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Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling vs Apache Spark comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on May 21, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling
Ranking in Compute Service
3rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Apache Spark
Ranking in Compute Service
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Hadoop (1st), Java Frameworks (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Compute Service category, the mindshare of Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling is 10.3%, down from 14.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Apache Spark is 11.5%, up from 11.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Compute Service
 

Featured Reviews

Muhammad Awais Zahid - PeerSpot reviewer
Pay-as-you-go and efficient with automated workload handling
I have been working with customers who use Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling for handling their workload on servers and scaling up the infrastructure as required.  As an instructor and cloud consultant, I help clients maintain and scale their infrastructure using this service to achieve zero downtime…
Dunstan Matekenya - PeerSpot reviewer
Open-source solution for data processing with portability
Apache Spark is known for its ease of use. Compared to other available data processing frameworks, it is user-friendly. While many choices now exist, Spark remains easy to use, particularly with Python. You can utilize familiar programming styles similar to Pandas in Python, including object-oriented programming. Another advantage is its portability. I can prototype and perform some initial tasks on my laptop using Spark without needing to be on Databricks or any cloud platform. I can transfer it to Databricks or other platforms, such as AWS. This flexibility allows me to improve processing even on my laptop. For instance, if I'm processing large amounts of data and find my laptop becoming slow, I can quickly switch to Spark. It handles small and large datasets efficiently, making it a versatile tool for various data processing needs.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The tool helps me to process large data sets while scaling up."
"Applications deployed on EC2 instances can easily integrate with other AWS services. For example, you can connect your EC2 Auto Scaling group to a tool like CloudWatch for health checks and anomaly detection."
"The easy possibility to spin up runtimes according to the needs of the POC, getting a runtime up and running in an easy way, which is accessible over the internet, is valuable for our process."
"Service for launching or terminating Amazon EC2 instances, with good scalability and stability."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"Can handle traffic spikes so the system doesn't overload."
"The integration capabilities are good."
"Most of what I've deployed are CI/CD pipelines. AWS is scalable. You can always increase or adjust the resources to meet the specific requirements. I also like choosing an instance in any location, preferably the closest one. We don't have any AWS locations in South Africa, but the latency is about the same as hosting in Europe."
"This solution provides a clear and convenient syntax for our analytical tasks."
"Its scalability and speed are very valuable. You can scale it a lot. It is a great technology for big data. It is definitely better than a lot of earlier warehouse or pipeline solutions, such as Informatica. Spark SQL is very compliant with normal SQL that we have been using over the years. This makes it easy to code in Spark. It is just like using normal SQL. You can use the APIs of Spark or you can directly write SQL code and run it. This is something that I feel is useful in Spark."
"The product's deployment phase is easy."
"The solution is very stable."
"Spark can handle small to huge data and is suitable for any size of company."
"Apache Spark provides a very high-quality implementation of distributed data processing."
"The data processing framework is good."
"The product’s most valuable features are lazy evaluation and workload distribution."
 

Cons

"The support to manage the processes could be better."
"If your EC2 instance doesn't boot up, you're in the dark about what's happening. It would be amazing if you could get a view of the console to see the status. There's something called the AWS Console, which is a web portal. I would like to see a virtual screen of an instance that hasn't started properly, so I can see where it crashed."
"The price could always be a bit better."
"Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling can provide more discounts when using the machines the solution uses."
"Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling could improve by adding better integration features with the other services. Additionally, if the alarms could be triggered from other services this would be beneficial."
"The pricing could be reduced."
"The solution could improve by having more automation. Nowadays there is a vast variety of automation. Additionally, infrastructure monitoring could improve."
"What could be improved in Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling is its fees."
"Apache Spark lacks geospatial data."
"It's not easy to install."
"When you want to extract data from your HDFS and other sources then it is kind of tricky because you have to connect with those sources."
"We've had problems using a Python process to try to access something in a large volume of data. It crashes if somebody gives me the wrong code because it cannot handle a large volume of data."
"The product could improve the user interface and make it easier for new users."
"Needs to provide an internal schedule to schedule spark jobs with monitoring capability."
"We are building our own queries on Spark, and it can be improved in terms of query handling."
"The main concern is the overhead of Java when distributed processing is not necessary."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling's pricing a seven out of ten."
"The solution is less expensive than a few competitors."
"AWS offered some credits, so we have been able to enjoy some of those benefits. The pricing was fair."
"The tool's pricing is good and not expensive."
"The pricing is not fixed and it is based on usage."
"As far back as I can remember, I have experience with two types of subscriptions. The first was my personal AWS base, and the second was a corporate license. I can't say much about the corporate license, but I recall they sent the bill every month for the personal subscription, though I could be mistaken."
"When we want to use more services, we need to pay more. It's a monthly subscription, rather than licensed-based. Pricing or fees for Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling could be improved."
"I have not explored the price of the solution extensively, but from what I have seen the price is alright."
"Apache Spark is an open-source tool."
"Apache Spark is an expensive solution."
"It is an open-source solution, it is free of charge."
"Spark is an open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs."
"Apache Spark is not too cheap. You have to pay for hardware and Cloudera licenses. Of course, there is a solution with open source without Cloudera."
"The solution is affordable and there are no additional licensing costs."
"Apache Spark is an open-source solution, and there is no cost involved in deploying the solution on-premises."
"Licensing costs can vary. For instance, when purchasing a virtual machine, you're asked if you want to take advantage of the hybrid benefit or if you prefer the license costs to be included upfront by the cloud service provider, such as Azure. If you choose the hybrid benefit, it indicates you already possess a license for the operating system and wish to avoid additional charges for that specific VM in Azure. This approach allows for a reduction in licensing costs, charging only for the service and associated resources."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
13%
Retailer
6%
Real Estate/Law Firm
6%
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling?
The solution removes the need for hardware. We can easily create servers or machines. Just by clicking or specifying our requirements, like memory size or disk space, it's set up for us. The tool e...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling?
The pricing of Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling is moderate. It's not too expensive because we only pay for what we use. While there are cheaper options, the services provided are worth the cost. Previously...
What needs improvement with Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling?
While Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling is continually updated and has improved over time, the dashboard has become more complex and tricky for new users. The interface was easier to navigate in earlier vers...
What do you like most about Apache Spark?
We use Spark to process data from different data sources.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apache Spark?
Apache Spark is open-source, so it doesn't incur any charges.
What needs improvement with Apache Spark?
There is complexity when it comes to understanding the whole ecosystem, especially for beginners. I find it quite complex to understand how a Spark job is initiated, the roles of driver nodes, work...
 

Also Known As

AWS RAM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
NASA JPL, UC Berkeley AMPLab, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, UC Santa Cruz, TripAdvisor, Taboola, Agile Lab, Art.com, Baidu, Alibaba Taobao, EURECOM, Hitachi Solutions
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling vs. Apache Spark and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.