# Azure HDInsight Reviews **Vendor:** Microsoft **Category:** [Big Data Processing And Distribution Systems](https://www.g2.com/categories/big-data-processing-and-distribution) **Average Rating:** 3.9/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 17 ## About Azure HDInsight HDInsight is a fully-managed cloud Hadoop offering that provides optimized open source analytic clusters for Spark, Hive, MapReduce, HBase, Storm, Kafka, and R Server backed by a 99.9% SLA. ## Azure HDInsight Reviews ### 1. Great Data Processing Tool For all your Data needs **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 21, 2023 **What do you like best about Azure HDInsight?** The best feature of Azure HDInsight is that it leverages the Azure Datalake for HDFS Data instead of consuming disk space of the cluster. It also comes with Ambari UI to easily make config changes. **What do you dislike about Azure HDInsight?** Azure HDInsight can combine all big data services into a single option so that users can come and experiment on the same cluster. **What problems is Azure HDInsight solving and how is that benefiting you?** Azure HDInsight provides users with the infrastructure to run our big data workloads. It also has integrated HDFS with Azure DataLake, making it easier to work with the Data itself. ### 2. Still Learning **Rating:** 1.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Lisa H. | Manager of Programs, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 23, 2021 **What do you like best about Azure HDInsight?** Fairly easy to enable off older Datalake platforms **What do you dislike about Azure HDInsight?** We are still evaluating this product, so keep you posted! **What problems is Azure HDInsight solving and how is that benefiting you?** Data accessibility ### 3. Intune MDM is more stabke than others **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Zongyang L. | Sr qe engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 22, 2019 **What do you like best about Azure HDInsight?** First thing i want to say is it is stable. In my work i used mobile iron, BES, air watch and intune from azure. Intune from azure is the most stabke one i need to say. I always using it to verify our app's MDM feature vecause it will give me an accurate result. **What do you dislike about Azure HDInsight?** Hard for new users to use. AZURE includes a lot of microsoft's feature. You need to spand time on it to get used to work with it. Not new user friendly. And if you are having issues are can barely find something useful from the azure log. **What problems is Azure HDInsight solving and how is that benefiting you?** MDM management for our developing app. Using one feature call intune in azure. The benefit for me is save my time and let my work effective. ### 4. Azure **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** chintan k. | PM, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 21, 2019 **What do you like best about Azure HDInsight?** High Availability Unlike other vendors, the Microsoft Azure cloud offers high availability and redundancy in data centers on a global scale. Because of this, Azure can offer a service level agreement, or SLA, of 99.95% (approximately 4.38 hours of downtime per year), something that most businesses cannot achieve. Related Content: 3 Key Lessons from the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Outage Security Microsoft Azure has a strong focus on security, following the standard security model of Detect, Assess, Diagnose, Stabilize and Close. Paired with strong cyber security controls, this model has allowed Azure to achieve multiple compliance certifications, all of which establish Azure as a leader in IaaS security. Not only is the platform protected, the end user is also covered with Azure. This multi-level of protection is essential as security threats continue to multiply daily across the globe, targeting end users and putting your business’ data at risk. Azure provides simple, user-friendly services for increased protection, such as multi-factor authentication and application password requirements. New Call-to-actionScalability Scalability is the backbone of any good cloud provider, and Azure is no different. For example, consider the following: a firm runs SQL reports daily for 28 out of 30 days of the month, using minimal compute power. On the last two days of the month, there is an increase in report activity, requiring more compute power. Microsoft Azure makes it easy to scale compute power up or down with nothing more than the click of a button. With this scalability structure, businesses have the flexibility to pay for only what they use. Cost-Effectiveness It’s imperative to keep IT budgets in mind when choosing a cloud provider, which is why the Microsoft Azure platform is so attractive to many organizations. Azure’s pay-as-you-go pricing allows SMBs to better manage their IT budgets, purchasing only as much as they need. Additionally, the cloud environment allows businesses to launch both customer applications and internal apps in the cloud, which saves on infrastructure costs while reducing the hardware and maintenance burdens on in-house IT management. **What do you dislike about Azure HDInsight?** Requires Management As with anything, there are a couple of potential cons with Microsoft Azure. Unlike SaaS platforms where the end-user is consuming information (for example, Office 365), IaaS (Azure) moves your business’ compute power from your data center or office to the cloud. As with most cloud service providers, Azure needs to be expertly managed and maintained, which includes patching and server monitoring. Requires Platform Expertise Unlike local servers, Azure requires expertise to ensure all moving parts work together efficiently. A common mistake by business administrators that are not fully engaged in how well (or poorly) their cloud servers are operating is to over-provision cloud services. While a common mistake, on premise servers’ compute power does not translate equivocally in the cloud, potentially costing businesses thousands of dollars per year. As more and more businesses continue to move their data to the cloud, it can be difficult to track which provider is best for your business. As an IT company serving small and mid-size businesses, iCorps had to conduct its own proof of concept, migrating core business applications to Azure to ensure maximum efficiency. With a seamless migration and continued usage, iCorps hasn’t looked back, saving nearly $4,000 per month on licensing, hardware, and support. **What problems is Azure HDInsight solving and how is that benefiting you?** Cost-Effectiveness High Availability ### 5. HDInsight for Marketing " **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Construction | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 21, 2019 **What do you like best about Azure HDInsight?** Azure itself is very user friendly, HDInsight is a great addition. For our purposes, we definitely also use the powerful query to translate data into Excel. **What do you dislike about Azure HDInsight?** The only problem I have is when loading large volumes of data, sometimes I get an error message, I suppose that means something is corrupted inside. I'd love a way to sort this out without having to start over. **Recommendations to others considering Azure HDInsight:** I recommend Azure by itself is very friendly, HDInsight is a great addition. For our purposes, we definitely also use the powerful query to translate data into Excel. **What problems is Azure HDInsight solving and how is that benefiting you?** HDInsight is being used with a company for which I currently consult. Your marketing department needed help with analyzing and managing large files / data and processing all of them. It is being used only by the advertising and marketing department and addresses issues that arise when we spend large amounts of money on Google Analytics, Facebook, Instagram, etc., and we want to allocate expenses. ### 6. Azure HDInsight Review **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Consumer Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 20, 2019 **What do you like best about Azure HDInsight?** What I liked the most was the poly base and ease in aggregating raw data sets, it was easy to use and very helpful. **What do you dislike about Azure HDInsight?** What I disliked the most was the cost point because it's prohibitive to use all the time, in other words, you can't use it 24/7 **What problems is Azure HDInsight solving and how is that benefiting you?** I used it for problems related to cost management, internal and operational efficiencies, to improve business processes as well as outcomes. The benefits I've had have been to work on these on an advanced manner when it comes to developing new data. ### 7. Ease of implementation and offerings are amazing **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 22, 2019 **What do you like best about Azure HDInsight?** Easy to use and implement. Analytics is just off the charts, the data lake capabilities and the addition of the new offerings by Microsoft is game changing. It is critical for our industry and business needs. **What do you dislike about Azure HDInsight?** The single point of maintenance and the fact it is really pricey for organization of our size. The end user performance was flaky at times, however, we were able to shake it off after certain tweaks. **What problems is Azure HDInsight solving and how is that benefiting you?** Data analysis, the innovation on analytics and the enhancement on decision making with stake holders ### 8. Azure - Web App user **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Martyna N. | Senior RPA Developer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 21, 2019 **What do you like best about Azure HDInsight?** The easiest of installation and setup of new environment - not depends on server quality as in case of standard environment **What do you dislike about Azure HDInsight?** Not enough instruction how to setup environment **Recommendations to others considering Azure HDInsight:** I don't have any recommendation from my site **What problems is Azure HDInsight solving and how is that benefiting you?** Fastest of setup infrastructure on client site ### 9. Azure makes bigdata engineer life easier **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Naresh G. | Big Data Developer, Financial Services, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 19, 2018 **What do you like best about Azure HDInsight?** Azure platform is a place where almost we can find everything that are required for a typical data engineer work. And the most amazing part of azure is having HDInsight (HDP cluster) and Databricks at one place with various eco system noteobooks like Jupyter, Zeppelin etc which makes the Data Scientist job easier. Also, another amazing part with Azure is storing data in a blob storage and exploring the metadata of various sources using data catalog. **What do you dislike about Azure HDInsight?** There is nothing much to say, but still the way to interact with various components can be made easier to the end user. **Recommendations to others considering Azure HDInsight:** Teams who want to have a cost effective quick solution and for building data pipelines or ingestion platforms can go with azure with very less resources. **What problems is Azure HDInsight solving and how is that benefiting you?** Building data ingestion platform and data pipelines using spark and doing ETL as per the business requirements ### 10. Good for analytics **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 21, 2019 **What do you like best about Azure HDInsight?** It is cost-effective and a good enterprise-grade service for open source analytics. **What do you dislike about Azure HDInsight?** Loading large volumes sometimes throughs errors. **What problems is Azure HDInsight solving and how is that benefiting you?** Data prepartaion ### 11. Thinking without thought **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Accounting | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 30, 2018 **What do you like best about Azure HDInsight?** If i had to be completely honest i love how the system allows me to be lazy.. it simply does all the work. **What do you dislike about Azure HDInsight?** It takes a little while to get used to but that’s not really a negative **What problems is Azure HDInsight solving and how is that benefiting you?** The system allows for more accurate information synthesis and analysis ### 12. Fabulous software! **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Education Management | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 31, 2018 **What do you like best about Azure HDInsight?** The software is cost-effective for my organization's open source analytics **What do you dislike about Azure HDInsight?** Sometimes it lags, but it truly hasn't been a big deal **What problems is Azure HDInsight solving and how is that benefiting you?** The software seamlessly processes large amounts of data and gets all the benefits of large open sourcing because of the global scale of Azure. ### 13. Great product when we used it **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Retail | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 21, 2018 **What do you like best about Azure HDInsight?** Awesome product for open source analytics. Easy Fast **What do you dislike about Azure HDInsight?** If I had to say anything here it would be the cost for enterprise. **What problems is Azure HDInsight solving and how is that benefiting you?** Data scenarios ### 14. Effective for performing HDFS job in cloud **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Pranamesh C. | Graduate Research Assistant, Civil Engineering, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 18, 2018 **What do you like best about Azure HDInsight?** Simple to setup a cluster and use whenever is required. **What do you dislike about Azure HDInsight?** It is very costly to run MapReduce jobs in cloud. **Recommendations to others considering Azure HDInsight:** Use it if you want to implement your system in cloud. **What problems is Azure HDInsight solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are using HDInsight for our traffic analytics and incident detection. ### 15. HDInsigh **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 26, 2018 **What do you like best about Azure HDInsight?** Great collection of open-source frameworks such as Hadoop, Spark, Hive, LLAP, Kafka, Storm, R, etc. Great ETL capability! Best cloud platform for IoT. Great flexible pricing. **What do you dislike about Azure HDInsight?** Nothing in particular, but would like more built in tools for managed services. **Recommendations to others considering Azure HDInsight:** Best cloud based bigdata platform. **What problems is Azure HDInsight solving and how is that benefiting you?** IoT data analysis, data warehousing. ### 16. Easy to use but has some flaws **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 24, 2018 **What do you like best about Azure HDInsight?** Azure is a fantastic platform for monitoring performance. Everything is right at your fingertips, and is easy to access. **What do you dislike about Azure HDInsight?** It's a little training intensive. It usually took so long to teach clients how to use it that it was easier to simply control it for them. **Recommendations to others considering Azure HDInsight:** Be ready for some intensive training for your admins. Otherwise this is a great product! **What problems is Azure HDInsight solving and how is that benefiting you?** NA ### 17. Hadoop Hive on Azure! **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Calvin Loan X. | Senior Information Technology Analyst, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 21, 2016 **What do you like best about Azure HDInsight?** Azure has a tremendous selection of built-in deployment tool for virtual machines and servers in the cloud. The marketplace is divided into Compute, Networking, Storage, Web+Mobile, Databases, Intelligence/Analytics, IoE, Security, etc. For the sake of my project, Hadoop Hortonworks came standardized. Little setup and configuration is needed on the user side, other than choosing the amount of cpu/nodes you required and what the purposes of the VM will be. Customization can be done during the initial setup or after it's completed (for instance specifying an static IP address). **What do you dislike about Azure HDInsight?** There were times that terminating (shutting down) a virtual machines did not succeed properly. In which case, the VM would still run in the background and you will continuously billed for the time that your server is running. I learned this the hard way and I would wait on the browser screen until the termination of the server is complete and then shut off the browser window. **What problems is Azure HDInsight solving and how is that benefiting you?** I used an academic version of Microsoft Azure in conjunction with Hadoop Hortonworks to run an ETL Datawarehouse with an Tableau desktop application to visualize the data inputs for NYC high school graduation rates and SAT test scores. Ease of usage, relatively low maintenance cost and the ability to share the work space in a collaborative setting were excellent benefits. ## Azure HDInsight Discussions - [What is the difference between HDInsight and Azure Data Lake analytics?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-the-difference-between-hdinsight-and-azure-data-lake-analytics) - [What is difference between Azure HDInsight and Azure Databricks?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-difference-between-azure-hdinsight-and-azure-databricks) - [Which three of the following are Apache technologies that are provided in Azure HDInsight?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/which-three-of-the-following-are-apache-technologies-that-are-provided-in-azure-hdinsight) - [What is Azure HDInsight used for?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-azure-hdinsight-used-for) - [View Azure HDInsight pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/azure-hdinsight/reviews?section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-06-04+19%3A19%3A23+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=d50a794e-9ddb-4612-9b88-6d36cfef6e23&secure%5Btoken%5D=5c9e9f7d8d8af2d9039e6df1027aa9b2b7bca1b90e742924740a35211a0d0c15&format=llm_user) ## Azure HDInsight Features **Database** - Real-Time Data Collection - Data Distribution **Integrations** - Hadoop Integration - Spark Integration **Platform** - Machine Scaling - Data Preparation - Spark Integration **Processing** - Cloud Processing - Workload Processing **Building Reports** - Data Transformation - Data Modeling - WYSIWYG Report Design - Integration APIs **Platform** - Mobile User Support - Customization - User, Role, and Access Management - Internationalization - Sandbox / Test Environments - Performance and Reliability - Breadth of Partner Applications ## Top Azure HDInsight Alternatives - [Databricks](https://www.g2.com/products/databricks/reviews) - 4.6/5.0 (778 reviews) - [Cloudera Data Platform](https://www.g2.com/products/cloudera-cloudera-data-platform/reviews) - 4.1/5.0 (131 reviews) - [Amazon EMR](https://www.g2.com/products/amazon-emr/reviews) - 4.2/5.0 (62 reviews)