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 8.2, while Spark SQL is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.0. Apache Spark holds a 13.6% mindshare in H, compared to Spark SQL’s 5.3% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Apache Spark users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 86% of Spark SQL users who would recommend it.

Apache Spark

Read 69 Apache Spark reviews

5,582 Views
1,786 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Spark SQL

Read 15 Spark SQL reviews

1,098 Views
966 Comparison Views

86% 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 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Apache Spark vs. Spark SQL

April 2026

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Helped 893,164 peers since 2012

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

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Compute Service (6th), 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 2026, in the Hadoop category, the mindshare of Apache Spark is 13.6%, down from 17.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Spark SQL is 5.3%, down from 10.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Hadoop Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Apache Spark	13.6%
Spark SQL	5.3%
Other	81.1%

Hadoop

Featured Reviews

Devindra Weerasooriya

Data Architect at Devtech

Provides a consistent framework for building data integration and access solutions with reliable performance

The in-memory computation feature is certainly helpful for my processing tasks. It is helpful because while using structures that could be held in memory rather than stored during the period of computation, I go for the in-memory option, though there are limitations related to holding it in memory that need to be addressed, but I have a preference for in-memory computation. The solution is beneficial in that it provides a base-level long-held understanding of the framework that is not variant day by day, which is very helpful in my prototyping activity as an architect trying to assess Apache Spark, Great Expectations, and Vault-based solutions versus those proposed by clients like TIBCO or Informatica.

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Kemal Duman

Team Lead, Data Engineering at Nesine.com

Data pipelines have run faster and support flexible batch and streaming transformations

We do not have any performance problems, but we do have some resource problems. Spark SQL consumes so many resources that we migrated our streaming job from Spark to Apache Flink. Resource management in Spark SQL should be better. It consumes more resources, which is normal. The main reason we switched from Spark is memory and CPU consumption. The major reason is the resource problem because the number of streaming jobs has been increasing in our company. That is why we considered resource management as a priority. Because of the resource consumption, I would say the development of Spark SQL is better. For development purposes, it is a top product and not difficult to work with, but resources are the major problem. We changed to Flink regardless of development time. Development time is less in Spark compared with Flink.

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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

"The product’s most valuable features are lazy evaluation and workload distribution."

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

"The product’s most valuable feature is the SQL tool. It enables us to create a database and publish it."

"Apache Spark’s ability to perform batch processing at one second or less intervals is the most transformative and less pervasive for any data processing application."

"I found the solution stable. We haven't had any problems with it."

"Features include machine learning, real time streaming, and data processing."

"The most significant advantage of Spark 3.0 is its support for DataFrame UDF Pandas UDF features."

"After using Spark, we were able to accomplish this task within hours."

More Apache Spark pros

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

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

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

"Data validation and ease of use are the most valuable features."

"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."

"Speed is the major benefit of using Spark SQL."

"This solution is useful to leverage within a distributed ecosystem."

"The stability was fine. It behaved as expected."

More Spark SQL pros

Cons

"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."

"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."

"Spark could be improved by adding support for other open-source storage layers than Delta Lake."

"It needs a new interface and a better way to get some data."

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

"Spark could be improved by adding support for other open-source storage layers than Delta Lake."

"The migration of data between different versions could be improved."

"They currently use a JDK version which is a little bit old. Not all features are on it."

More Apache Spark cons

"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."

"The initial setup is a bit complex."

"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."

"The solution needs to include graphing capabilities. Including financial charts would help improve everything overall."

"It takes a bit of time to get used to using this solution versus Pandas as it has a steep learning curve."

"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."

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

More Spark SQL cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive, considering the setup."

"Apache Spark is open-source. You have to pay only when you use any bundled product, such as Cloudera."

"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."

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

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

"The tool is an open-source product. If you're using the open-source Apache Spark, no fees are involved at any time. Charges only come into play when using it with other services like Databricks."

"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."

"The solution is affordable and there are no additional licensing costs."

More Apache Spark pricing and cost advice

"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."

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

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

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

"The solution is open-sourced and free."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

23%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

20%

University

12%

Retailer

11%

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	28
Midsize Enterprise	16
Large Enterprise	32

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	4

Questions from the Community

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

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

See all answers

What needs improvement with Apache Spark?

I find that there really lacks the technical depth to do any recommendations for future updates of Apache Spark. I used it for two years for our prototype work and testing things, but because I had...

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What is your primary use case for Apache Spark?

I attempted to use Apache Spark in one of our customer projects, but after the initial test, our customer moved to another technology and another database system. I do not have any final remarks on...

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What needs improvement with Spark SQL?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Spark SQL?

Spark SQL has been in our stack for less than one year, though some of our colleagues are using it. It is a useful product for transformation jobs. We generally use Spark SQL for batch processing. ...

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What advice do you have for others considering Spark SQL?

Regarding the Catalyst query optimizer, I think we are using it. We were using it in the past, but I am not certain if we use it now. We used it a long time ago. I rate my experience with Spark SQL...

See all answers

Comparisons

AWS Lambda vs Apache Spark

Compared 7% of the time

Amazon EC2 vs Apache Spark

Compared 6% of the time

Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop vs Apache Spark

Compared 6% of the time

Spring Boot vs Apache Spark

Compared 5% of the time

HPE Data Fabric vs Apache Spark

Compared 3% of the time

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IBM Db2 Big SQL vs Spark SQL

Compared 19% of the time

Amazon EMR vs Spark SQL

Compared 18% of the time

HPE Data Fabric vs Spark SQL

Compared 11% of the time

IBM Netezza Performance Server vs Spark SQL

Compared 10% of the time

SAP HANA vs Spark SQL

Compared 9% of the time

More Spark SQL Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Apache Spark

May 2026

Download Apache Spark product report

Buyer's Guide

Spark SQL

April 2026

Download Spark SQL product report

Overview

Apache Spark is a leading open-source processing tool known for scalability and speed in managing large datasets. It supports both real-time and batch processing and is widely used for building data pipelines, machine learning applications, and analytics.

Apache Spark's strengths lie in its ability to process large data volumes efficiently through real-time and batch capabilities. With in-memory computation, it ensures fast data processing and significant performance gains. Its wide range of APIs, including those for machine learning, SQL, and analytics, make it versatile in handling complex data operations. While popular for ease of use and fault tolerance, Spark's management, debugging, and user-friendliness could benefit from improvements. Better GUIs, integration with BI tools, and enhanced monitoring are desired, alongside shuffling optimization and compatibility with more programming languages.

What are Apache Spark's key features?

Scalability: Efficiently manages large datasets across nodes.
Performance: In-memory computation for faster data processing.
Real-time Processing: Supports real-time analytics and data streaming.
APIs: Offers extensive APIs for machine learning, SQL, and analytics.

What benefits or ROI should users look for in reviews?

Ease of Use: Simplifies complex data tasks through intuitive operations.
Fault Tolerance: Ensures data reliability and continuous operations.
Integration Flexibility: Easily integrates with big data platforms and tools.

Organizations use Apache Spark predominantly for in-memory data processing, enabling seamless integration with big data frameworks. It's applied in security analytics, predictive modeling, and helps facilitate secure data transmissions in AI deployments. Industries leverage Spark's speed for sentiment analysis, data integration, and efficient ETL transformations.

Apache

Spark SQL leverages SQL capabilities to process large datasets, offering high performance, seamless integration with Spark programs, and the ability to run parallel queries. It supports Hive interoperability and facilitates data transformation with DataFrames and Datasets.

Spark SQL enables efficient data engineering, transformation, and analytics for organizations dealing with large-scale data processing. It supports big data queries, builds data pipelines and warehouses, and interfaces with various databases, especially in distributed settings such as Hadoop and Azure. Users employ Spark SQL to establish business logic in Jupyter notebooks and facilitate data loading into SQL Server, enabling analytics with tools like Power BI. The documentation and flexibility to manage extensive data processing are valued by users, although a steep learning curve and documentation clarity are noted challenges. Enhancements for data visualization, GUI, and resource management alongside better integration with tools like Tableau are recommended.

What are the key features of Spark SQL?

Query Language: Supports complex SQL queries for effective large dataset processing.
Seamless Integration: Easily integrates into Spark programs, boosting performance and speed.
Parallel Queries: Capable of running numerous queries in parallel to enhance processing efficiency.
Interoperability with Hive: Facilitates interaction within distributed data ecosystems efficiently.
Data Transformation: Utilizes DataFrames and Datasets for flexible data manipulation.

What benefits or ROI should users consider in reviews?

Performance: Offers high-speed data processing for demanding workloads.
Scalability: Efficiently handles increasing data volumes and processing demands.
Ease of Use: Facilitates simpler SQL-based data management operations.
Flexibility: Adapts to various data sources and formats for broad usability.

In industries, Spark SQL is a critical part of data engineering, transformation, and analytics. It empowers organizations to manage big data processing and analytics in sectors like finance, healthcare, and telecommunications. By enabling seamless data pipeline creation, it supports real-time business decision-making processes and data-driven strategies across sectors.

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 2026

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 2026.

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