Apache Spark vs Spark SQL comparison

Apache Spark and Spark SQL are both solutions in the Hadoop category. Apache Spark is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.6, while Spark SQL is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.5. Apache Spark holds a 17.8% mindshare in H, compared to Spark SQL’s 10.5% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Apache Spark users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of Spark SQL users who would recommend it.

Apache Spark

Read 66 Apache Spark reviews

1,245 Views
966 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Spark SQL

Read 14 Spark SQL reviews

760 Views
546 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Apache Spark

Spark SQL

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Apache Spark and Spark SQL based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Hadoop solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Apache Spark vs. Spark SQL Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Apache Spark vs. Spark SQL

April 2025

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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

Apache Spark

Ranking in Hadoop

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Compute Service (5th), Java Frameworks (2nd)

Spark SQL

Ranking in Hadoop

5th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Hadoop category, the mindshare of Apache Spark is 17.8%, down from 21.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Spark SQL is 10.5%, down from 12.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Hadoop

Featured Reviews

Ilya Afanasyev

Senior Software Development Engineer at Yahoo!

Reliable, able to expand, and handle large amounts of data well

We use batch processing. It works well with our formats and file versions. There's a lot of functionality. In our pipeline each hour, we make a copy of data from MongoDB, of the changes from MongoDB to some specific file. Each time pipeline copied all of the data, it would do it each time without changes to all of the tables. Tables have a lot of data, and in the last MongoDB version, there is a possibility to read only changed data. This reduced the cost and configuration of the cluster, and we saved about $150,000. The solution is scalable. It's a stable product.

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SurjitChoudhury

Data engineer at Cocos pt

Offers the flexibility to handle large-scale data processing

My experience with the initial setup of Spark SQL was relatively smooth. Understanding the system wasn't overly difficult because the data was structured in databases, and we could use notebooks for coding in Python or Java. Configuring networks and running scripts to load data into the database were routine tasks that didn't pose significant challenges. The flexibility to use different languages for coding and the ability to process data using key-value pairs in Python made the setup adaptable. Once we received the source data, processing it in SparkSQL involved writing scripts to create dimension and fact tables, which became a standard part of our workflow. Setting up Spark SQL was reasonably quick, but sometimes we face performance issues, especially during data loading into the SQL Server data warehouse. Sequencing notebooks for efficient job runs is crucial, and managing complex tasks with multiple notebooks requires careful tracking. Exploring ways to optimize this process could be beneficial. However, once you are familiar with the database architecture and project tools, understanding and adapting to the system become more straightforward.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Now, when we're tackling sentiment analysis using NLP technologies, we deal with unstructured data—customer chats, feedback on promotions or demos, and even media like images, audio, and video files. For processing such data, we rely on PySpark. Beneath the surface, Spark functions as a compute engine with in-memory processing capabilities, enhancing performance through features like broadcasting and caching. It's become a crucial tool, widely adopted by 90% of companies for a decade or more."

"This solution provides a clear and convenient syntax for our analytical tasks."

"The processing time is very much improved over the data warehouse solution that we were using."

"ETL and streaming capabilities."

"With Spark, we parallelize our operations, efficiently accessing both historical and real-time data."

"The features we find most valuable are the machine learning, data learning, and Spark Analytics."

"The tool's most valuable feature is its speed and efficiency. It's much faster than other tools and excels in parallel data processing. Unlike tools like Python or JavaScript, which may struggle with parallel processing, it allows us to handle large volumes of data with more power easily."

"The solution is very stable."

More Apache Spark pros

"One of Spark SQL's most beautiful features is running parallel queries to go through enormous data."

"I find the Thrift connection valuable."

"Overall the solution is excellent."

"The solution is easy to understand if you have basic knowledge of SQL commands."

"The speed of getting data."

"It is a stable solution."

"Certain data sets that are very large are very difficult to process with Pandas and Python libraries. Spark SQL has helped us a lot with that."

"The performance is one of the most important features. It has an API to process the data in a functional manner."

More Spark SQL pros

Cons

"More ML based algorithms should be added to it, to make it algorithmic-rich for developers."

"Its UI can be better. Maintaining the history server is a little cumbersome, and it should be improved. I had issues while looking at the historical tags, which sometimes created problems. You have to separately create a history server and run it. Such things can be made easier. Instead of separately installing the history server, it can be made a part of the whole setup so that whenever you set it up, it becomes available."

"Technical expertise from an engineer is required to deploy and run high-tech tools, like Informatica, on Apache Spark, making it an area where improvements are required to make the process easier for users."

"We are building our own queries on Spark, and it can be improved in terms of query handling."

"Apache Spark's GUI and scalability could be improved."

"When using Spark, users may need to write their own parallelization logic, which requires additional effort and expertise."

"When you first start using this solution, it is common to run into memory errors when you are dealing with large amounts of data."

"One limitation is that not all machine learning libraries and models support it."

More Apache Spark cons

"There should be better integration with other solutions."

"There are many inconsistencies in syntax for the different querying tasks."

"In the next release, maybe the visualization of some command-line features could be added."

"Anything to improve the GUI would be helpful."

"It would be useful if Spark SQL integrated with some data visualization tools."

"I've experienced some incompatibilities when using the Delta Lake format."

"It would be beneficial for aggregate functions to include a code block or toolbox that explains its calculations or supported conditional statements."

"In the next update, we'd like to see better performance for small points of data. It is possible but there are better tools that are faster and cheaper."

More Spark SQL cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive, considering the setup."

"I did not pay anything when using the tool on cloud services, but I had to pay on the compute side. The tool is not expensive compared with the benefits it offers. I rate the price as an eight out of ten."

"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."

"Apache Spark is an expensive solution."

"On the cloud model can be expensive as it requires substantial resources for implementation, covering on-premises hardware, memory, and licensing."

"They provide an open-source license for the on-premise version."

"It is quite expensive. In fact, it accounts for almost 50% of the cost of our entire project."

"Considering the product version used in my company, I feel that the tool is not costly since the product is available for free."

More Apache Spark pricing and cost advice

"There is no license or subscription for this solution."

"We don't have to pay for licenses with this solution because we are working in a small market, and we rely on open-source because the budgets of projects are very small."

"The solution is open-sourced and free."

"The solution is bundled with Palantir Foundry at no extra charge."

"The on-premise solution is quite expensive in terms of hardware, setting up the cluster, memory, hardware and resources. It depends on the use case, but in our case with a shared cluster which is quite large, it is quite expensive."

"We use the open-source version, so we do not have direct support from Apache."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

26%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

16%

Retailer

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Apache Spark?

We use Spark to process data from different data sources.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apache Spark?

Apache Spark is open-source, so it doesn't incur any charges.

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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...

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What do you like most about Spark SQL?

Spark SQL's efficiency in managing distributed data and its simplicity in expressing complex operations make it an essential part of our data pipeline.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Spark SQL?

We don't have to pay for licenses with this solution because we are working in a small market, and we rely on open-source because the budgets of projects are very small.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Spark SQL?

In terms of improvement, the only thing that could be enhanced is the stability aspect of Spark SQL. There could be additional features that I haven't explored but the current solution for working ...

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Comparisons

Spring Boot vs Apache Spark

Compared 27% of the time

AWS Batch vs Apache Spark

Compared 12% of the time

SAP HANA vs Apache Spark

Compared 11% of the time

Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop vs Apache Spark

Compared 7% of the time

AWS Lambda vs Apache Spark

Compared 6% of the time

More Apache Spark Competitors

SAP HANA vs Spark SQL

Compared 15% of the time

HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric vs Spark SQL

Compared 13% of the time

IBM Db2 Big SQL vs Spark SQL

Compared 12% of the time

IBM Analytics Engine vs Spark SQL

Compared 10% of the time

More Spark SQL Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Apache Spark

May 2025

Download Apache Spark product report

Buyer's Guide

Spark SQL

April 2025

Download Spark SQL product report

Overview

Spark provides programmers with an application programming interface centered on a data structure called the resilient distributed dataset (RDD), a read-only multiset of data items distributed over a cluster of machines, that is maintained in a fault-tolerant way. It was developed in response to limitations in the MapReduce cluster computing paradigm, which forces a particular linear dataflowstructure on distributed programs: MapReduce programs read input data from disk, map a function across the data, reduce the results of the map, and store reduction results on disk. Spark's RDDs function as a working set for distributed programs that offers a (deliberately) restricted form of distributed shared memory

Apache

Spark SQL is a Spark module for structured data processing. Unlike the basic Spark RDD API, the interfaces provided by Spark SQL provide Spark with more information about the structure of both the data and the computation being performed. There are several ways to interact with Spark SQL including SQL and the Dataset API. When computing a result the same execution engine is used, independent of which API/language you are using to express the computation. This unification means that developers can easily switch back and forth between different APIs based on which provides the most natural way to express a given transformation.

Apache

Sample Customers

NASA JPL, UC Berkeley AMPLab, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, UC Santa Cruz, TripAdvisor, Taboola, Agile Lab, Art.com, Baidu, Alibaba Taobao, EURECOM, Hitachi Solutions

UC Berkeley AMPLab, Amazon, Alibaba Taobao, Kenshoo, Hitachi Solutions

Buyer's Guide

Apache Spark vs. Spark SQL

April 2025

Free Report: Apache Spark vs. Spark SQL

Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Spark vs. Spark SQL and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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