We use the product for extensive data analysis. It helps us analyze a huge amount of data and transfer it to data scientists in our organization.
Vice President at Goldman Sachs at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Stable product with a valuable SQL tool
Pros and Cons
- "The product’s most valuable feature is the SQL tool. It enables us to create a database and publish it."
- "At the initial stage, the product provides no container logs to check the activity."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The product’s most valuable feature is the SQL tool. It enables us to create a database and publish it. It is a useful feature for us.
What needs improvement?
At the initial stage, the product provides no container logs to check the activity. It remains inactive for a long time without giving us any information. The containers could start quickly, similar to that of Jupyter Notebook.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Apache Spark for eight months to one year.
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Apache Spark
February 2026
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a stable product. I rate its stability an eight out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have 45 Apache Spark users. I rate its scalability a nine out of ten.
How was the initial setup?
The complexity of the initial setup depends on the kind of environment an organization is working with. It requires one executive for deployment. I rate the process an eight out of ten.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The product is expensive, considering the setup. However, from a standalone perspective, it is inexpensive.
What other advice do I have?
I advise others to analyze data and understand your business requirements before purchasing the product. I rate it an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Lead Data Scientist at a university with 51-200 employees
A flexible solution that can be used for storage and processing
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature of Apache Spark is its flexibility."
- "Apache Spark's GUI and scalability could be improved."
What is our primary use case?
We use Apache Spark for storage and processing.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of Apache Spark is its flexibility.
What needs improvement?
Apache Spark's GUI and scalability could be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Apache Spark for four to five years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Around 15 data scientists are using Apache Spark in our organization.
How was the initial setup?
Apache Spark's initial setup is slightly complex compared to other other solutions. Data scientists could install our previous tools with minimal supervision, whereas Apache Spark requires some IT support. Apache Spark's installation is a time-consuming process because it requires ensuring that all the ports have been accessed properly following certain guidelines.
What about the implementation team?
While installing Apache Spark, I must look at the documentation and be very specific about the configuration settings. Only then I'll be able to install it.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Apache Spark is an expensive solution.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend Apache Spark to other users.
Overall, I rate Apache Spark an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Buyer's Guide
Apache Spark
February 2026
Learn what your peers think about Apache Spark. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Data Engineer at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees
A useful and easy-to-deploy product that has an excellent data processing framework
Pros and Cons
- "The data processing framework is good."
- "The solution must improve its performance."
What is our primary use case?
Our customers configure their software applications, and I use Apache to check them. We use it for data processing.
What is most valuable?
The data processing framework is good. The product is very useful.
What needs improvement?
The solution must improve its performance.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for four to five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The tool is stable. I rate the stability more than nine out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have a small business. Around four people in my organization use the solution.
How was the initial setup?
The deployment was easy.
What about the implementation team?
The solution was deployed with the help of third-party consultants.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, I rate the product more than eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Quantitative Developer at a marketing services firm with 11-50 employees
Seamless in distributing tasks, including its impressive map-reduce functionality
Pros and Cons
- "The distribution of tasks, like the seamless map-reduce functionality, is quite impressive."
- "When using Spark, users may need to write their own parallelization logic, which requires additional effort and expertise."
What is our primary use case?
Predominantly, I use Spark for data analysis on top of datasets containing tens of millions of records.
How has it helped my organization?
I have an example. We had a single-threaded application that used to run for about four to five hours, but with Spark, it got reduced to under one hour.
What is most valuable?
The distribution of tasks, like the seamless map-reduce functionality, is quite impressive. For the user, it appears as simple single-line data manipulations, but behind the scenes, the executor pool intelligently distributes the map and reduce functions.
What needs improvement?
The visualization could be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Apache Spark for only a few months, not too long.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I haven't faced any stability issues. It has been stable in my experience.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
When it comes to the scalability of Spark, it's primarily a processing engine, not a database engine. I haven't tested it extensively with large record sizes.
In my organization, quite a few people are using Spark. In my smaller team, there are only two users.
What about the implementation team?
In terms of maintenance, when the load hits around 95%, we need to prioritize scripts and analysis within the team.
We coordinate and prioritize based on the available resources. If there were self-service tools or better hand-holding for such situations, it would make things easier.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Currently, we extensively use pandas and Polaris. We are leveraging Docker and Kubernetes as a framework, along with AWS Batch for distribution. This is the closest substitute we have for Spark Distribution.
Both Docker and Kubernetes are more general-purpose solutions. If someone is already using Kubernetes and it's provided as a service, it can be used for special-purpose utilization, similar to Docker and Kubernetes.
In such cases, users may need to write the parallelization logic themselves, but it's relatively easy to onboard and start with a distributed load. Spark, on the other hand, is primarily used for special-purpose utilization. Users typically choose Spark when they have data-intensive tasks.
Another significant issue with Spark is its syntactics. For instance, if we have libraries like Panda or Polaris, we can run them single-threaded on a single core, or we can distribute them leveraging Kubernetes.
We don't need to rewrite that code base for Spark. However, if we are writing code specifically for Spark Executors, it will not be amenable to running it locally.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend understanding the use case better. Only if it fits your use case, then go for it. But it is a great tool.
Overall, I would rate Apache Spark an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Associate Director at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
High performance, beneficial in-memory support, and useful online community support
Pros and Cons
- "One of Apache Spark's most valuable features is that it supports in-memory processing, the execution of jobs compared to traditional tools is very fast."
- "Apache Spark could improve the connectors that it supports. There are a lot of open-source databases in the market. For example, cloud databases, such as Redshift, Snowflake, and Synapse. Apache Spark should have connectors present to connect to these databases. There are a lot of workarounds required to connect to those databases, but it should have inbuilt connectors."
What is our primary use case?
Apache Spark is a programming language similar to Java or Python. In my most recent deployment, we used Apache Spark to build engineering pipelines to move data from sources into the data lake.
What is most valuable?
One of Apache Spark's most valuable features is that it supports in-memory processing, the execution of jobs compared to traditional tools is very fast.
What needs improvement?
Apache Spark could improve the connectors that it supports. There are a lot of open-source databases in the market. For example, cloud databases, such as Redshift, Snowflake, and Synapse. Apache Spark should have connectors present to connect to these databases. There are a lot of workarounds required to connect to those databases, but it should have inbuilt connectors.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Apache Spark for approximately five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Apache Spark is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I have found Apache Spark to be scalable.
How are customer service and support?
Apache Spark is open-source, there is no team that will give you dedicated support, but you can post your queries on the community forums, and usually, you will receive a good response. Since it's open-source, you depend on freelance developers to respond to you, you cannot put a time limit there, but the response, on average, is pretty good.
How was the initial setup?
If Apache Spark is in the cloud, setting it up will require only minutes. If it's on Amazon, GCP, or Microsoft cloud, it'll take minutes to set everything up. However, if you are using the on-premise version, then it might take some time to set up the environment.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Apache Spark an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Senior Test Automation Specialist at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Useful for big data and scientific purposes, but needs better query handling, stability, and scalability
Pros and Cons
- "It is useful for handling large amounts of data. It is very useful for scientific purposes."
- "We are building our own queries on Spark, and it can be improved in terms of query handling."
What is our primary use case?
We are using it for big data. We are using a small part of it, which is related to using data.
What is most valuable?
It is useful for handling large amounts of data. It is very useful for scientific purposes.
What needs improvement?
There are some difficulties that we are working on. It is useful for scientific purposes, but for commercial use of big data, it gives some trouble.
They should improve the stability of the product. We use Spark Executors and Spark Drivers to link to our own environment, and they are not the most stable products. Its scalability is also an issue.
We are building our own queries on Spark, and it can be improved in terms of query handling.
For how long have I used the solution?
In my company, it has been used for several years, but I have been using it for seven months.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is not scalable. Scalability is one of the issues.
How are customer service and support?
It is open source from my point of view. So, there is no support.
What other advice do I have?
I would advise not using it if you don't have experienced users inside your organization. If you have to figure it all out on your own, then you shouldn't start with it.
Overall, I would rate it a six out of 10. For a commercial use case, it is a six out of 10. For scientific purposes, it is an eight out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Co-Founder at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Handles large volume data, cloud and on-premise deployments, but difficult to use
Pros and Cons
- "Apache Spark can do large volume interactive data analysis."
- "Apache Spark is very difficult to use. It would require a data engineer. It is not available for every engineer today because they need to understand the different concepts of Spark, which is very, very difficult and it is not easy to learn."
What is our primary use case?
The solution can be deployed on the cloud or on-premise.
How has it helped my organization?
We are using Apache Spark, for large volume interactive data analysis.
MechBot is an enterprise, one-click installation, trusted data excellence platform. Underneath, I am using Apache Spark, Kafka, Hadoop HDFS, and Elasticsearch.
What is most valuable?
Apache Spark can do large volume interactive data analysis.
What needs improvement?
Apache Spark is very difficult to use. It would require a data engineer. It is not available for every engineer today because they need to understand the different concepts of Spark, which is very, very difficult and it is not easy to learn.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Apache Spark for approximately 11 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Apache Spark is scalable. However, it needs enormous technical skills to make it scalable. It is not a simple task.
We have approximately 20 people using this solution.
How was the initial setup?
If you want to distribute Apache Spark in a certain way, it is simple. Not every engineer can do it. You need DevOps specialized skills on Spark is what is required.
If we are going to deploy the solution in a one-layer laptop installation, it is very straightforward, but this is not what someone is going to deploy in the production site.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Since we are using the Apache Spark version, not the data bricks version, it is an Apache license version, the support and resolution of the bug are actually late or delayed. The Apache license is free.
What other advice do I have?
We are well versed in Spark, the version, the internal structure of Spark, and we know what exactly Spark is doing.
The solution cannot be easier. Everything cannot be made simpler because it involves core data, computer science, pro-engineering, and not many people are actually aware of it.
I rate Apache Spark a six out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Chief Data-strategist and Director at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Scalable, open-source, and great for transforming data
Pros and Cons
- "The solution has been very stable."
- "It's not easy to install."
What is our primary use case?
You can do a lot of things in terms of the transformation of data. You can store and transform and stream data. It's very useful and has many use cases.
What is most valuable?
Overall, it's a very nice tool.
It is great for transforming data and doing micro-streamings or micro-batching.
The product offers an open-source version.
The solution has been very stable.
The scalability is good.
Apache Spark is a huge tool. It has many use cases and is very flexible. You can use it with so many other platforms.
Spark, as a tool, is easy to work with as you can work with Python, Scala, and Java.
What needs improvement?
If you are developing projects, and you need to not put them in a production scenario, you might need more than a cluster of servers, as it requires distributed computing.
It's not easy to install. You are typically dealing with a big data system.
It's not a simple, straightforward architecture.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is very good. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. It's a reliable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have found the scalability to be good. If your company needs to expand it, it can do so.
We have five people working on the solution currently.
How are customer service and technical support?
There isn't really technical support for open source. You need to do your own studying. There are lots of places to find information. You can find details online, or in books, et cetera. There are even courses you can take that can help you understand Spark.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I also use Databricks, which I use in the cloud.
How was the initial setup?
When handling big data systems, the installation is a bit difficult. When you need to deploy the systems, it's better to use services like Databricks.
I am not a professional admin. I am a developer for and design architecture.
You can use it in your standalone system, however, it's not the best way. It would be okay for little branch codes, not for production.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We use the open-source version. It is free to use. However, you do need to have servers. We have three or four. they can be on-premises or in the cloud.
What other advice do I have?
I have the solution installed on my computer and on our servers. You can use it on-premises or as a SaaS.
I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten. I've been very pleased with its capabilities.
I would recommend the solution for the people who need to deploy projects with streaming. If you have many different sources or different types of data, and you need to put everything in the same place - like a data lake - Spark, at this moment, has the right tools. It's an important solution for data science, for data detectors. You can put all of the information in one place with Spark.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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Updated: February 2026
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