Spark SQL pros and cons

Name: Spark SQL
Brand: Apache
Rating: 3.9 (15 reviews)

Vendor: Apache

3.9 out of 5

15 reviews
86% willing to recommend

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Spark SQL Pros review quotes

Kemal Duman

Team Lead, Data Engineering at Nesine.com

Jan 21, 2026

Speed is the major benefit of using Spark SQL.

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Sahil Taneja

Principal Consultant/Manager at Tenzing

May 5, 2023

The team members don't have to learn a new language and can implement complex tasks very easily using only SQL.

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SurjitChoudhury

Data engineer at Cocos pt

Nov 23, 2023

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

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Mahdi Sharifmousavi

Lecturer at Amirkabir University of Technology

Aug 10, 2022

Offers a variety of methods to design queries and incorporates the regular SQL syntax within tasks.

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Aria Amini

Data Engineer at Behsazan Mellat

Jul 26, 2023

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

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Lucas Dreyer

Data Engineer at BBD

Jan 4, 2023

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.

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Keshav Mandal

Senior Analyst/ Customer Business and Insights Specialist at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Nov 22, 2022

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

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Piotr Kalanski

Cloud Team Leader at TCL

Apr 26, 2020

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

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Slaven Batnozic

CTO at Dokument IT d.o.o.

Aug 18, 2023

I find the Thrift connection valuable.

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reviewer1724670

Engineering Manager/Solution architect at a computer software company with 201-500 employees

Dec 2, 2021

This solution is useful to leverage within a distributed ecosystem.

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Spark SQL Cons review quotes

Kemal Duman

Team Lead, Data Engineering at Nesine.com

Jan 21, 2026

Spark SQL consumes so many resources that we migrated our streaming job from Spark to Apache Flink.

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Sahil Taneja

Principal Consultant/Manager at Tenzing

May 5, 2023

SparkUI could have more advanced versions of the performance and the queries and all.

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SurjitChoudhury

Data engineer at Cocos pt

Nov 23, 2023

In terms of improvement, the only thing that could be enhanced is the stability aspect of Spark SQL.

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Learn what your peers think about Spark SQL. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2026.

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Mahdi Sharifmousavi

Lecturer at Amirkabir University of Technology

Aug 10, 2022

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

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Aria Amini

Data Engineer at Behsazan Mellat

Jul 26, 2023

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

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Lucas Dreyer

Data Engineer at BBD

Jan 4, 2023

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

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Keshav Mandal

Senior Analyst/ Customer Business and Insights Specialist at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Nov 22, 2022

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

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Piotr Kalanski

Cloud Team Leader at TCL

Apr 26, 2020

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.

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Slaven Batnozic

CTO at Dokument IT d.o.o.

Aug 18, 2023

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

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reviewer1724670

Engineering Manager/Solution architect at a computer software company with 201-500 employees

Dec 2, 2021

This solution could be improved by adding monitoring and integration for the EMR.

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