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Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop vs MarkLogic comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 7, 2025

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...
Ranking in NoSQL Databases
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
Hadoop (2nd)
MarkLogic
Ranking in NoSQL Databases
13th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the NoSQL Databases category, the mindshare of Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop is 3.6%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MarkLogic is 2.3%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NoSQL Databases Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop3.6%
MarkLogic2.3%
Other94.1%
NoSQL Databases
 

Featured Reviews

SA
Head of Advaced Analytics & Intelligence; AGM at Alinma Bank
Integration of multiple features supports data analytics and processing
Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop provides numerous features and capabilities combined into one platform.The solution offers power processing and supports different file systems and query engines. It provides parallel processing for handling many requests. The platform includes role-based access control in Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop. It secures the data itself and provides users with different roles and privileges.
VS
senior software developer at NIT
Unified search and storage have simplified handling of semi-structured data and complex queries
Regarding improvement, I have identified a few areas. MarkLogic is quite powerful, but some areas need enhancement. One thing I noticed was the learning curve. Compared to commonly used databases such as MySQL or even MongoDB, MarkLogic requires understanding concepts such as XQuery, server-side JavaScript, and its internal architecture, which can take time for new developers. Another area is community and ecosystem support; it is not as widely adopted as other databases, so finding resources can be challenging. Third-party integration can be relatively harder. Additionally, from what I have observed, cost and licensing can be a consideration, especially for smaller teams or startups compared to open-source alternatives. Finally, while it is very strong for search and document-based use cases, it might feel excessive for simpler CRUD-based operations, where a traditional relational or lightweight NoSQL database would work better. Documentation is an area that could improve. Learning resources and documentation could be enhanced, as the official documentation is detailed but can sometimes feel dense for beginners, especially when getting started with concepts such as indexing or writing queries in XQuery. Additionally, debugging and troubleshooting can be slightly challenging compared to more mainstream databases, mainly because the ecosystem is smaller and there are fewer community discussions and examples available. The developer experience could also be improved; setting up, experimenting, and integrating MarkLogic in an existing setup felt less straightforward compared to commonly used databases. I think improving onboarding, simplifying documentation, and expanding community support could make it even more developer-friendly in the future.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product provides better data processing features than other tools."
"Cloudera is a great product and, overall, there are many features."
"Improved Business Intelligence reporting from daily to every two hours satisfying the business stakeholders who would favour transactional systems to draft reports because it had the latest data."
"It made Hadoop easy to use and made it easy to get started."
"CDH has a wide variety of proprietary tools that we use, like Impala, and from that perspective, it's quite useful as opposed to something open-source, as we get a lot of value from Cloudera's proprietary tools."
"The most valuable feature is Kubernetes."
"The features I find most valuable is that the solution is that it is easy to install and to work with."
"Very solid. Excellent user experience. good documentation."
"MarkLogic is perfectly suited for data lakes where we dump our data, transform our data, and store it back."
"For example, earlier search operations were slow and less flexible, but after using MarkLogic, we delivered near real-time results, improving both system efficiency and user satisfaction."
"MarkLogic has positively impacted my organization by making everything quick and fast, and I believe that is a major change we have seen here."
"MarkLogic's greatest asset is its strong engineering foundation. It was specifically designed with search capabilities in mind, and the developers placed a great emphasis on ensuring the quality of the indexing and all subsequent layers that were added."
"Overall, it reduced data transformation efforts, simplified architecture, and made it easier to build richer and more connected database models."
"The rules can show us if there are missing items, like titles, and we can add them in to ensure everything is filled and makes sense and there are no missing details."
"MarkLogic has positively impacted my organization by making our job easier because we can store a large amount of data, and the built-in search feature is great, including semantic data management."
"We moved to MarkLogic and created the API using JavaScript server-side language, and we saw almost 60% improvement in the speed of the search."
 

Cons

"Cloudera CDH5.5.x does not support SparkR."
"The security of this solution could be improved."
"I would like to see an improvement in how the solution helps me to handle the whole cluster."
"It needs more standardized documentation on Hive."
"Cloudera is not as easy, as it requires more DevOps resources than other solutions."
"Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop is not always completely stable in some cases, which can be a concern for big data solutions."
"The tool's ability to be deployed on a cloud model is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"There are multiple bugs when we update."
"The spreadsheet capabilities could be improved."
"Regarding improvement, I have identified a few areas. MarkLogic is quite powerful, but some areas need enhancement."
"One of the most common requests is to improve the user interface of the database. While it is primarily a database, there are other databases available that offer more user-friendly interfaces. The UI is good for developers but not for regular users. More visuals would be beneficial."
"While MarkLogic itself is powerful, it can be improved in terms of ease of usage, cost, and the learning curve."
"I chose nine because the technology or the code that I am writing right now is in XQuery and JavaScript, so it would be better if MarkLogic allowed Python code to be executed on MarkLogic server."
"MarkLogic's scalability is very bad. In production, when you get to know that your data is increasing and you need to add one more node, that is not easy and not straightforward."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product’s price depends from project to project."
"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."
"It is an expensive product."
"The tool is not expensive."
"When comparing with Oracle Sybase and SQL, it's cheaper. It's not expensive."
"I haven't bought a license for this solution. I'm only using the Apache license version."
"The pricing must be improved."
"The solution is fairly expensive."
"MarkLogic is a pricey option, but there are some advantages to its pricing structure. For medium-sized clients or departments within larger companies, it is possible to obtain a license for one or two nodes for less than a hundred thousand dollars. Additionally, if you only need to deploy a single node, you can do so for under fifty thousand dollars. This is in contrast to other high-quality software options that are only accessible to larger businesses, where the starting price can be upwards of two hundred thousand dollars."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Marketing Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
21%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

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 Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MarkLogic?
Regarding my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing, I find it quite high compared to other things, but I believe it is justified.
What needs improvement with MarkLogic?
As for areas where MarkLogic can be improved, nothing else comes to mind. I have been using MarkLogic for seven years, and many improvements have already been addressed. I do not recall any additio...
What is your primary use case for MarkLogic?
My main use case for MarkLogic is data development. We have a banking type of data, so we used to convert it to PDF or use some for applications we were running. A quick, specific example of how I ...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

37signals, Adconion,adgooroo, Aggregate Knowledge, AMD, Apollo Group, Blackberry, Box, BT, CSC
ALM, American Psychological Association, American Society of Agronomy, Cond_ Nast, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Institute of Engineering and Technology, JWG Group, Lagardre Active, RSuite CMS, Wiley
Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop vs. MarkLogic and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.