HortonWorks Data Platform is described as 'The Hortonworks Data Platform is a 100% open source distribution of Apache Hadoop that is truly enterprise grade having been built, tested and hardened with enterprise rigor' and is an app. There are more than 10 alternatives to HortonWorks Data Platform for a variety of platforms, including Web-based, Linux, SaaS, Windows and Mac apps. The best HortonWorks Data Platform alternative is Google Cloud Dataproc. It's not free, so if you're looking for a free alternative, you could try Amazon EMR or IBM InfoSphere BigInsights. Other great apps like HortonWorks Data Platform are Cloudera CDH, Sybase IQ, Platfora and Stackable.