Hadoop Distros: Services + Software = Revenue

In 2013 Cloudera had 73m in revenue, 47% of that was services. While, Hortonworks had 55m in revenue but only 27% of that was services.

Breaking down the numbers .. Hortonworks had 40m in revenue from software licensing while Cloudera had 39m.

What this shows me, is that Cloudera and Hortonworks, while technically competitors, are executing their models in very different ways. Cloudera focusing more on services, Hortonworks focusing more on licensing. Which focus will be more sustainable as Hadoop Distributions become more mature and easier to consume?

Also, interesting data to note .. MapR is following the same model as Hortonworks .. 77% of their 35m in revenue was software licensing.

Year over year growth of total revenue - 2012 to 2013
- Cloudera (55m > 73m) - 33%
- Hortonworks (18m > 55m) - 205%
- MapR (23m > 35m) - 52%

While all of these companies did well, these numbers definitely show that Hortonworks was the leader in the momentum department.

TL;DR
It’s interesting to see how differently the Hadoop Distro’s are structuring their companies. Cloudera, by the numbers, is focusing more on services, while Hortonworks and MapR focus more on software licensing. Also, while Cloudera and MapR have a 2 year head start .. Hortonworks seems to be the one with the most momentum coming out of 2013 with 205% YOY total revenue growth.

- Big Data Joe

Revenue numbers taken from:
- Big Data Vendor Revenue and Market Forecast 2012-2017
- Big Data Vendor Revenue and Market Forecast 2013-2017