Apache Druid vs Apache Impala
Apache Druid
druid.apache.orgApache Impala
impala.apache.orgSide by side
| Figure | Apache Druid | Apache Impala |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Big Data Analytics Software | 9.0 (#2) | 8.1 (#11) |
| Spec score · OLAP Software | 9.0 (#3) | 8.2 (#10) |
| Spec score · Analytics Databases | 9.0 (#3) | 8.2 (#10) |
| Spec score · OLAP Databases | 9.0 (#3) | 8.2 (#9) |
| Query performance | The project says Druid can execute OLAP queries in milliseconds over datasets with billions to trillions of rows. | Impala provides low-latency and high-concurrency BI and analytic queries on the Hadoop ecosystem. |
| Security | Security features include TLS, authentication, and authorization, but they are disabled by default and the documentation says to configure them for production. | Impala integrates Kerberos authentication with Apache Ranger fine-grained authorization and provides auditing capabilities. |
Plans
In their own words
Apache Druid
Apache Druid is a free, open-source analytics database for querying streaming and batch data. It is designed to return OLAP queries in milliseconds, including on high-cardinality datasets with billions to trillions of rows. The project describes applications ranging from hundreds to 100,000 queries per second. Native Apache Kafka and Amazon Kinesis integrations support low-latency ingestion and querying as data arrives. Druid organizes ingested data into columnar, time-indexed, encoded and compressed storage. Queries can use Druid SQL or JSON-over-HTTP, and joins are available during ingestion or at query time. Its web console can load data, manage datasources and tasks, show server status and run queries. Extensions connect to storage, databases and formats including S3, HDFS, Azure, PostgreSQL, Avro, ORC and Parquet. Druid can be self-hosted on Linux, macOS and other Unix-like systems; Windows is not supported. The local quickstart needs at least 6 GiB of RAM and Java 17. Production security controls require configuration.
Apache Impala
Apache Impala is a free, open-source native analytic database for SQL queries on open data and table formats. It targets low-latency, high-concurrency business intelligence and analytics in Hadoop environments and is described as scaling linearly, including for multitenant use. Impala works with HDFS, HBase and Amazon S3, plus Apache Kudu, Apache Iceberg and other listed sources. Supported formats include delimited text, Parquet, Avro, SequenceFile and RCFile, with Snappy, GZIP, Deflate and BZIP codecs. Clients can connect through impala-shell, Hue, JDBC or ODBC. The system reuses Hadoop file formats, metadata, security and resource-management frameworks, and shares metadata and an ODBC driver with Apache Hive. Kudu tables support queries and efficient updates or deletes; Iceberg tables can be registered with the Hive Metastore. Kerberos, Apache Ranger authorization, auditing and encrypted JDBC or ODBC connections are supported. Impala runs on Linux and macOS, supports API use and self-hosted deployment, and is licensed under Apache License 2.0.