Apache Hive vs PrestoDB
Apache Hive
hive.apache.orgPrestoDB
prestodb.ioSide by side
| Figure | Apache Hive | PrestoDB |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 2 |
| Spec score · Query Engine Software | 9.0 (#1) | 8.4 (#6) |
| Spec score · Analytics Databases | 9.0 (#4) | 8.5 (#7) |
| Spec score · Big Data Analytics Software | 8.9 (#4) | 8.4 (#10) |
| Spec score · OLAP Databases | 8.9 (#5) | 8.4 (#7) |
| Deployment | The official quickstart provides Docker instructions for running HiveServer2 and the Metastore in a container. | The project provides a server tarball, command line interface, JDBC driver, and Docker container for getting started. |
| Documentation depth | The documentation site provides tutorials, administration guides, configuration references and versioned Javadocs. | The documentation covers installation, clients, security, administration, caching, optimization, connectors, SQL, REST, troubleshooting, releases and developer APIs. |
| Purpose | Apache Hive is a distributed, fault-tolerant data warehouse system for reading, writing, and managing large datasets with SQL. | Presto is a distributed SQL query engine designed to query large data sets across heterogeneous data sources. |
| Rating on TrustRadius | 8 out of 10 from 35 reviews. | 10 out of 10 from 19 reviews |
| Security | The site describes Kerberos authentication, fine-grained access control, and audit logging; HiveServer2 documentation also lists LDAP, PAM, and custom authentication options. | Presto documents Kerberos, LDAP, password-file and OAuth 2.0 authentication, along with access control and secure internal communication. |
| Self-hosting | Users can install Hive from a binary tarball or clone the Git repository and build a distribution with Maven. | Presto can be installed from a server tarball and deployed manually, with Docker, Homebrew or Helm. |
| What it does | Apache Hive is distributed data-warehouse software for reading, writing and managing very large datasets in distributed storage through SQL. | Presto is a distributed SQL query engine for interactive analytics over very large datasets and multiple data sources. |
Plans
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.
PrestoDB
PrestoDB is a free, open-source distributed SQL query engine for querying large data sets across different kinds of data systems. Connectors access sources through a standard API, with documented options including Hive, Iceberg, Kafka, Cassandra, MongoDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, BigQuery, Redshift, and SQL Server. Queries run across a coordinator and worker nodes. The project provides a server tarball, command line interface, JDBC driver, and Docker container, with deployment guidance for Docker, Helm, and Homebrew. Presto documents Kerberos, LDAP, password-file, and OAuth 2.0 authentication, plus access control and secure internal communication; SSL/TLS can protect communication between cluster nodes. It is self-hosted and governed as an independent open-source project under the Linux Foundation. The documentation cautions that SQL familiarity does not mean Presto includes the features of a standard database. The project directs users to its Slack community to connect with engineers and other users. The listed current release is version 0.299, dated August 31, 2026.