IBM InfoSphere BigInsights [EOL] based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Apache, Cloudera, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in Hadoop.

To learn more, read our detailed Hadoop Report (Updated: October 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Hadoop

October 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

Cloudera Distribution for H...

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Hadoop (2nd), NoSQL Databases (11th)

IBM InfoSphere BigInsights ...

Average Rating

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Featured Reviews

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.

Read full review

it_user743022

BigData Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Served our customers better by giving real-time suggestions and proactive maintenance, however the UI was not interactive

* The UI was not interactive: Responses used to be very slow and hang up at times. * The UI was not really helping to track the real-time jobs and its logs. * You can bring in a better UI for job management and health checks. * Developer API documentation needs improvement.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We're now able to store large volumes of data through Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop. We're able to push large volumes of data to the platform, and that used to be a challenge, especially when storing a terabyte of information. This is the area where Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop improved the organization."

"The search function is the most valuable aspect of the solution."

"With a single script, we are able to run the jobs within minutes, which is an advantage."

"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."

"It gives us the opportunity to offer more options to our clients and create better solution models."

"In terms of scalability, if you have enough hardware you can scale out. Scalability doesn't have any issues."

"The solution has good features connected to end-to-end security."

"After Hadoop implementation they are getting confidence that now analysis is more appropriate and fast."

More Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop pros

"This is a very helpful product, with continuous improvements by IBM and a great customer service which enables easy access to valuable information for both Hadoop developers and system administrators."

"Definitely a product worth evaluating, esp if you are an IBM shop and if done on Bluemix, it gives a jump start on protoypes/POCs."

"InfoSphere Streams was the one core product from the platform in which we were using. We were building a real-time response system and we built it on InfoSphere Streams."

"The thing that I have found most valuable in this solution is the BIQSQL implementation which is fully SQL ANSI compliant."

"It integrates with JSqsh, enabling us to submit long-running exports from the shell."

"Watson is the perfect engine for text analysis for us, but in 2014 it doesn’t support the Russian language."

"It gives us the option of extending our analytics system."

"This helped us to serve our customers better by giving real-time suggestions and proactive maintenance."

Cons

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

"Cloudera's support is extremely bad and cannot be relied on."

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

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

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

"We found some difficulties when importing Hive tables from another cluster."

"The one thing that we struggled with predominately was support. Because it was relatively new, support was always a big issue and I think it's still a bit of an ongoing concern with the team currently managing it."

"It has compatibility issues if installed in specialized hardware such as EMC Isilon or if node manager and data nodes are not co-located."

More Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop cons

"Unfortunately the stability of the platform was an issue."

"I have found a lot of issues in Fluid Query and BigInsights Applications to move data in the enterprise version."

"I encountered issues with having the appropriate documentation resources, as well as getting the right stability when explored virtualized environments based on Virtualbox and HyperV software."

"The UI was not interactive: Responses used to be very slow and hang up at times."

"For our business customer pricing is very important motivation, so I can advise change licensing policy from “by volume in the cluster” to “number of machines in the cluster”."

"Initial setup is rather complex in comparison with Cloudera."

"I'd like to see faster execution time, especially for simple queries that don't touch on many rows and don't involve many operations (Joins, Unions, Groupbys)."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price could be better for the product."

"Cloudera requires a license to use."

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

"It is an expensive product."

"The tool is not expensive."

"The pricing must be improved."

"The price is very high. The solution is expensive."

"The solution is expensive."

More Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Outsourcing Company

11%

Construction Company

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Large Enterprise	4

Questions from the Community

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

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop

October 2026

Download Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop product report

Buyer's Guide

Hadoop

October 2026

Download IBM InfoSphere BigInsights [EOL] product report

Also Known As

No data available

InfoSphere BigInsights

Overview

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

IBM BigInsights delivers a rich set of advanced analytics capabilities that allows enterprises to analyze massive volumes of structured and unstructured data in its native format. The software combines open source Apache Hadoop with IBM innovations including sophisticated text analytics, IBM BigSheets for data exploration, IBM Big SQL for SQL access to data in Hadoop, and a range of performance, security and administrative features. The result is a cost-effective and user-friendly solution for complex, big data analytics.

IBM

Sample Customers

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

Coherent Path Inc., Optibus, Delhaize America, Diyotta Inc., Ernst & Young, Teikoku Databank Ltd., NCSU, Vestas

Find out what your peers are saying about Apache, Cloudera, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in Hadoop. Updated: October 2026.

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