No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Apache Spark vs Spring Boot comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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 Java Frameworks
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
Hadoop (1st), Compute Service (6th)
Spring Boot
Ranking in Java Frameworks
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Java Frameworks category, the mindshare of Apache Spark is 11.3%, up from 7.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Spring Boot is 28.0%, down from 40.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Java Frameworks Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Spring Boot28.0%
Apache Spark11.3%
Other60.7%
Java Frameworks
 

Q&A Highlights

MT
Works at Verizon
Aug 28, 2023
 

Featured Reviews

Devindra Weerasooriya - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
reviewer2759913 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Software Developer at a healthcare company with 501-1,000 employees
Has improved application monitoring and supports modular development with built-in configuration features
Spring Boot has many valuable features. First, it requires less coding and less configuration. The configurations are already in-built. The security features in Spring Boot are in-built, so we don't need to use any external third-party applications for security. In Spring Boot, the robust configuration capabilities help in adapting to diverse deployment scenarios because there is a minimum configuration required for developing any applications. The auto-configuration feature is available in Spring Boot. When we start any application, there is a property file where we mention the keys, securities, DB connections, and all other configurations. When we start any application, it loads the application properties first, which include the credentials and security files. I am using Spring Boot starter projects. I assess Spring Boot's auto-configuration feature as highly efficient in managing application setup. The application.properties file allows us to specify the server settings, such as the port we want to start the server on. For example, the default is 8080, but we can configure it to 8081. Additionally, we can store connection details such as the driver class, data source URL, username, and password in the application.properties file.

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."
"One of the key features is that Apache Spark is a distributed computing framework. You can help multiple slaves and distribute the workload between them."
"ETL and streaming capabilities."
"Apache Spark is a framework, which allows one organization to perform business and data analytics, at a very low cost, as compared to Ab-Initio or Informatica."
"The most significant advantage of Spark 3.0 is its support for DataFrame UDF Pandas UDF features."
"We have built a product called NetBot where we take any form of data, such as large email data, images, videos, or transactional data, and transform unstructured textual and video data into structured transactional data to create an enterprise-wide smart data grid that is then used by downstream analytics tools."
"The memory processing engine is the solution's most valuable aspect. It processes everything extremely fast, and it's in the cluster itself. It acts as a memory engine and is very effective in processing data correctly."
"The most valuable feature of Apache Spark is its memory processing because it processes data over RAM rather than disk, which is much more efficient and fast."
"The best feature in Spring Boot is that it's pretty easy to create any project from scratch and we get a lot of boilerplate code from Spring Boot."
"The configuration setup in Spring Boot is pretty simplified compared to Hibernate ORM."
"If you wanted to build your own product or solution, Spring Boot offers many possibilities."
"The platform is easy for developers to download."
"The setup is straightforward."
"This is a stable solution that is being used in the HR space."
"The most valuable feature of Spring Boot is the microservices and change information. Additionally, there are plenty of features."
"It gives you confidence in a readily available platform."
 

Cons

"They currently use a JDK version which is a little bit old. Not all features are on it."
"The Spark solution could improve in scheduling tasks and managing dependencies."
"Sometimes it is a nightmare on Linux trying to figure out what happened on the configuration and back-end."
"We are building our own queries on Spark, and it can be improved in terms of query handling."
"The initial setup was complex. It was not easy getting the correct version and dependencies set up."
"The main problem is, now in the market, there are not many people certified in Apache Spark."
"I know there is always discussion about which language to write applications in and some people do love Scala. However, I don't like it."
"It needs a new interface and a better way to get some data. In terms of writing our scripts, some processes could be faster."
"Spring Boot is based on convention over configuration. Therefore, sometimes it seems that everything happens magically."
"We'd like them to develop more supporting testing."
"The cloud packaging is not very straightforward, I would say."
"I think that security is a delicate issue in this product. It's not as easy as in other technologies so unless you already have something configured it can't be done with a junior developer."
"This is not a tool for beginners; you need to know and understand it well, and it needs to be simplified and more user-friendly."
"The solution could improve its flexibility."
"The database connectivity could be better in terms of dealing with multi-tenant systems."
"The cross framework compatibility has some shortcomings. With JUnit Test Runner and Spring Boot, it's really tedious to make them both work to write the test cases."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"They provide an open-source license for the on-premise version."
"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."
"It is an open-source platform. We do not pay for its subscription."
"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."
"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 an open-source solution, and there is no cost involved in deploying the solution on-premises."
"We are using the free version of the solution."
"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."
"Spring Boot is open source."
"Spring Boot is free; even the Spring Tools Suite for Eclipse is free."
"I am using a free version of Spring Boot."
"It's open-source software, so it's free. It's a community license."
"This is an open source solution."
"Spring Boot is an open source solution, it is free to use."
"This solution is free unless you apply for support."
"The solution is free."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Java Frameworks solutions are best for your needs.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise33
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise19
 

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.
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...
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...
What do you like most about Spring Boot?
1. Open Source2. Excellent Community Support -- Widely used across different projects -- so your search for answers would be easy and almost certain.3. Extendable Stack with a wide array of availab...
Which is better - Spring Boot or Eclipse MicroProfile?
Springboot is a Java-based solution that is very popular and easy to use. You can use it to build applications quickly and confidently. Springboot has a very large, helpful learning community, whic...
Which is better - Spring Boot or Jakarta EE?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether the Spring Boot or Jakarta EE application creation software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Spring Boot. Spring Boot offe...
 

Overview

 

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache Spark vs. Spring Boot and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.