Few experts doubt the Hadoop market is an extremely promising one, but that doesn’t necessarily mean all of the major players in the space are going to make the grade.

Despite the incessant “hype” around Hadoop, none of the major vendors have yet been able to turn a profit. Those vendors – Cloudera Inc., Hortonworks Inc., and MapR Technologies Inc. – will of course argue that it’s all part of their long-term business plan, to drum up a customer base and monetize at a later date. But one investment banker has cast a doubt over Hortonwork’s ability to do so, noting the company is still bleeding cash at a fairly alarming rate even as its records impressive sales growth.

Hortonworks is notably the first major Hadoop player to go public, having launched its IPO last December at $16 a share. Since then its traded between $27 and $19.50 a share, with revenues for Q1 jumping an astonishing 167 percent from the year before to $22.8 million. That smashed analysts’ estimates of $18.2 million, and the company also improved its bottom line, with its per-share loss falling to 77 cents from $4.08 one year before. Previously, analysts had expected an 86 cents per share loss.

Most analysts had good things to say about Hortonwork’s performance at the time, but Jack Andrews, an analyst for D.A. Davidson Companies, recently questioned whether or not the company is synonymous with the rest of the Hadoop market.

In a research report published last Thursday, Andrews raised his price target for Hortonwork’s stock to 28 from 25, keeping his rating for the company at “neutral”. What he had to say about the company however, might have made investors feel a little jittery.

“We believe it is important to distinguish between Hadoop and Hortonworks,” Andrews wrote. “We are very bullish on the overall market opportunity surrounding Hadoop and believe Hortonworks is playing a significant role in driving this ecosystem forward.”

“Our lingering question is concerns whether Hortonworks will successfully be able to monetize its efforts in a meaningful way. One pervasive theme coming out of the summit is that Hadoop represents too big of a market opportunity, and too important of a platform, to be led by any single company; development of the Hadoop ecosystem really needs to be spearheaded by a community.”

So far Hortonworks has not made any comment on the report.

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