Skip to content
SPECIFICTION
Get listed

Apache Hive vs Databricks SQL Warehouse

Apache Hive

hive.apache.org

Databricks SQL Warehouse

databricks.com

Side by side

FigureApache HiveDatabricks SQL Warehouse
Price fromFree—
Free planYes—
Free trial——
Open sourceYes—
Web—Yes
WindowsYes—
macOSYes—
LinuxYes—
APIYes—
Self-hostedYes—
Plans published12
Spec score · Query Engine Software9.0 (#1)6.2 (#22)
Spec score · Analytics Databases9.0 (#4)6.3 (#25)
Spec score · Data Warehouse Software9.0 (#4)6.2 (#21)
Spec score · OLAP Databases8.9 (#5)6.2 (#24)

Plans

Apache Hive

  • Apache HiveFree

Apache Hive pricing →

Databricks SQL Warehouse

  • Pay as you goPriced on request
  • Committed Use ContractsPriced on request

Databricks SQL Warehouse pricing →

In their own words

Apache Hive

Apache Hive is a distributed data warehouse system for reading, writing, and managing large datasets with SQL. Its Metastore keeps shared metadata for tables and partitions and serves clients including Hive, Impala, and Spark; HiveServer2 supports concurrent clients through JDBC and ODBC. Hive provides full ACID transactions for ORC tables and insert-only transactions for other formats. Documented storage options include S3, Azure Data Lake, and Google Cloud Storage, and Hive supports Apache Iceberg tables through a StorageHandler. Named integrations include Spark, Presto, and Impala, with Apache Ranger for authorization and Apache Atlas for lineage and governance. Security options described by the project include Kerberos, fine-grained access control, and audit logging; HiveServer2 also lists LDAP, PAM, and custom authentication. The quickstart includes Docker instructions for the server and Metastore. Hive is free open-source software. The installation manual lists Java 8, Maven 3.6.3, Protobuf 2.5, Hadoop 3.3.6, and Tez among current prerequisites; Hive 4.2.x instead requires JDK 21 minimum and works with Hadoop 3.4.1 and Tez 0.10.5.

Visit hive.apache.org

Databricks SQL Warehouse

Databricks SQL Warehouse has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.

Visit databricks.com