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Amazon EMR pros and cons

3.9 out of 5

Pros & Cons summary

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Amazon EMR stands out with its ability to resize clusters and offers flexibility and scalability for managing big data.
The managed services provide stability and scalability, offering valuable features including support for Apache Hudi and out-of-the-box functionality for leveraging big data tools like Spark and Hadoop.
Setup is straightforward, allowing for easy transitions of big jobs from on-prem to EMR with Spark, demonstrating good fault tolerance and streamlined project management.
Amazon EMR excels in processing speed and data storage capacity, offering a variety of options and strong security features derived from its managed services model.
Multiple connectors in Amazon EMR enable seamless integration with various data sources, and it facilitates faster insights by efficiently cleaning and transforming data.

CONS

Legacy versions are not supported in new versions, and new releases often break old versions.
Dashboard management and control over user scaling and costs are lacking.
Configuring and ensuring correct cluster operation is complicated.
Spark jobs run slower on Amazon EMR compared to previous experiences.
Initial setup is time-consuming, with pricing strategy and module notification improvements needed.
 

Amazon EMR Pros review quotes

it_user1158 - PeerSpot reviewer
Developer at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Jul 13, 2012
A highly scalable platform to run vast amounts of data processing with very high efficiency.
it_user1227 - PeerSpot reviewer
Tech Support Staff at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Jul 23, 2012
Overall a good cloud infrastructure and takes the burden of managing the distributed hardware and can easily scale up and scale down as per the requirement of the task at hand.
it_user334827 - PeerSpot reviewer
Big Data Specialist at a media company with 501-1,000 employees
Oct 31, 2015
Less expensive than in-house hosting, much more scalable when needed to process larger volumes of data.
Learn what your peers think about Amazon EMR. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user347568 - PeerSpot reviewer
Big Data Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Nov 29, 2015
It's helped to automate processes.
it_user744720 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Science Engineer
Sep 27, 2017
The ability to resize the cluster is what really makes it stand out over other Hadoop and big data solutions.
FN
Responsable sofware factory at BOX AFRICA
Mar 6, 2021
The initial setup is pretty straightforward.
reviewer1612005 - PeerSpot reviewer
Deputy CTO at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Jun 25, 2021
This is the best tool for hosts and it's really flexible and scalable.
reviewer1724670 - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineering Manager/Solution architect at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Dec 2, 2021
One of the valuable features about this solution is that it's managed services, so it's pretty stable, and scalable as much as you wish. It has all the necessary distributions. With some additional work, it's also possible to change to a Spark version with the latest version of EMR. It also has Hudi, so we are leveraging Apache Hudi on EMR for change data capture, so then it comes out-of-the-box in EMR.
Prashant  Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President -Product Management at Paytm
May 18, 2022
The solution is pretty simple to set up.
Ilya Afanasyev - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Development Engineer at Yahoo!
Aug 3, 2022
When we grade big jobs from on-prem to the cloud, we do it in EMR with Spark.
 

Amazon EMR Cons review quotes

it_user1158 - PeerSpot reviewer
Developer at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Jul 13, 2012
One of the lacking features is good web support.
it_user1227 - PeerSpot reviewer
Tech Support Staff at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Jul 23, 2012
The web interface for managing all your cloud services is a bit patchy and needs improvement.
it_user334827 - PeerSpot reviewer
Big Data Specialist at a media company with 501-1,000 employees
Oct 31, 2015
Better monitoring, debugging, and stability are all needed.
Learn what your peers think about Amazon EMR. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user347568 - PeerSpot reviewer
Big Data Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Nov 29, 2015
It was complex to configure.
it_user744720 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Science Engineer
Sep 27, 2017
There were times where they would release new versions and it seemed to end up breaking old versions, which is very strange.
FN
Responsable sofware factory at BOX AFRICA
Mar 6, 2021
The dashboard management could be better. Right now, it's lacking a bit.
reviewer1612005 - PeerSpot reviewer
Deputy CTO at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Jun 25, 2021
The most complicated thing is configuring to the cluster and ensure it's running correctly.
reviewer1724670 - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineering Manager/Solution architect at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Dec 2, 2021
Amazon EMR is continuously improving, but maybe something like CI/CD out-of-the-box or integration with Prometheus Grafana.
Prashant  Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President -Product Management at Paytm
May 18, 2022
We don't have much control. If we have multiple users, if they want to scale up, the cost will go and increase and we don't know how we can restrict that price part.
Ilya Afanasyev - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Development Engineer at Yahoo!
Aug 3, 2022
The problem for us is it starts very slow.