HBase is optimized for transactional workloads involving small, random read/write operations, while Hive is optimized for analytics workloads involving large-scale read-only computations. HBase uses a sparse, multi-dimensional sorted map data model where each cell is stored with a row, column family, column, and timestamp. Hive uses a traditional relational table model where data is stored in rows and columns but can use various physical storage formats like text files or HBase. While HBase allows very fast lookups and updates, Hive can perform analytics queries over large datasets more efficiently through MapReduce jobs.